As featured in: July/2001 Great Deals

Make a wedding march to Here Comes the Bride in Addison, which sells hundreds of designer gowns and veils off the rack at 30 percent to 70 percent off suggested retail.

.....For bridal samples in the western suburbs try Here Comes the Bride (190 N. Swift Rd. Addison). The shop, which is open by appointment only, sells designer wedding gowns and veils. Designers include Richard Glasgow, Alvina Valenta, Monique Lhuillier, Mori Lee, and more. Hundreds of  gowns are in stock, sold off the rack at 30 to 70 percent off suggested retail. You will also find custom-made gowns that were never claimed,  in both current and recently discontinued styles.

 

January 28, 2004

Jennifer Koziol approached her search for a wedding dress with a rather contradictory economic formula.

"I have ver expensive tastes," said Koziol, 32, who is planning a June 25 wedding. "But there's no way I'd spend full price on a wedding gown."

Why not? Koziol, a former software designer, works as a wholesale home-decor buyer. "Now that I get all these wonderful things at discounted prices, paying full price for something doesn't appeal to me," she said.

Her age plays a role as well. "I'm not in my 20's anymore," Koziol said. "I realize you don't have to waste money if you don't want to."

Like other money-minded brides, Koziol focused not on designer salons or wedding-gown specialty shops, or even big department stores. Instead, she homed in on a handful of Chicago-area stores that sell sample dresses, new models by up-and-coming designers, or once worn dresses put on consignment by former brides.

"I think consumers today are just wise. They've been out there, they love to shop and they love to get a discount," said Rose Dedio, owner of Here Comes the Bride in Addison, who helped Koziol choose a silk, spaghetti-strap Vera Wang sheath.

Sample and consignment shops offer reasonably priced dresses that are usually one of a kind. Some sell "once-cuts," designers' prototypes for dresses that were never mass-produced.

But such shops won't work for every bride, said Dedio and other store owners. Shops won't hold gowns, so they're not for the undecided. And because they've been tried on or worn before, they're not for women who insist on a pristine dress.

Nor are they for women looking for a specific dress.

"You won't find the same dress; you'll find the same caliber dress," said Marcia McReynolds, who, along with business partner Sherry Suson owns Wedding Belles,  a sample and consignment shop in Barrington.

Finally, the stores aren't an alternative for perfectionists.

"There might be a small spot that nobody could see, and 99 percent of our customers couldn't care less" McReynolds said. "We're not the store for the other 1 percent."

At Here Comes the Bride, most of the customers are professionals in their late 20's or 30's. "They're a little older, a little more mature," Dedio said.

The store sells samples-the dresses that brides-to-be have tried on at the big name salons.

"It's all your high-end, all your couture," Dedio said, ticking off names such as Vera Wang and Ree Acra. The shop stocks about 600 dresses, mostly sizes 8 and 10 because they are samples, Dedio said. She buys discontinued lines to round out size selection.

Dedio also sells lingerie, veils, shoes and headpieces; the total out-the-door costs for most brides runs $1,00 to $2,000, Dedio said.

Koziol, who had seen her dress at a Vera Wang sample sale in New York, saved about $3,000 by visiting Dedio's shop (she paid $1,000).

Since she lucked into the dress her first day on the hunt, she saved many hours of shopping. "The only thing I gave up was looking at tons of dresses," she said.

At Weddings 826, a sample shop in Lincoln Park, the stock is ever-changing, said owner Elizabeth McConnell, who carries a selection of "once-cut" gowns. She also has some semi-custom gowns created by local designers, though she wouldn't name names.

Prices at Weddings 826 range from $700 to $3,000, with the average gown running $1,200. McConnell sells dresses by appointment only, and she suggested that customers bring a trusted friend along to help make the big decision. "We don't hold anything," she said.

Kelly Hamilton of I Do Designer Bridal Consignment in Chicago specializes in another sort of alternative dress:those already worn. Her collection of dresses, 80 percent of which are used, includes gowns from the 1930's (some of which come with photos of their original owners) all the way up to the 21st Century. Because older dresses tend to be cut small, Hamilton carries new dresses from Madeline, Ian Stewart and other designers so she can offer a variety of sizes.

The most popular are the minimally detailed, simple styles from the 30's and 40's, Hamilton said.

Gowns from the 80's tend to languish. "Some of the 1980's styles are coming back, but not in wedding dresses," Hamilton said. The traditional, ornate, high-necked gowns don't flatter many figures, she said. Those in doubt should muster a mental picture of the late Princess Diana's over-the-top confection.

