How I Made Money on My Wedding Dress

Wedding dresses are supposed to be the first major expense when you’re planning a wedding (unless you have to pay for the venue in advance). This is the funny but true story of how I made money on my wedding dress instead of spending it. Wedding dresses don’t have to break the bank.

1. I found my dream wedding dress from a British designer.

   It was chiffon and lace and elegance and queenly femininity–and it cost several thousand dollars. I was making about $3 an hour as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Houston. Let’s just say I rethought my dream wedding dress. 🙂

2. My new hobby after work became browsing Amazon for dresses.

   Mostly because I lived in Houston, where traffic was horrible and I was hardly ever off work during low-traffic hours. Don’t laugh. Amazon actually has some decent choices. (Go here and search their choices–you’ll get hooked, too:  Amazon Wedding Registry.) But I was worried about some of the Asian sizings because I’m 1 1/4 inches under 6 feet tall. I didn’t want a midi gown.

3. I found out about BHLDN.

   (That’s Anthropologie’s wedding line.) Some of their choices, especially from their older lines, are so gorgeous. I found my new favorite wedding dress in a little more reasonable price bracket. However, I still couldn’t afford it.

4. New favorite website: PreOwned Wedding Dresses.

   Preowned Wedding Dresses has designer gowns for a much lower price than the originals. I made an account, spent several days searching whenever I came home from work, and then it happened. The exact BHLDN dress I had found on Anthropologie’s website was listed on this preowned website, and it had never before been worn. The bride had gained some weight and ended up wearing the same dress in a larger size. She’d waited so long to return it she couldn’t return it anymore and now was trying to sell her never-worn dress. I spent some time bartering with her and finally made the purchase. The original dress was almost $900.00. I bought this one for $120. I was so excited.

   

   Who wouldn’t want to wear this thrifted canary yellow dazzler at her wedding? 🙂

5. My maid of honor flew to Houston during my teaching spring break and went dress-shopping with me.

   We visited David’s Bridal, BHLDN, and several other boutiques so I got the full princess experience. I loved how feminine so many of the dresses made me feel, but most of them didn’t fit inside my comfort zone. If I would’ve felt uncomfortable about wearing it to church normally, I didn’t really want to wear it in church on my wedding day.

   We even visited some thrift stores, mostly because we both love thrifting but also to see what they had. I got some funny pictures from those places, but nothing I wanted to try on.

6. The BHLDN dress arrived!

   The big box showed up at my door, I tried on the dress, and I loved it. But it was not a good look for

   

   I absolutely loved the material and back collar of this simple and elegant BHLDN dress I bought unused for $120.

   my straight, thin body type. Sadness! I almost sent it right back, until I found out it was going to cost me $80 to ship back. I called around to some consignment stores and found out they kept about 60 percent of the sale. This amazing deal was turning out to be a huge mistake. I decided to try listing it on Craigslist, just to see what happened. I listed it for just over $300 so I’d have room to go down in the price if someone wanted to barter. The dress still had its tags, so I made sure to take lots of pictures of the dress in different lights and to highlight the tags.

7. Someone lent me a dress.

   A friend of David’s cousins heard about my tall-person dress-choosing difficulties from my mother-in-law and offered her dress. It got handed from person to person until it reached me. It was long, covered everywhere I wanted covered, and made me feel like a princess. At first I felt a little funny about using a dress that belonged to someone I’d never met, but then I loved the idea. I didn’t have to keep a dress in my closet forever, and we didn’t have enough mutual friends for my family and friends to have already seen the dress once!

8. My mom helped me make a sash.

   

   My roommate, Tiffany, was the only one who knew the trick to attaching my homemade sash successfully.

   In David’s Bridal, I’d noticed that the sashes often really “made” the dresses. But they were frequently around $100. I wanted a peach chiffon sash with flowers, but I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. So I bought some expensive chiffon at Hobby Lobby (good fabric isn’t cheap), along with some silk flowers. A lady from church helped me sew the first part of it together, and then my mom finished the edges when I went home for a visit. Budget sash, including flowers: $19. You can make one for a lot less if you use less fabric than I did.

9. The BHLDN dress sold on Craigslist!

   Houston is a good place to live if you want to sell your things! I think my dress would’ve been much harder to sell in the small town where we live now. The buyer tried on the dress, loved it, and paid through PayPal. Sadly, PayPal charged a transaction fee because she chose the buying option instead of gift. So I got about $290.

10. My mother-in-law altered my free dress.

    

    figuring out where I wanted the flowers on my sash

    I have an amazing seamstress for a mother-in-law, and she gave me a little more room to breathe in the dress. (For which I will forever be grateful.) Had she not done that, we just would’ve had to have a shorter wedding! 🙂

Since I wore the free dress, which I personalized with a $19 sash, and I sold my other dress, I ended up with $151 extra which I could apply to other wedding expenses. I immediately texted Heather (maid of honor) and we had a mini-celebration. The money was almost exactly the amount we needed to buy stamps for the wedding invitations and announcements! 🙂 Don’t forget about those pesky little stamps!

Yes. There is no shame in borrowing a wedding dress.

My borrowed wedding gown.

Then you don’t have to keep it in your closet for the rest of your life! If you’re open to doing this, consider posting on Facebook or texting your friends just to let people know that you’re thinking about borrowing a wedding gown. (Maybe give a range of dates you’re okay with if you don’t want to be barraged with offers of sequined gowns from the 90s.) You’ll probably be amazed by how many people would love to see their dress have another day in the sun. Their daughters won’t want to wear their dated dresses, I can almost promise you, and most ladies know that.

I encourage you to be both creative and flexible as you choose a wedding dress. Yes, you want to look like a princess on the one day it’s okay to do that. But you don’t have to break the bank (or your wedding budget) on your dress.