Help on selling a wedding dress

[MaMaMaMySharona]

One of my best friends has asked me to sell her wedding dress for her. Incredibly sadly, she was supposed to wear it for her wedding nearly 2 years ago, but her partner passed away in an accident the week beforehand.

The designer has been trying to sell it for about a year but had no success (it’s listed on StillWhite). I’ve never sold a wedding dress so just want to get an idea from you lovely people on the most popular sites and any advice for sorting it as quickly and painlessly as possible.

[MaMaMaMySharona]

Bump - anyone?

[SheWoreBlueVelvet]

I would put it on a local Facebook selling site. Much easier to sell to locals. My friend got fleeced on StillWhite,
They never go for very much though.

[supercalifragilistic123]

If your in the south east I can recommend a really fantastic bridal dress agency. I bought my wedding dress there, I think they charge 50% commission though.

[MyFamilyAndOtherAnimals1]

or ebay? I think all brides who want a second hand dress are likely to check ebay

[MaMaMaMySharona]

Thanks for the tips guys! She’s in Surrey so would be interested to hear about the bridal dress agency. I’ll check some others out too :)

[supercalifragilistic123]

Its called brides dress revisited and is in otford in Kent.

[LadyHalesBroach]

Try Gillian Million in Teddington - she’s a dress reseller x

[mamamalt]

I bought mine off Facebook.

[millymae]

I’m so out of the loop now that I don’t know much about wedding magazines, but in the last 7 or 8 years I’ve sold two dresses for free - one through a wedding magazine and the other through pre-loved.
The one I sold through the magazine I’d first put on gumtree - my advice would be don’t go there. I can’t remember the precise details now, but I was contacted by someone from abroad who was obviously part of a scam and wanted to buy it for a relative as a surprise.
This dress had been made by a fairly well known wedding designer who had lots of stockists and within a few weeks of it being advertised in the magazine I had sold it to a woman who lived at the other end of the country to me and who came to collect it with her partner.
It sold it for exactly half of what I’d paid, but I had had it professionally cleaned.and repaired, and apart from one small patch of grubbiness underneath the train, which would never be seen it looked like new.
On reflection there was a lot of trust on both sides - she came with a substantial amount of cash in hand and brought her partner with her who was left sitting in my lounge with a drink while we were in the bedroom.
Equally I hadn’t been keen to do the deal alone in the house with people I didn’t know so I asked mum to be there on the pretext that she knew how to fasten the dress up.
We all got along fine and as we were chatting she did say that her mum had been very anxious about the arrangement. We sent her some photos so that she could see the dress on and I gave the buyer all my receipts so that her mum could see exactly when it had been bought, how much I had paid, and that it had been professionally cleaned and repaired.
Dress number 2 was a bit more complicated in that it was a sample that had been altered to fit and didn’t look much like the photos of the design that were generally available. It had been made by a local designer who only had a handful of stockists elsewhere and would have cost just short of £2500 if bought new. My relative paid £1000 and then an additional £250 for all the work. She and it looked absolutely stunning but without saying too much, the day it was worn was one to be consigned to history as quickly as possible, and the dress was up for sale within 2 months of the wedding.
The advert for the first dress was easy to write, the second was far more difficult. I provided lots of anonymised photos, plenty of detail and lots of careful measurements. It only took a couple of months to sell. This time the girl who bought it came with her mother-in-law and she cried when she put it on - apart from the length it fit her perfectly. Thankfully she was so taken with the dress that she didn’t ask too many questions about the wedding. We sold this dress for £450, paid by bank transfer at the time which was a bargain really because it had also been professionally cleaned and had some small tears and catches in the lace repaired.
I did look at dress agencies but the percentages they were taking for sales seemed very high to me.
Apologies for the length of this - hope if helps in some way.

[AnchorDownDeepBreath]

Still White is one of the biggest sites, and where most people I know looked - but if she’s trying to sell it for near cost, people will choose the boutique experience and price instead. I’d check the price on there - and how much the same or similar dresses are going for, too.

Then eBay or Facebook marketplace; but both of those places would expect a cheaper price than Still White.

I’m sorry for your friends loss, and I hope you get it sold for her