A Resale Gown Guide for Recently Wed Brides

An idea that should be on every bride’s radar is the option to sell her gown after her Big Day. For many reasons, this is becoming a popular trend. With rising wedding costs, compounded by a difficult economy, this option makes the dream gown within reach. Also, with each passing year, the decision to marry is trending toward a bride in her mid to late twenties, making the nostalgic idea of passing down the dress to the next generation a little more passe.

If a bride is considering resale after the event, there are definitely designers that will ‘hold’ their value. Once worn gowns by high end designers have residual value and, like any other commodity, have a market value. Monique Lhuillier, Vera Wang, Melissa Sweet, Claire Pettibone, Jim Hjelm, Alvina Valenta, Lazaro, Priscilla of Boston, Jenny Packham and other high-end, well established designers will often fetch higher resale price points, and certain styles by each designer are coveted even more so by brides. Surprisingly, gowns from older collections often tend to hold their value a little more, since the collection has been in circulation longer, and more brides have seen these gowns in ad campaigns or featured in bridal magazines over multiple seasons.

A typical rule of thumb is to offer the gown for half of what was paid. Like driving a car off the lot, once purchased form a salon, the gown has depreciated by fifty percent. Brides who seek more will often find that they will have to eventually reduce the asking price as buying brides definitely educate themselves on what that particular gown is worth on the ‘open market.’ The asking price should be exclusive of any tax or alteration costs. Although these costs can be substantial, they are not a price factor.

A gown that is professionally cleaned will command more than a gown that was worn and is sold as-is. A once worn gown needs a detailing prior to sale, since a shiny gown just feels better than one that still needs a hand wax. After the event, go over the gown and inspect it from bust to bustle. A wedding is the ultimate party, and there are likely to be some flaws when the DJ calls it quits. That’s okay – it is a party! Check for stains, tears, zipper issues, material defects, pulls, snags, bustle compromises and dirt. Note these on paper so when you bring the dress to be cleaned, each area can be addressed. Often dry cleaners will have a tailor on hand who is skilled enough in wedding gown repairs, and the bride can clean and repair any issues at the same time.

This brings us to our next point – picking a dry cleaner. Dry cleaning your wedding gown, whether to preserve it or to prepare it for resale, is an important post-wedding to do item to keep in mind after the dust settles. Choosing a dry cleaner can be tricky. It is important to not base your decision on price alone. Inexperienced dry cleaners can ruin a gown and its chances to be shared with future generations or another bride. First, check with your friends for a referral. Or, visit your regular dry cleaners and ask how many high-end wedding or cocktail gowns they typically clean. If you live in a larger city, check with the salons of prominent designers to see who they use to dry clean their runway gowns. Keep in mind that gowns with full skirts and intricate beading will cost more to clean than gowns with slimmer silhouettes.

Unless you are certain that you want to pass your gown on to the next generation, it is not necessary to preserve the gown. For resale purposes, a professional dry cleaning is all that is required. In fact, we recommend not pressing the gown since the next bride will need to press the gown upon sale, due to shipping and alterations handling.

Most importantly, offer your gown to the next bride in the same condition as you would expect to receive a once worn gown. The karmic train will eventually come full circle. Make every attempt to refresh the gown to its best possible condition prior to sale. Also, when advertising its availability, don’t make inaccurate representations about its condition. Once worn gowns can never be considered ‘perfect’, but should rather be advertised as ‘refreshed to like new.’ Perfect gowns are only brand new gowns, but once worn gowns are wonderful alternatives to purchasing new gowns at retail prices. Remember the cliché – there should be truth in advertising.

Wonderful and inexpensive resources for selling your gown include Once Wed, Wedding Bee(classifieds), Party Pop (wedding gown message board) or Preowned Wedding Dresses. Keep in mind that there are a lot of scammers out there who have discovered the wedding dress resale market and will try to cash in on unsuspecting victims. Emails that depict a suspicious buying scenario (i.e. cashiers checks, an ‘agent’ shipping contact, a convoluted payment process, paying more for the gown and asking for a cash credit, etc.) should be avoided. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it always is. Use your good judgment when exchanging information and use a trusted payment platform like Paypal or Escrow.com. If the buyer can’t understand your need for payment via these methods, then they are not the right buyer. Each site will take a small percentage based on the total sale, but it is worth it to know the payment is coming via a trusted medium.

Buying brides will want to know as much as possible about your gown prior to purchase. They will need to know the altered bust, waist and hip measurements, and also your height with heels. A general ballpark like ‘I’m a size 4’ or ‘it’s a typical size 8’ won’t cut the mustard. If a bride is spending her hard-earned dough, she’ll want to know if it fits. Keep the information from the seamstress as a reference, and be sure to keep all your original receipts, including any receipts for dry cleaning and repairs.

Lastly, be sure to post actual photos of your gown and not only the stock runway photo from the designer’s website. Brides need to know that the gown actually exists and will want to see your dress in all its glory. For brides who want to keep their privacy, blur or crop out faces, but full and close-up body shots of both the front and back of the gown are a necessity.

With this, we hope you find the sales process a quick and easy one, and we like sharing this type of advice to keep both buyers and sellers safe from the perils of this brave new Internet world in which we live. We love offering brides our consignment or purchasing services, but we unfortunately can’t assist every bride. We like knowing we can offer some insight that will help the party fade to black, without a dress sale hangover.