Do you REALLY need that expensive designer wedding dress?
How much is too much to spend on a wedding dress?
Groom’s answer: “Anything over $250 is expensive. I might as well go light a cigarette with this $100 bill.”
Bride’s answer: “You can’t put a price on weddings, or love for that matter, silly!”
A Gorgeous Dress for Under $250 – Yeah, right!
I know what you’re thinking. Two hundred and fifty lousy bucks isn’t a lot of money to spend on a wedding dress, right?
Wrong! In fact, you can get exactly the dress you desire for that affordable price. My wife did just that for our wedding day. I won’t get into the specific details in this post, suffice to say that it involved making a purchase on eBay and praying the dress arrived in one piece as advertised. It did arrive safe and sound, and with a few alterations to the dress she looked amazing.
Bonus: I can’t remember once discussing the issue nor having an awkward conversation along the lines of, “Honey, I think you shouldn’t spend that much on a dress.”
Her practical nature must have told her there are better ways to spend the money. For a lot of folks around the world today, turns out $1500 is a lot of money with real consequences.
The aim of today’s post is to get you thinking about one specific question: Do you really need to spend a wad of cash on a dress?
Maybe you’ve thought about this question in the past, or maybe you haven’t. I’m not here to judge your spending habits. If you’ve got the money and can afford it, do what you want. As they say over here in the UK, push the boat out!
Know Your Audience
I once learned the hard way the concept of know your audience. It was a high level meeting packed with stuffy old white guys that carry guns. Needless to say, my young aspirational governmnet self didn’t go down so well with their mindset and throught processes.
I suspect this article will appeal more to grooms than it will brides, and that’s fine. In my mind’s eye I picture a lot of guys reading this post (with virtual heads nodding in agreement), salivating over the fact that further down I spill the beans and proclaim:
“Any bride who spends more than $500 $250 deserves the following punishment for her wedding crime:
- If an outdoor wedding — to have her gown pooped on by a passing pigeon as she makes her glorious outdoor wedding aisle debut
- If an indoor wedding — to have her gown pooped on by a mouse scurrying across the aisle floor
Either way, the morale of the story is that you should take a cat to a wedding to scare off both pigeons and mice.
Sadly, gentlemen, life is never black and white.
Still, I hear a faint whisper from grooms everywhere pleading, “Please, just write in your article that spending that much money on one dress is plain crazy. I need a trusted online wedding blog expert ally such as yourself. My fiancée doesn’t need to spend that much on a dress!”
Or does she?
Lets look at some numbers first, and then you can make up your own mind.
Averages Wedding Dress Spend
I must disclaim that I am not a statistician. Although I dated one once, does that count? I also pretended to work in a quasi-stats role for a good 5 years at a federal government job, and no one complained. (Side note: I left that gig voluntarily. My sanity thanked me later)
That being said, I’m nowhere near the level of stats mastery that many of those academic folk reach. I’ve got me an ‘average joe’ understanding and analytical ability. Now then, let’s dive in to a bit of wedding dress stats fun!!
Averages, as you may remember, are not always the best at explaining a concept.
The average cost of a wedding dress in the United States was typically reported to be between $1,000 and $2,000, but this could vary widely based on location, designer, and individual preferences. Locations with a higher cost of living, like New York or California, often saw higher average costs.
Glamor should be a four-letter word
It could be if you shorten it to GLAM. Everyone loves a bit of glam, so why the hate?
Let me tell you: Not too long ago I spoke with the author of this article for a good hour long chat. It was a job interview of sorts, but really I wanted to meet each other over video chat and see how we got on. I initially approached her to gauge her interest in writing for my ol’ wedding blog.
During our brief chat, Sarah and I connected on a whole host of wedding related issues. At one point she talked about a book called “The Power of Glamour”, which sits on her bookshelf at home, and gave me the cliff notes.
I checked out the book myself, along with a couple key reviews — like the NY Times review here. It seems that (for better or for worse) glamour intensifies longing, fosters hope and stokes ambition, which helps to explain a hellofa lot of things in this world! Perhaps that is the ultimate end goal of this article – to encourage brides to look differently at the role glamour has played in their own wedding journey.
Back to Wedding Dress Spending
I doubt I’ve convinced anyone, let alone a budding bride, that she should ditch her designer gown aspirations. Heck, if I was reading this far into this post I would probably say, “What is this guy on? Does he even own a wedding blog?”
I do, in fact. And this entire article runs 100% counter to how I make a good portion of my income. You see, this blog (like many others) operates on an affiliate commission basis. That means if you click on a link from this site, such as a dress from BHLDN, and end up making a purchase, then a small percentage fee is earned. It keeps the lights on and allows me to pontificate about wedding topics like this one!
