how much did you spend on your wedding dress?

[perpetius]

Only like the expensive dresses! how much did you spend and do you regret it?

£450ish as a sample from a big wedding show in 2009. A very handy friend altered it for me.

Life is short, if you can afford it, buy the dress op.

I think if you’re worrying about it then it’s too expensive OP. That tends to be my approach with these things. It’s all relative: one person’s expensive is another’s reasonable.

I got married last year and spent £1200 but I didn’t wear a traditional dress, so in the scheme of occasion gowns it was expensive. I loved wearing it and would love to wear it again one day. I would not have wanted to spend an amount that made me uncomfortable.

£164, assuming the price hasn't changed in the past few years! Then around £50 getting it adjusted, so just over £200 total. But I'm not a 'dressy' person so wasn't really interested in spending much money on a dress. If you have the budget and really want to spend the money, then I don't see the fault in spending more on something special. But if you're questioning it, I'd hold off and give it some thought cause you don't want it to be ruined by the 'should I have really bought this' thoughts.

£200 in 2002. No regrets. It wasn't technically a wedding dress though.

My dress was £2300. I paid 50% upfront (£1150). But, when I went to collect it, it had a big black mark up the back of it. The owner sent it to be cleaned. When I returned to collect it, she told me there was nothing else to pay! (The shop was a two hour trip from my house, so I had done eight hours of driving by the time I actually got home with it!) I was happy to pay the full amount but she insisted. I was lucky!

£250 in 1994. It was reduced to around £275 but my budget was £250 so my mum haggled. I was really embarrassed as I hated them thinking I couldn’t afford the set price. I still have it in the loft but it would nowhere near fit me now.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SisterOrganics I had mine handmade, I still wear it on sunny days.

My dress was custom made. My Mum paid for it and i believe it was in the region of £1100. Certainly not the most expensive but not cheap. I don't regret it, being an odd shape, none of the off the peg dresses looked quite right so custom made was the right choice for me and it's a beautiful dress.

We don’t know enough about the rest of your life to comment on that. What kind of wedding are you having? Is the rest of the wedding a big blowout event? What are your living circumstances eg huge mortgage, or renting? It all depends. It’s not just the price of the dress in a vacuum.

Personally I hate how young couples often spend so much on a wedding, all that expense for one day when they may struggle for a deposit or childcare etc. But you and your partner may be high earners with a reasonable mortgage.

£4.5k
Absolutely loved my dress and didn’t regret a penny of it, still don’t a decade later.
Felt excited in the run up to wear it, felt incredible in it on the day and loved how I looked in it months later when I got my photos back.

Imagine my delight taking a shortcut through bhs when I spot a lovely wedding dress on final clearance, £36 odd. Probably the best bargain I've ever had.

I remember BHS selling them. When I got married you could only buy them from wedding shops, then places like BHS started selling them not long after and I wished I could have got mine there instead of an expensive wedding shop!

£150. I was swayed by the yellow sticker. 20 years later I still wish I'd chosen something else.

Debenhams had a really lovely range of wedding dresses.
It made me laugh because I tried to take a photo of one so I could compare it to something else and she wouldn't let me. 🤣

£80, £160 at today's values. I made it in an amazingly fluid silk and matching lace that my friend bought for me at an Indonesian market. Very simple, bias-cut, only took a few hours. It would've been expensive to buy retail.

If you like structured confections with layers, embroidery and appliqué, this strategy is not recommended - though some independent dressmaker/tailors are more competent than all but the most exclusive designer ateliers. If you happen to know of one such, go to them instead of a shop!

£350 dress for £85 January sale. 1984. I got it out of the loft last week. Strangely it’s a quarter of the size it was.

It's a known fact that storage shrinks clothing.

I was 4 months pregnant on my wedding day (ironically our wedding was postponed by 3 months due to extended family logistics so when we were planning it I wasn’t even pregnant), so I could only buy my dress fairly last minute. I got a gorgeous off white strapless satin evening dress from Debenhams for £60 and my wedding florist incorporated flowers on the back. It was beautiful and exactly right for me.

£370 in 2004

I had mine made to measure. I think it was about £3000 back in 2003.