At Cynthia's Consignments in Chicago, the selection is smaller-about 75 dresses at any given time-but they're all designer labels, said buyer Simone Hale. The store occasionally carries new dresses, consigned by women who bought not one but two dresses.

New the dresses cost $2,000 to $10,000; the price tag at Cynthia's reflects a 30% to 40% discount, Hale said. The store carries new and consigned shoes, veils and headpieces.

Her advice for successful consignment shopping: "Keep an open mind. We only have one of a kind;we can't order anything. Try on everything you can."

Brides not sold on the idea of wearing a recycled dress might consider having a dress custom-made. With prices averaging $1,600 to $2,200, custom doesn't represent much of a savings over designer stores, said Elda de la Rosa, whose Andersonville atelier specializes in wedding gowns.

The big benefit to custom? "Through the process, you have control and you have an idea what's really happening," de la Rosa said. "If you decide a V is too deep, you can change it."

She prefers four to six months to design and sew a dress, but has completed gowns in as little as two months.

De la Rosa likes to design her own dresses;she won't copy a photo torn from a bridal magazine. She suggested would-be customers shop the bridal salons first to get an idea of what they like or don't like.

She also has sample and stock dresses that sell for $400 to $1,700.

The Internet is also a source of wedding dresses. Sites such as Bridesave.com offer hundreds of dresses. And unlike salons but in the tradition of e-commerce, online stores usually accept returns.

For brides who plan to search for the dress of their dreams in cyberspace, Heather Vickery, owner of Greatest Expectations, a wedding consultancy in Chicago, offers a few guidelines:

Order the dress at least four months in advance to allow time for a Plan B if the dress doesn't work out. Don't buy it from a no-returns site. Make sure the site is reputable and has proper credit-card safety checks in place.

In lieu of buying a dress online, use wedding gown Web sites to bargain for a gown you love. That tactic worked for Pamela McCracken, a 25-year-old San Franciscan who got married in August.

After combing stores, McCraken narrowed her search to two dresses, one of which was an ivory, two-piece Maggie Sottero prices at $1,300. She e-mailed five online stores with the style number and asked for their prices.

She printed out the response with the lowest price, $850, and took it to the salon. To her delight the salon came close to matching the price.

"I didn't want to buy the dress online because it might be wrinkled and damaged, and I'd have to store it," McCraken said. "I ended up with the price of the Internet and the convenience of the store."

New life for "something old"

Traditionally, brides have their dresses dry-cleaned and packed for posterity in an acid-free cardboard box, a process that costs about $200. A practical (or unsentimental) bride might consider these options.

Recycle it

Kasey Burns of Chicago wore a wedding dress she bought at Here Comes the Bride in Addison. But she also was able, through recycling, to use the wedding dress that belonged to her grandmother, who died a year before Burns' October 2002 wedding.

Burns wanted a reminder, "but no a hokey one," of her grandmother at the wedding. So she had a wedding-day purse made of the vintage gown's ruffled train and lacy bodice.

Consign it

I Do Bridal Consignments, Wedding Belles and Cynthia's depend on the kindness of married ladies to clothe new brides in stylish, economical dresses.

"We have no difficulty selling gowns, but we have difficulty keeping them in stock," said Marcia McReynolds, co-owner of Wedding Belles.

Each shop offers consigners 50 percent of the sale prices, and gowns are usually priced at half of what the original owner paid. Sounds easy (and lucrative), but there are rules.

Cynthia's takes only flawless designer gowns (no spots, no stains) less that two years old. McReynolds said she accepts maybe two of every five dresses she sees. Kelly Hamilton of I Do accepts dresses that have been dry-cleaned and that are in immaculate condition. Because I Do features vintage gowns, Hamilton is a little more flexible, but she shies away from 1980's dresses. Due to their largely unflattering styles, "I couldn't give them away."

Donate it

The Brown Elephant Resale Shop on Halsted Street is just one place that accepts used wedding dresses. Charity-minded brides can claim a tax deduction of 25 percent to 30 percent of the gown's retail price, said Garth Borovicka, assistant manager. (Proceeds go to the Howard Brown Health Center.)

At any given time the shop has three to six gowns in stock. The buyers tend to be drag queens who use them for costumes, Borovicka said. "I bought one myself last Halloween," he said.

 

Expansion: Here Comes the Bride, recently expanded the shop to 2,000 square feet, twice its pr previous space.

The shop offers one-of-a-kind designer wedding gowns, veils and tiaras and discounted prices. The store carries new and recently discounted sample gowns. Brides-to-be don't have to order the gown, they can take it home that day.

The shop is open six days a week and appointments are preferred. For more information,
call (630)261-9950