Facebook Marketplace: What Brides Paid

What brides paid

Every row is one bride: what she paid for the gown, what the tailoring came to when she reported it, and the year.

What brides recommend it for

• After paying $2,000 in a salon she watched Marketplace for a year and saw the same gown in her size twice at about a quarter of the price; her method is to try on at a high-end store, write down names, then hunt resale.
• Sold her own gown to a local bride who came to her living room and tried it on before buying, which is the try-before-you-buy that bridal shops will not give
• Bought the same $1,800 gown she had picked in a bridal store for $300, then paid $225 to clean it. Also saw thrift-store gowns at $150 or less the same day.
• Paid about 100 dollars for a gown she calls beautiful; notes that many sellers list measurements so you know in advance whether alterations are needed
• wrote a photo of the dress she wanted; members suggested lookalikes and a London shop owner had the exact gown in her size for $399 and shipped it.
• Resold a final-sale gown she regretted there for exactly what she had paid, then bought a replacement - her route out of a non-returnable purchase.
• NZD. Sources most of her vintage wedding dress collection there; top price ever paid was $300, and a closing store sold her three dresses for $200.
• Spotted a local bride selling a gown that matched her list and looked her size, went to her place to try it on, and it fit with no alterations
• Mostly secondhand but sometimes new gowns at very low prices. She has picked up bargains this way, though the group posts flood your feed.
• A $200 secondhand gown plus a local seamstress. The alterations cost more than the dress but the total still came in under buying new.

What brides warn about

• Tried a used gown at the seller's flat with her partner waiting outside for safety; it was not right for her, but she got peace of mind and photos to compare later.
• Sellers want back nearly everything they paid, even on cheap gowns, and make you message for measurements and tag size. She had no luck with used dresses anywhere.
• Bought unseen because it was so cheap, planning to flip it if it failed. It did not fit and has sat with no enquiries at all, not even a message.
• Ate a lot of her time and none of the dresses fit; she describes the previous owners' proportions as consistently different from her own.
• Huge number of listings but you try the gown on at a strangers house with no help, and the ones she liked were nearly all size 4.
• The gown she went to see was in perfect condition at $150 but too small for her; size is the gamble with no returns
• Listed her own gown there after the wedding and gave up on selling because the enquiries felt sketchy.
• Saw gowns like the asking bride's inspiration reselling at 500-1000, though stock depends heavily on the area.

How it compares

The median across every route in this dataset is $850, a bridal salon runs $1,900, and secondhand sits lower again. A shop is worth judging against the route it belongs to rather than against the whole market, which is what the where-to-buy page sets out.

Sources

Price reports on this page come from 25 public discussions where brides answered in their own words. Each comment that stated an amount became one row; notes are paraphrased, never quoted.