Offer Your Marriage Outfit and Help Pay for the Honeymoon

Lorena Gallardo, 40, of Kansas City, Kan., listed the wedding gown she wore for her July 2 nuptials in the classifieds section of TheKnot.com over Labor Day weekend. She hopes the dress, for which she paid $1,400, plus tax and alterations, will fetch $900. "I am selling it because I don't need it anymore," says Gallardo, "and I don't have the space for it."

She's not alone. With the ink barely dry on their marriage certificates, and piles of thank-you notes yet to be written, many brides are wasting no time getting their summer wedding dresses on the block for fall gown-buying season, hoping to cash out on their substantial investment and eliminate a storage issue.

Tracy DiNunzio, founder of the RecycledBride.com, an online wedding marketplace, says an uptick in engagements over the summer spurs a surge of brides-to-be doing dress shopping in the fall, which makes it a great time to sell a used gown. The average selling price on her site is $450, which includes dresses from $50 to those that cost more than $10,000.
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Another reason to rush a wedding dress to market is to stay current with the fashion trends. Julie Jones, owner of couture consignment shop EncoreBridal.com, recommends that brides sell soon after the wedding so the designs don't become outdated. A dress from a 1998 wedding? Probably only worth its value in the raw material.

"The best time to sell a dress is in the first year after the wedding," says Jones. "That will get you the most money and the quickest sale." The gowns for sale in her shop have to pass strict muster. They are "walk-down-the-aisle clean"; are typically more than three years old; and are desirable designer labels, such as Vera Wang, Monique Lhullier or Oscar de la Renta, which cost at least $2,000 retail.

 As one of the most expensive dresses many women will ever wear, the wedding gown was once sacrosanct, and simply had to be saved. Special boxes, elaborate preservation techniques, and bestowing the dress on a daughter or niece are part and parcel of wedding gown tradition. Or if you're Adrienne Maloof, a star on the The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, you frame your gown in glass and put it on display, like a treasure from Versailles.

But today, with more online marketplaces available to resell gowns and other wedding gear, brides are increasingly selling the dress after the wedding. According to Brides.com, women spend more than $1,000 on average for a gown. There are well over 2 million weddings in the United States each year, which means steady stream of buyers and sellers for wedding dresses.