Bloss: Budget Wedding Tips - Part 5: The Wedding Dress

The Wedding Dress

I had SO much fun choosing a wedding gown. I actually started out with a halter neck gown and then changed my mind and sold it on eBay swapping to the gown I actually ended up wearing.

As with the budget theme you've seen so far, I decided that I'd like a ballgown silhouette, a strapless neckline and either pale pink or champagne colour.
{I found a great resource for researching gowns at The Knot}

So I set about researching dresses on eBay and researching the wedding forums for people's experiences with eBay wedding gowns.
There were a mixed bag of experiences that people had, ranging from disastrous, to wonderful.
I learned from other people's experience and my own research that when buying online, there are a few tips to stick with to navigate your way through the myriad sellers and dresses:

1. Stick with dresses that are shown in the listing on a dress dummy - as in, not just a picture of a dress on a model. A lot of listings are stock images and then the seller copies them, so you can't be really sure of what the finished product will look like.
If you buy a dress that you can see already made in the listing, you at least know to some degree what you will get in the post

2. Don't buy one of the dresses from a listing where the dress is cheap (for example $25) and the postage is very expensive (for example $100). The reason I say this, is if you buy one of these dresses, and you're unhappy with it, the seller is only required to refund you the purchase price, not the postage, and you may be out of pocket a significant amount.

3. Ask around: check out the wedding forums {I used I-Do} and ask around or look up old threads, as there are some tried and true wedding gown sellers on eBay that people have had great success with.

4. Always buy a true size - many of the gowns are "made to measure" -where the seller asks for your measurements and crafts a gown to fit. As english is often a second language for many sellers, a lot can be lost in translation, and in my research I noticed a lot of people having trouble with ill-fitting made to measure gowns for this reason. If you measure yourself according to their description, and then buy the dress that most closely fits your measurements, this is a far safer bet.

5. If you're unsure whether you can get your dress altered (if you lose weight, of if the dress is slightly too big), ask the seller if they can make it with a lace up back. The worst they can do is say no, and I found the seller I purchased my gown from most obliging - it meant I saved on fittings and alterations closer to the wedding.

My Gown
I purchased both of my dresses {including the first one that I later sold} from an eBay store called Priceless Bridal Store, which looks like it has since closed as I couldn't find it in several searches *sad face*

I loved my gown.. it cost me around $350 including shipping, in heavy champagne satin. Mum and I took up the hem to fit me, and I modified the neckline from straight to sweetheart and changed the train from flat {I'm not sure of the dressmaking terminology} to more "puffy" and added a french bustle.

One day I'll do a post describing how to french bustle a wedding gown {Please remind me if you would like a tutorial on it}.. it was good fun, and though time consuming, was inexpensive.

Now, the fun part.. some pictures of my gown: