Renting vs. Buying a Wedding Dress

Feb 28

Bride trying on white long sleeve wedding gown — It’s Time to Shop

So you’re finally engaged and now you’re ready to start wedding dress shopping! Congratulations on this exciting time for you! Dress shopping can be a lot if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, so let’s chat about the difference between renting vs. buying a wedding dress. Both are great options, so you need to ask yourself what works best for you?
Here are a few things to consider when it comes to deciding whether to rent or purchase a wedding dress.

Budget
Purchase Budget - When it comes to dress shopping, you need to ask yourself what your budget is and how much you are willing to spend on a wedding dress. According to market research, the average wedding dress can cost anywhere from $1,200-$2,500.

2. Timeline
Purchase Timeline - What does your wedding timeline look like? When it comes to buying a dress you don’t always walk out of the store right away with your dream dress after your fitting appointment. Most often, the bridal shop has to order the dress from their distributor to have it arrive in time for your wedding. This process can take anywhere from 3-6 months depending on the shop’s inventory and location. Also, you will need to consider if the dress needs alterations. Alterations themselves can take up to 6 weeks depending on the seamstress. Therefore, before purchasing a dress, ensure there is enough time to make sure everything is good to go before your wedding.

Renting Timeline - When renting a dress the timeline looks a little different when renting, because realistically you could have access to the dress as soon as it’s dry cleaned and pressed. This option is a bit more preferred among those with shorter engagements; however, keep in mind the rental period tends to be limited to 2-3 weeks, so you need to find out beforehand if you need the dress longer than that, or for multiple events that aren’t within a few weeks of each other.

3. Value of the Dress
What is more important to you? Do you prefer to have a wedding dress that you can keep for the rest of your life and try on again and again over time, or are your more a minimalist and would rather not deal with the hassle of storing it in your closet and dragging it around as you move throughout your life?

There are pros and cons to both sides; purchasing a dress allows you to hold on to that dress forever and keep it as a sentimental item to your closet. Maybe you want to try on your wedding dress over and over again throughout your life, or repurpose your dress for a special occasion in the future. However, keep in mind that as soon as you walk out of the shop with your dress, it will have lost its overall value. Also, note that keeping a dress in a closet for a long period of time can cause the dress to yellow.

Comparatively, when you rent you can only wear the dress once. The bonus to this option is that you could invest the money that you would have spent on purchasing a dress to hire a really good photographer or videographer instead, so you can rewatch your special day forever! Or event invest more money into your honeymoon fund!

There is also a significant difference in the value of a dress when it comes to renting vs. buying. When I went dress shopping I realized very quickly that I had a bit more expensive taste. All the dresses that I loved were way beyond my budget. I quickly became frustrated and realized I would not be able to find the type of high end fashion that I was looking for, if I was going to buy the dress. Instead, I decided to check out a rental shop nearby, and I found that I had way more options for high end styled dresses that were well within my budget.

Renting made the most sense for me, but overall you have to ask yourself what your priorities, budget, and timeline are to really decide what is going to be the best option for you.