How To Sell A Wedding Dress

Finding my wedding dress was stressful and not fun. I was on a budget and fighting an emotional battle with my mom who believed that $200 was an appropriate amount to spend. Ever the pragmatist, she was convinced that I was dashing around to fancy New York wedding dress shops, a la Lady St. Petsois JuJu, and would hear none of my explanations that under $2,000 was considered so budget that many places didn’t carry anything in that price range. Even the Bridal Garden—a nonprofit that sells used wedding dresses and donates proceeds to charity—rolled their eyes and shooed me to the corner where “I guess there are a few over there,” when I gave them the under $200 line.

Let me say that $2,000 was completely out of my price range. Even $1,500 was out of my price range. If I didn’t want to go into credit card debt over a wedding dress, I could spend $1,000 altogether with alterations.

What I ended up with a dress that was “good enough.” I rationalized that it would be fine, because I wasn’t attached to it, and I could sell it afterwards. However, had I known more about the selling process, I would have bought a different dress.

The Problems:

1. It’s Better to Be Able to Try it On. 

I knew this from my search, but for some reason I didn’t apply this thought-process when I thought about selling my own dress. When searching, I would try stuff on in expensive boutiques, or even J.Crew, find out my size and what I liked in the store—and then look for the used version online. I tried on some beautiful, way-too-expensive dresses, but unfortunately I never found that version online. I would have bought directly online and experimented with other designers and dresses, but what looks good in a photo doesn’t matter. You need to be able to try stuff on. If I had thought about this when purchasing, I might have picked a more popular designer who is everywhere—even if it were more expensive. BHLDN always seems to sell. My dress is a good designer, but a relatively unknown one. I’ve gotten one response in the past year.

2. There are A LOT of people trying to sell dresses online. SO. MANY. I would guess over a hundred thousand. Even though it’s possibly the worst place to sell them. There’s a huge risk in throwing down $800+ for a dress, from an unknown buyer, for something you have no idea will fit. My used dress is only $300 online. Even then, I’m not shocked that I’ve had one response. I wouldn’t have risked $300 for something that I had no idea was going to fit. Even though I say on my ad that I accept returns, I don’t want to. I want to sell that thing.

The Solution:

There should be a Buffalo Exchange for Wedding Dresses. Despite my earlier complaints, my dress is beautiful and lovely. But it’s served its purpose. Now, I want cash. Not a dress. I’ve been taking my old clothes to Beacon’s Closet or Buffalo Exchange since I was a teenager, and I love it. Even if I’m just getting twenty or thirty dollars, or ten percent for what I originally paid for a pile of clothing, that’s real money. I don’t have to wait for someone to buy it. I walk out of there with that money, and it feels good. There should be this kind of store for wedding dresses. There is practically nothing in stores from $400–$800 that’s not David’s Bridal. But there are tons of lovely dresses online for that price. They need to get in a store—a big lovely Buffalo Exchange wedding store.

I have no idea what to do next with the dress. Every month or so I tweak my multiple online posts to make them sound more charming, or add a new photo with more details or flattering angles. Still no responses—though I do have seven “likes” on one site. I have a feeling the longer it sits in my closet, the less value it will have. Should I just donate it? Should I keep waiting? Do I spend twenty-five dollars for the website that will “promote” the dress? More importantly, is anyone out there in the market for a wedding dress?

let’s crack this one open and see what’s inside. Who else has tried (successfully or otherwise) to sell their wedding dress? What did you learn? What would you tell people who are thinking of selling dresses? What would you tell people thinking of buying them?

An Elopement in Rio De Janeiro

Christopher & Angel 

One sentence sum-up of the wedding vibe: Our Brasilian elopement was as intimate as intimate gets, focusing on our love and commitment to one another, life, and adventure.

Soundtrack for reading: “Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide” by Seu Jorge


Other Cool Stuff We Should Know About

As our wedding planning began, we knew exactly what we’d like to have. The focus had always been to have an extremely intimate ceremony focusing on uniting our families as we create our own addition and to celebrate with our friends and family in reception, remaining true to ourselves incorporating our love for music, good drinks, and dancing. The difficult part was finding a way to keep it within a budget that wouldn’t interfere with our love to travel. Along the way of our wedding planning, we decided to book a trip to Brasil. We were still gathering numbers in planning our wedding and mutually agreed we weren’t too fond of one big costly party to celebrate our lifelong commitment to one another. Remaining true to ourselves, we immediately realized this trip to Brasil would be the perfect way to begin our lifetime journey together. We would elope. Our commitment is most important, first to ourselves, our families, and a promise to experience each adventure life will take us together. Our final decisions were to elope in Brasil (just us two), and on our return home, have an intimate family ceremony, and an awesome celebration of love with friends and family.

As we began our journey to Brasil, we didn’t have any formal plans in mind. We transferred vows from iPhone and tons of scratch paper into our “special love journal” along our flights, and continued to keep an open, optimistic mind that things would fall into place: location, day, time, and weather. The only definite plan was that we knew we would be husband and wife when we returned back home in California. That was the most incredible, forever souvenir we could ever come home with. We wanted to bring back memories to share with our family, so we hired Candice Benjamin Photography to photograph our adventures together. On our first day in Rio de Janeiro, we visited the Botanical Garden and immediately knew this was the perfect location to exchange our vows to one another. On our third day out, the weather was perfect and our hearts were ready. We played with the idea of a “first look” but reconsidered after reminding ourselves our marriage is completely about supporting each other, putting each other first, which in this tradition meant helping each other get ready for our life together. Once we headed out to the Botanical Garden, we let our feet follow our hearts in the direction of all the pretty light and natural beauty Rio de Janeiro has to offer. We exchanged our vows hand in hand and continued with portraits inside the garden as well as embracing our love for international street art. The night ended with an amazing Copacabana beachside dinner and stroll on the beach.

Favorite Thing About The Wedding

Our elopement felt as though we were running through scenes of A Secret Garden with each new discovery heightening the bliss. It was the most peaceful place on earth. It felt as if it were just us two in the garden and it was only ours to explore. Following our vow exchange, we enjoyed successfully ordering a beachside dinner in Portuguese.