The other day my phone rang and on the other end was a blog reader.
"Hi Greer, I'm Megan and I'm one of your blog readers!" She excitedly exclaimed.
I went into my usual stunned mullet instant-awkward-shock where I never quite know what to say. (I LOVE that people read this blog, but I really do operate in a bit of a bubble where I believe only people I know in real life actually read this ... anyway ...)
Thankfully, Megan had a few things she wanted to talk about so she started chatting away and we happily nattered for a while about, well, weddings of course.
She told me about this new venture she's setting up called Weddington. The basic premise is that there are a huge bunch of people wanting to sell wedding dresses, quite a few potential buyers, but the internet is not proving to be the be-all and end-all, with many missing that little step in the middle of the process - the all-important try on!
She also mentioned some amazing things about the psyche of wedding dress shopping; the associated guilt (spending too much / not spending enough etc) and I really related to that so I'm sure you will too.
I asked Megan to email me with what we'd discussed and, well, it was so well written and interesting, I thought I'd just reproduce it here on this blog. Here's Megan!
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I have just started a new business called Weddington. Essentially I am arranging market days where I sell people's wedding dresses for them on consignment.
It's great fun so far and I'm really looking forward to the first market on September 1. I started the business because there is a gap between selling / buying dresses online and buying dresses from a traditional wedding dress store.
Also, I got thinking about all the beautiful, expensive dresses hidden in wardrobes after being worn once - what a waste!
The psychology of the dresses has been one of the most fascinating things about starting this business. I really feel for the brides, actually. There is so much pressure around the dress. The dress is where personal expression, fashion sense and budget collide. It can be the biggest source of stress in the entire event.
One thing I have found so fascinating is the amount of guilt women have about wedding dresses.
They can feel guilty for not spending enough, for spending too much, and then, worst of all, they feel guilty if they want to sell the dress after the wedding!
Sometimes I wonder if it's a side effect of the wedding industry telling women that their wedding is the biggest day of their lives / that this is the most important piece of clothing they will ever wear / that the wedding is all about them / they are a princess for a day.
I think with the rise of sites like Pinterest, women are exposed to a whole new level of event planning and feel like they must go all out to have an internet-worthy event. There is competition among brides (and businesses in the wedding industry) to get their weddings featured on sites like Style Me Pretty.
These messages encourage women to spend more on their wedding dress than any other item of clothing in their lives. I spent more on my wedding dress than I had ever spent on a car! (Sure, they were not great cars, but still, I used them more than once!)
I actually now compare buying new wedding dresses with buying new cars - the very moment a wedding dress is purchased, the value drops immediately and considerably (sometimes by 50 per cent, depending on the dress).
I think this might be the source of how much guilt women feel about their dresses - they might have spent more than they wanted to (or could afford), but possibly still feel that it wasn't enough or the dress didn't turn out to be what they wanted after all.
Women are encouraged to forget all they have learnt about shopping for clothing too - where else would we be told that a $ 3500 dress made from polyester fabric that cost less than $ 10 per metre is good value for money?
Sure, there is design involved, and the construction of a wedding dress is more complicated than a regular garment, but these gowns are manufactured in the same way as other clothes - in factories, using standard patterns, the same dress is made many, many times over.
Oftentimes, women will also ignore bad customer service in pursuit of the "perfect" wedding dress. Almost every bride I've talked to has a story about the service they received when buying their dress - one woman told me that she could hear her wedding dress ripping as she walked down the aisle. The dressmaker had ignored her concerns about the dress being too tight and by that stage it was too late for the bride to demand changes to the gown.
All of this is made worse with women then being called Bridezillas if they are not deliriously happy every moment when planning their wedding! It's not enough to experience all of this stress in the vain hope of satisfying everyone, but women have to do it without complaint .
There are many things to love about weddings, but I think there is so much that needs examining and thinking about. While I was thinking about writing to you, I came up with some tips that might be helpful for brides when they are shopping for their dresses.
I've popped them below for you to have a look through. Feel free to use any of them or alter them as you see fit for a blog post.
My top wedding dress tips:
1. Have a budget and stick to it! It doesn't matter if your budget is $ 500 or $ 5000, don't feel guilty and don't apologise for it. There is something available to suit everyone. Don't spend more than you can afford - that road doesn't lead anywhere good!
2. Remember that you already have a lot of knowledge about shopping for clothes - use it! Make assessments about cost, quality, and then work out if the dress is value for money. If the customer service doesn't meet your expectations, don 't reward them by buying your dress from them. There are a lot of wedding dresses out there! Just keep looking.
3. Why not buy secondhand? The dresses have typically only been worn once (or sometimes not at all!), No one will be able to tell it's secondhand (unless you tell them!), And it's a way to make your budget stretch much further. If you're sitting on the fence about whether or not to buy secondhand, think about this - if you spend only 50 per cent of your original dress budget, where else could you spend that money? A honeymoon to a place you 've always wanted to go? Could you invite more people to your reception?
Secondhand is also the eco-friendly choice.
4. Our memories are in our minds, not in our clothes. It's OK to have a plan to sell your dress after the wedding. You'll always remember it (and if you forget, just dive into your wedding photo album for a bit ). Wouldn't it be lovely if your dress could make another bride as happy as it made you?
The sooner you sell your dress after the wedding, the better. The best time is immediately after the wedding when the style is still current and desirable. This way your dress is in demand and you can get the best price possible.
5. Don't keep your dress with the intention of giving it to your daughter. Wedding dress fashion is the same as high street fashion - it turns over at an alarming rate, and a trend popular now will probably be gone by this time next year. Why not let your daughter experience the delight of finding the perfect dress for herself, just like you did?
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Thanks Megan! Those top tips for wedding dress shopping were awesome - especially that final one about a woman's tie to the belief her daughter will want to wear her dress! So true!
