Wedding Trends: Renting Your Wedding Dress

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For the modern bride, the wedding dress plays a starring role in her wedding. Purchasing a new gown, however, can tie up a hefty chunk of the couple’s budget, consuming funds that could go to other areas of the wedding. Renting a wedding dress is an emerging trend that gives brides the option to wear a stunning gown without completely draining their wedding budget. Even brides who aren’t constrained by a budget can gain several attractive benefits by renting a wedding dress.

wedding dress rental ideas
Source: Dressqq.com

The Trend

Renting items for your wedding is not a new trend. For years, couples have rented any number of important wedding elements, from tuxedos to folding chairs and tables for the reception. However, recent economic changes have created a bigger rental market for couples who are planning to marry. Couples can even rent a fake wedding cake to display on their cake table while their guests eat from an inexpensive sheet cake. Renting a wedding dress is the latest tool for couples who want to throw a dream wedding without a huge budget.

Why Renting a Wedding Dress Has Become Popular

The recent economic downturn has reduced the size of many couples’ wedding budgets. At the same time, luxurious designer wedding gowns have become incredibly popular with today’s brides. However, unless the bride is independently wealthy, she probably can’t afford to purchase a $12,000 dress and still have enough room in the budget to hire a photographer and caterer. By choosing to rent a dress, a bride can wear the wedding dress of her dreams, regardless of her financial background. (Related Article: Why Does My Wedding Dress Cost So Much?)

Renting Your Wedding Dress    Source: WellBridal.com

 

Inexpensive Option

Wedding dresses can be a prohibitively expensive portion of each couple’s wedding budget. Many of the most popular styles start at over $1,000, and designer gowns can retail for far more than that, reaching “3 to 4 and even 5 thousand dollars, even though it’s only some 8% of brides that will pay $2500 and above” states, The Wedding Report. For their dress In addition, there are many hidden costs that brides may not consider, including cleaning fees and alteration fees. Wedding dress rentals, however, begin around $75; even expensive designer gowns may rent for less than $500. Many dress shops also include various perks with their rental fees, including cleaning services, alterations and jewelry.

 

Easy After-Wedding Care

If you buy a wedding dress, you’ll need to do something with it after your wedding. Some brides store their wedding dress for years in the closet, never to wear it again. Other brides may plan to invite their future daughters to wear the dress when they get married. However, twenty years after your wedding, tastes will have probably changed; your once-stylish wedding dress may be an embarrassing reminder of an outdated fashion trend. If you rent a dress, you won’t have to worry about the fate of the dress. After your wedding is over, you can simply return the dress to the shop.

Preserving Your Wedding Dress  Source: Aisledash.com

Flexible Fit

Brides who want to walk into a store and find a wedding dress that fits may be in for a surprise. Shelf space in most wedding dress boutiques is limited, and each individual store can only carry a limited supply of dresses. Most brides have to purchase a dress months before the wedding so that a professional tailor can alter the dress to make it fit. Even after the dress is ready, the bride may lose or gain weight, causing the dress to no longer fit. If a bride chooses to rent a gown, however, she will have an easier time finding a dress that fits on the first try. Although most rental stores carry a limited number of dress styles, they typically have those same styles available in many different sizes. If your weight does change before your wedding, you can easily move up or down a size.

Designer Options

Most retail wedding dress boutiques must make hard choices about the stock that they carry. An expensive designer gown may command a high price, but many dress stores choose not to carry these types of dresses because they fear that the dress will sit on their racks for months without selling. However, a dress rental shop is more likely to carry a high-end designer gown; brides can afford a $500 rental fee more often than they can afford to purchase a $3,000 gown. In the era of Pinterest-inspired fantasy weddings, brides are more likely to find the dress of their dreams at a rental shop.

Bride In Rental Wedding Dress           Source: OneWed.Com

 

Perfect for Destination Weddings

If you’re planning a destination wedding, you already have plenty to pack with you. Carefully transporting an expensive wedding dress will only add to your stress. However, if you rent a wedding dress in your destination city, you won’t have to worry about bringing your dress with you. Instead, you can simply pick up your dress before your wedding.

Destination Wedding Bride and Groom  Source: Magnetstreet.com

Renting a wedding dress offers brides many benefits beyond cost savings. By renting a wedding dress, brides can expand their gown choices, reduce the stress of caring for a wedding dress, and eliminate the dilemma of storing the dress after the wedding is over.

 

Where to Buy and Sell?

You can find many regional pre-used wedding suppliers, online there are also marketplaces, that connects brides to be with past brides. And here are some of them:

Tradesy.com – Past Brides list the dress for sale, when sold it ships from her direct, the site acting as a marketplace collect a commission while most of the revenue goes to the selling party

Preownedweddingdresses.com – This is an easy to use and simple site, their model is also straight forward, they  charge a one time, $25 listing fee and the pre-used gown is posted until it sells. There are no commissions or other charges. The site is easy to use and has tons of information related to selling or buying pre-used wedding dresses. We found there designer samples sold at 80% discount.

Nearlynewlywed.com – Nearly Nelwywed is an online destination to buy and sell back new, sample and used dresses at a fraction of the price. With Try Before You Buy option, all dresses are available to try on at home with no commitments, wherever you are.

Bravobride.com – a clean and simple site, Bridal gowns listings are $19.95 no commissions, and items remain on BravoBride and until they sell. The site does not facilitate payment and make shipping arrangements between the buyer and the seller, this is entirely up to the buyer and seller for each transaction. The site recommended using Escrow.com to facilitate the transaction and protect both parties.

Bizrate.com – this is not a wedding dedicated site, but rather a “shopping search engine” a cross different merchants , the site gives a good snapshot of different vendors, but as its not wedding dress focused it has some downsides in usability

 

Some Caution Tips About Buying Your Wedding Dress Online

Buying locally from these sites (mentioned above) has great advantages, it’s harder to scam somebody that lives down the road

For secure payment of your wedding dress online use payment services such as PayPal or Google Checkout. Don’t accept cashier’s checks or even money orders. Check out Escrow.com, a unique online payment company that tries to protect both parties

If the buyer offers to pay more than the cost (giving a colorful excuse) and expects you to send change , be VERY wary. This is one of the oldest online scammers tricks.

When shipping, ship via a service that provides a mandatory signature by the receiver.

For Additional Information & An Additional Investigative Video About Wedding Dresses –  Why Does Your Wedding Dress Cost So Much?

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