The GirlAlive Blog

How to Find the Best Wedding Dress for Cheap

May 27, 2009 on 4:47 pm | In Craftiness, Life In General | 3 Comments

One of my old high school classmates is wedding dress shopping, and it reminded me that I have not shared my gift for wedding bargains with the world. This is a lesson on how to find the perfect dress for a price you can afford.

Step 1: Go to any bridal shop and try on a bunch of styles of dresses. You’re just trying to find out the general shape that looks best on you.
Step 2: Go online and find a dress in the style that suits you, but in a price range you can afford. The trick here is that bridal shops mostly carry the top of the line dresses, and a few bargain dresses. There’s a vast field of mid-range fabulousness that they don’t have room to stock all the time. You can find those dresses on the interwebs.
Step 3: Print off the online listing with the model number, brand and price.
Step 4: Locate a bridal shop that carries that brand of dresses.
Step 5: Take your printout to that bridal shop and have them order the dress. If they carry the brand, they can do it, even if they don’t usually stock it. Try to talk them into the same price as the web, or at least the web price plus the cost of shipping.

Ordering it through a local bridal shop instead of ordering online gives you better coverage for alterations and returns. As a customer of the bridal shop, I was front of the line for alterations, even though I didn’t pay a lot for the dress.

My wedding dress cost under $300, and it looked as good as any I’ve seen for 5 times that price. You’re only going to wear it once. You don’t have to mortgage your house to look good.

That’s my wedding bargain tip for the day.

Alana