I hear you scolding me, “That makes no sense, Andrew. Why would you work against yourself and your livelihood to try to change my mindset and convince me that I should spend less on a dress? Don’t you make more if I spend more money?”
Yes, we technically would.
If I can voice opinions, create healthy debates, and ultimately change things for the better, what better way to leave a lasting impact on the industry that I find myself inhabiting. Sometimes there are negative aspects to an industry. I’d rather try to change the wedding industrial complex, and the bride/groom couples that inhabit it, for the better. My personal story is varied, and I never set out to become a wedding blogger. Yet after 6 hard years of graft, I believe my time has come to use this platform that my wife and I built to open up conversations, no matter how controversial.
Dress Mindset
Here’s a short thought exercise, adapted from a best selling book (insert link to ??) that I read last week. Although the book is primarily about building an online business through automating the heck out of everything (something I’m attempting to do for this website), there is also a philosophical and even spiritual vein throughout the book.
If I ask you what’s important to you on your wedding day, what do you really want?
I bet I would get a wide variety of answers.
As it pertains to a dress you might say, “Andrew, my dream is to look amazing in a fabulous designer wedding gown.” Great. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I couldn’t agree more, and I wish you the best of luck in looking amazing on your wedding day — as every bride should. But before you go, why do you want a designer wedding gown?
- Why is a particular gown important to you?
- Do you sincerely desire the particular collection of fabric, beading, and other embelishments?
- Do you want the status that comes with owning and wearing a designer gown?
- Or is it something else that my feable married man-brain cannot understand?
I’m not judging you here. It’s totally fine for the answer to be that you want to glamour of a designer gown on your wedding day. But if that’s why you want the dress, be honest with yourself, be conscious about your reasons. And then go down another level — why is that status/glamor important to you? And will the status that comes with owning an expensive dress actually fulfill that need within you, or will it require something more?
That’s a deeper process of questioning, which you’ll have to face at some point. Maybe you end up deciding that a designer gown is still important to you, and you buy that dress. You’re very happy with it, and you realize you were right. Wonderful, I’m happy for you!
I cannot emphasize enough that you want that process to be one that YOU have consciously thought about, so that you don’t end up buying a designer gown simply because your ego has told you that buying an expensive dress is what people do to show everyone else how cool they are. Or put another way, to live the delusion of grandeur that afflicts so many of the young entitled (instagram) crowd these days.
That’s it – my thoughts about the wedding dress spending question. Let me know your opinion in the comments section below. You may agree (or not) with what I write, and either way I would say thank you. Take this post for what’s its worth. After all, I’m only a married heterosexual male wedding blogger, so what do I know!
https://www.weddingwire.com/cost/wedding-dress
https://medium.com/@joannachao/how-to-order-a-custom-wedding-dress-from-china-f0616e0262e6
More Thoughts
Going against the prevailing “wedding industry complex” in all things: dress, venue, even (gasp!) paper stationery.
Okay, lets not get totally crazy here. I still love me some 100% cotton paper goodness. We want to talk about the parts of the wedding process that other (wedding blogs) online media won’t touch… for whatever reason. Self interest, owned by giant corporations, or just playing along in the multi billion dollar game.
Not us. We are a voice for the real, raw, engaging, and authentic wedding stuff.
Its not about throwing out traditions and wedding fun … its about hosted a party that doesn’t bankrupt you. Having a wedding that makes sense for YOU and not what a self interested corporation/business tells you what you MUST do or what you must BUY in order to satisfy antiquated wedding standards.
I say, “Screw what some monarch living in the 1800s did, which every living surf since has copied. The Queen doesn’t have to pay for my tuxedo, canapes, nor the bar tab at my wedding. That’s all on me.”
Stop trying to attain an elevated social and economic status beyond your current station in life. We all know that is what every bride (and groom) secretly desire for their wedding day.
A “luxurious and elegant affair attended by close family and acquaintances alike” who can partake in the grand charade called the wedding game.
Designer dresses that a billionaire can afford to splash some cash on, are not attainable for 99%. Nor should they be. The shear and utter useless utility of a wedding dress should be enough to rock you off your emotional designer wedding chair.
When you do finally get that cheque in the mail (or more likely that bitcoin in your coin wallet), then you can go ahead and hire your own pimped out ride, let it rain dolla bills, and act like you are on the set of a 90s rap music video. Until then, just be YOU. It took me the better part of 30 years to understand that I didn’t need to try to be anyone else besides Andrew Shackleford. I don’t want to be a version of Tony Robbins, Pat Flynn, or countless other influencial people that have occupied my podcast playlist and inspired me to up my game and Design My Life – the life I want to live here and now.
Andrew
As the CEO of Love & Lavender, Andrew wears many hats. He is an expert in affiliate marketing, SEO, and content creation. He loves to cook a mean curry, is a Japanophile, enjoys slow travel, and loves to spend time with his wife and adorable son.
