Shopping for wedding dresses sucks, when you don’t have a ton to spend. Trust me, I can tell you all about it. The saga of finding my wedding dress is about fourteen pages long, but TL;DR: I didn’t have a ton of cash, I had exacting taste, and that was a bad combo. My sister and I tried to make my wedding dress, and when that didn’t work, I found my vintage dress by pure luck, a few weeks before the wedding. While the situation ended up working out for me (my dress killed, and it was only $250), blind luck isn’t exactly a strategy anyone can depend on. Which means I’m always looking for better options for folks shopping in the $250 range.
Enter: ModCloth. Most of us know a thing or two about ModCloth. They sell stylish clothes at affordable prices. They have a kick-ass community. And their party dresses slay. But even though we’ve featured our share of ModCloth wedding dresses on our site, it’s still not the first place I think of when it comes to buying The Dress. So we were interested when ModCloth reached out to us to give some of their wedding dresses a whirl. (A twirl? Whatever, you get my drift.) Here is what we discovered.
Gilded Grace Dress in Blush ($175)
1. The Prices Are Pretty Much Unbeatable: You know that Groucho Marx quote, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member”? That’s totally me when it comes to prices. My budget often isn’t enormous, but I am picky as fuck. So even though I might have a $250 budget for a wedding dress, I automatically distrust any wedding dress that costs $250, because the standard is ten times as much. But the joke was on me, you guys. These dresses KILLED.
Mesmerize to the Occasion Dress in Peach ($250)
Glamour and Grace Dress ($129.99)
2. Modcloth Has Inclusive Sizing: ModCloth has made news lately for retiring “plus size” as a separate, but frequently less equal category of fashion and focusing on instead on simply offering expanded sizes wherever they can (particularly in their new namesake label). But just because a company sells things in expanded sizes doesn’t necessarily mean they sell cute things in those sizes, amiright? But we had three very different body types on the shoot—from postpartum to plus to in between—and every single lady on set found dresses they looked drop-dead amazing in.
Be-All East End-All Dress in White ($200), A Vibe Called Zest Heel ($49.99)
Much Ado About Stunning Dress ($129.99), Mirth, Wind, and Inspire Dress ($124.99), Meadow Minuet Dress ($129.99)
3. You will actually wear their bridesmaid dresses again: In general, bridesmaid dresses suck. We can just say that, right? They’re too expensive, they never fit right, and you can’t wear them anywhere after the wedding, no matter what anyone tells you. None of this is true with ModCloth bridesmaid dresses, possibly because… they’re not actually bridesmaid dresses. They’re just super cool dresses your bridesmaids can afford that come in a huge range of sizes. And I know for a fact they’ll wear the dresses again, because I’m keeping the floral number above for a party I have next month. And after that, I may just wear it to the office, because, summer.
Beyond the Bells Dress in Ivory ($175), A Resplendent Exchange Heel in Cobalt ($49.99)
Mix and Matrimony Dress in White ($275)
4. these dresses are so much better in person: Online shopping can be a little arduous at the best of times, because the clothes are always styled perfectly on a model that doesn’t have your body type. So you have high hopes, and then the outfit comes and it disappoints. Shopping for something as important and expensive as your wedding dress online can be even scarier. But it turns out every single one of the ModCloth wedding dresses looked way better in person than they did online. ModCloth undercharged and over delivered, which I wish were the online shopping rule, not the exception.
A Love Above the Rest Dress in Blush ($175), Sass and You Shall Receive Heel ($34.99)
5. ModCloth Is A Woman-Owned Business With A Great Mission. If you happen to be the kind of person who wants to spend your wedding money in places you feel good about, ModCloth is exactly that. Not only do they have great policies and a great community, they’re also a major women-owned businesses in the Tech space. In Silicon Valley, that’s huge. Susan Gregg Koger co-founded ModCloth in her dorm room in 2002, and in 2016 the company is a huge force, working to democratize fashion. And now ModCloth is working on democratizing wedding dresses… a department that frankly needs all the help it can get.
I Glam Hardly Believe It Blazer in White ($54.99), On Crop of the World in Black ($14.99), Pointe of View Skirt in Latte ($79.99), Dream a Little Gleam of Me Heel ( $138.99)
P.S. Their shoe selection kills. Just saying.
This post was sponsored by ModCloth. ModCloth’s new wedding boutique offers stylish wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, shoes, and accessories at prices that you can actually afford. And their commitment to body diversity means that you don’t have to settle for sub-par just because you’re not a sample size. Click here to browse the new collection and experience some of that undercharge/overdeliver magic for yourself.
