For many women, a wedding dress will be the most elaborate and expensive thing they will ever wear -- the crowning glory of a day that will pass in a blur of adrenaline and joy.
And then what?
Josie Daga's Janell Berté gown, for which she paid $3,000 in 1999, arrived home after the wedding, cleaned and preserved, in a three-foot-by-four-foot box. "You can't fit it under the bed or in a closet, and I thought the reality of my daughter ever wanting to wear my dress is pretty slim," says Ms. Daga, who is 38.
She listed the dress in 2004 on Craigslist, where she received a few $200 bids and a lot of offers that she suspected were scams. On EBay, ditto. In consignment shops, nada. So she did what an enterprising young advertising executive does -- she launched a Web site, PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com, and sold her dress for $800. A year later, she had 400 listings, with each seller paying a minimum $25 fee, and soon afterward, running the Web site became her full-time occupation. Today, PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com has about 2,360 gowns listed.
Boosting its business these days are brides on a budget. There are 2.2 million weddings each year in the U.S., according to Brides Magazine. While their cost on average in recessionary 2008 was a still-high $22,000, that was down roughly 20% from 2007. Disc jockeys, photographers and videographers are being hit hard as brides opt for iPods and friends with cameras.
Emotionally, it can be hard to downsize a wedding-dress dream. Some women justify the purchase of an expensive gown by planning to resell it. Sally Lorensen Conant, owner of Orange Restoration Labs in Orange, Conn., says fewer brides want to have their gowns preserved these days. "I'm seeing more women who say, 'I just want you to clean the dress. I'm going to try to sell it,' " she says.
It's a risky maneuver. A gown isn't a financial investment. It can take months or even a year to sell a gown, and the returns are comparable to those of selling a used car. Transaction details must be negotiated. That includes not only payment but, if the dress isn't being mailed, where to meet and try on the dress. One seller I interviewed arranged to meet a potential buyer at her dry cleaner, which felt safer than inviting a stranger into her home.
I have dutifully carted my silk Priscilla of Boston gown through six moves and 18 years of marriage. I am not alone; closets across America are hiding fancy gowns of silk, tulle and French lace amassed in the 30 years or so since the wedding industry became a juggernaut.
Now, the combined forces of the Web and the recession are bringing many of those dresses out again. As online venues for selling dresses proliferate, wedding planners and other specialists say that they're seeing more brides selling their dresses.
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