How to Find a Cheap Wedding Dress

Your wedding is probably the most expensive party you’ll ever throw. You want to look your best, but you don’t have an unlimited budget. There are plenty of resources for finding inexpensive and amazing wedding dresses. All you have to do is a little footwork.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

How to Find a Cheap Wedding Dress

1. Before you even start looking for the dress, head to a tailor and have your exact measurements taken.
2. Look through the phone book for any upscale consignment stores in your area. If you find any, call and ask if they carry wedding dresses. Since wedding dresses are only worn once, you can often get second-hand dresses in mint condition for a quarter of the price you’d pay retail.
3. If you have no luck with consignment stores, contact your local department stores with a wedding department. Sometimes they have last year’s models on sale.
4. Research and attend trunk shows. There are bridal expos all year round. If you can get to one, often you can get a sample dress, which is significantly cheaper than one you’d order or buy brand new.
5. Check any bridal salons for sample sales.
6. If you can’t find any dresses in person, hit the internet, but be careful. The internet is full of websites where you can buy never worn or second-hand wedding dresses, but the issue is that you usually can’t see the dress in person before you buy it, and you can’t try it on. This is where your measurements come in handy. Before you buy anything online, be sure to have a guarantee and have exact measurements of the dress. If it hasn’t been worn at all, you will almost always have to have it shortened, but if it is a second-hand dress, it was probably already shortened for the previous bride. If you are 5’10”, you don’t want a dress tailored for a woman who is 5’4”. Ask a million questions and be sure to get everything in writing before purchasing. Also, be sure whatever company you deal with has a warrantee, in case the dress arrives and is poor condition, or worse, not the dress they advertised.
7. Often when you purchase online, you need to either use a credit card or a payment account such as Paypal. If you don’t have either, set one up.
8. As is always the case with purchases, keep in mind the old adage, “Buyer Beware.” There are plenty of scams on the internet, so always do your research, get referrals and secure guarantees/warrantees.