Today I'm thrilled to get to write a post about APW's long time sponsor PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com. I feel like POWD is such a rock solid, unbelievably fantastic (sane) wedding resource that all of you should know all about it all ready, but then I realize, no no no, a bajillion of you just got engaged, and are starting to figure out where the good stuff is at. So, I present to you PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com: officially the good stuff.Things you should know: PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com is a freaking fantastic place to wedding dress shop. There are tons of dresses (in all price points) that have been worn a grand total of ONCE, or in some cases, haven't been worn at all (hello changing your mind). The site has recently been reorganized in a way that makes it so much easier and more fun to search. Now you can look through "Dresses We Love" (and POWD has good taste, so there are some excellent selections here), dresses that are "New This Week" (for the person who's waiting for just the right dress to show up), "Most Viewed" (I totally love this section, for whatever reason), and "Best Deals" (ding, ding, ding).
And then of course you can search by designer, shape, or location of the dress. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit how much time I spent doing this when I was engaged, because, ummm.... it's really fun. Also? All you newly marrieds who would really like your wedding dress out of your closet and some cash in your pocket? Sell that dress, baby!
More fun? POWD's $4,200 honeymoon giveaway going on. Plus (I asked, because I want y'all to have your bases covered), you can enter the contest and they *won't* sell your email address, so you can shoot for a free trip and not get spammed to death, hooray!
Finally, because they are awesome, PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com is giving all of their ad revenue this week to the Haiti relief effort of the Red Cross. Since their ads are through google, profit depends on web traffic. Which I think makes it your humanitarian duty to shop for good deals on wedding dresses. Rad.Dresses in the pictures: BCBG dress for $375 (someone buy it now!), Pretty and affordable Nicole Miller, Monique Lhuillier simple dress marked down to $800 (what?), Monique Lhuillier lace number
5 comments:
I happen to think it's a BRILLIANT idea. I just bought my dress Saturday but would definitely consider selling it. I feel like the larger sizes might be easier to sell because its always safer for anyone to buy bigger (especially on the net) then alter down. I was as budget minded as I could be and bought a $450 dress but JEEZ. No matter how you slice it that is a lot of money for one day.
Hi, interesting post. I have been pondering this issue,so thanks for writing
Hi there.
I hate to make negative posts, but I have to say that I've been to POWD several times, and have always been really disappointed by what I found there. Most of the time, it seemed like the brides were asking WAY too much for the dresses considering they were used (often times 75-100% of the original sales price).
I would say check out ebay instead. I've found dresses are sold for much more reasonable prices there. And because they have the auction set-up, where sellers can post a starting bid, a reserve price that must be met or it doesn't sell, and a buy-it-now price, the initial asking price is not what the seller is thinking they would ideally like to get for the dress (as is the case with POWD).
For me, the end result with ebay was finding a dress I LOVED at a price I LOVED. I bought/won my dress on ebay this week for $88. It's from a designer I love, and had been used in a store display, never worn outside, and is in perfect condition. I'd been planning on spending the money to buy a new dress, but happened to be perusing POWD (and found nothing), went to ebay, and the dress was SO me, at a price I loved.
One thing I would say to brides who are shopping for dresses- do your very best not to get hung up on a certain dress by a certain designer. When you walk into a bridal salon, usually the first thing they ask you is how much you are willing to spend. Say you say "eh, $800-$1000 max." They will probably show you some Maggie Sottero's, and maybe maybe a Casablanca or two, and you'll find one you love and want to buy it. But they certainly won't tell you that Alfred Angelo makes an almost identical dress for a few hundred dollars cheaper. Most designers make a lot of similar designs- with gathered fabric here, or beads there, or lace all over, etc.. But the designers focus in on different price ranges, not just because they make different quality dresses, but because then they each dominate a separate piece of the market (a good business & marketing strategy).
I WISH someone had told me this a year ago when I was first looking at dresses (for the big wedding we decided to forgo for a little one this year). So when you're looking to find the features you love on a dress without the sky-high price tag, get over the brand-loyalty and salon-loyalty and look at different designers. And ALWAYS check what the dress retails for before agreeing on a price at the salon. You can google the dress and find a price on amazon shopping, and BestBridalPrices.com is a well-rated site that has an excellent range of dresses available with their prices easily visible on the internet. I have also found that if you call around and ask what various salons are selling such-and-such dress for, you can go back to the salon you like and bargain with them sometimes.
Good luck on your dress hunting.
Another tip: Try looking at bridesmaid dresses. I chose a simple, ivory silk/satin sheath for $200 from a bridesmaid collection. It reminds me of Alix & Kelly's bridal collection, which was my inspiration but WAY out of my budget. Anyway, this "bridesmaid" dress fits me to perfection, and no one will know the difference when I'm walking down the aisle. Good luck, brides!
I found my dress on this site! I will say I searched for months before finding what i wanted, but in the end my absolute dream dress popped up for $400. They've really improved their site over the past year, I recommend it to everyone I know who gets engaged.
eBay is a good resource (HeatherN you really lucked out!), but I was scared away by all the super-cheap dresses that are designer rip-offs made in China - they show you a picture of the designer's dress, and their product probably is the same shape but they almost never use as high-quality fabrics.. Not to say that all dresses for sale on eBay are like that, just be careful!
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