When you first get engaged it is so exciting! The joy of getting to share the news with all of your family and friends, basking in the glow of being newly engaged and getting to show off that gorgeous new sparkly ring on your finger! Then you start thinking about what time of year you want to have your wedding and where. You start talking with your fiancé and possibly parents about the budget for your wedding day and that task can be daunting. Everyone has different budgets for their weddings and there is no right answer for how much you should spend on your wedding because that is a very personal choice. If you have never shopped for a wedding dress before you may not know what to budget but hopefully we can give you a little more of an idea on how much to plan on spending on your wedding dress.
We get questions often about what brides should budget for their dresses. Why do dresses cost what they do? Why are some dresses with more details less costly than other dresses?
The three main factors that go into pricing a wedding dress are fabric, details and construction. Sometimes it‘a hard to see but a simple dress with a more expensive fabric such as silk can be more expensive than a dress with lace and beading. For us in our store all of our dresses are hand made which gives them a higher quality level. Our most expensive dress at $2,100 is that expensive because the beadwork takes 100 hours to complete. So when thinking about what you want your wedding dress to look like, know that higher quality materials and labor are major factors in pricing on the dresses.
When thinking about how to budget for your wedding dress there are a few things to consider. First and foremost in our opinion your dress is the most important part of the day after the actual getting married part. That is not where you want to try to save money because it is going to be a part of your wedding day memories forever. The Knot published last year that the average wedding dress cost $1,600 and most budget calculators say you should plan on spending about 10% of your wedding budget on your wedding dress.
We truly understand that everyone's budgets are different and creating a budget that isn't stressful is the most important thing. Doing your research will help when shopping for your wedding dresses. Most stores will post the price ranges of their wedding dresses on their website. If you really want to shop at a certain shop wait and see if they do a sample sale where you might be able to score an off-the-rack dress at a lower price than if you ordered it. However, make sure when you are shopping that you are at a store that has dresses in your price range, because you don't want to get into a situation where you are at a bridal shop and accidently fall in a love with a dress well over your budget. There are shops out there with dresses in all budget ranges so just make sure to do your research before you head out shopping! For more information about the dresses in our store and the price ranges check out our FAQ page! https://www.melissaashleybrides.com/faq