What to Do When You Fall in Love With a Wedding Dress You Can’t Afford

Family fighting over weddings (and dresses) is a story as old as weddings. (Photo: Getty Images)

Whether you are planning a wedding, have done it before, or, um, just have a mother, you might be able to feel the pain of a bride-to-be who shared her plight on Reddit this week. “[M]y mom and I have always had a very, very rocky relationship,” effyocouch wrote, but since things are going well with her lately, she invited her mother along to go dress shopping for her 2017 wedding. When the writer told her David’s Bridal consultant her budget would be $300 to $400, “My mom butts in that ‘her’ budget is bigger, and lets look at up to $700. I’m taken aback and excited. My parents never gave any inkling that they were planning on helping financially at all.”

So, after much trying on dresses, effyocouch finds “the one,” and it happens to be $600. When it comes time to pay the deposit for the dress, the mother asked to put it off for the next day. “Then over dinner, she says to [Future Husband and me] that we need to talk about our finances for the dress. … And that’s when it hits me. She’s not paying for the dress. She never had any intention of paying for it.”

Oof. This is upsetting on so many levels. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Say Yes to the Dress, you’ve witnessed other brides-to-be falling in love with gowns that are hopelessly out of reach. Unfortunately, we can’t exactly help effyocouch with her difficult mother, but we’ve got some thoughts — and professional advice — on how to recover from this dress drama.

1. Avoid disappointment before it begins. This doesn’t apply to effyocouch, who got that big bait and switch, but consider her situation a warning for other ladies: Budget ahead of time. “I think a lot of people feel embarrassed by a budget and don’t feel comfortable setting that number, saying it out loud,” Kim Morrill, owner of Your Perfect Bridesmaid event planning in Portland, Ore., told Yahoo Beauty. “They think they’ll be judged, but it’s really quite the opposite. Wedding professionals as a whole completely understand the financial issues and actually see those lower budgets as a challenge. And who doesn’t love a professional challenge?”

2. Get your “something old.” If you’re shopping for something at a chain like David’s Bridal, chances are someone else has also fallen in love with this dress, and maybe she’s selling it on eBay. Time to let go of any superstitions or stigmas you might associate with used gowns and embrace the fact that there’s someone else out there with such great taste. Sample sales are often-cited sources of lightly worn gowns — if you happen to be a “sample” size. If you aren’t, there are also gown rental companies with larger and smaller sizes available.

3. Remember: There isn’t just one out there for you. Maybe this doesn’t hold true for your significant other, but it is absolutely the case for your gown. There are many talented fashion designers in the world, but there really are only so many ways you can design a wedding dress. Morrill’s clients have had a lot of success taking photos of their dream gowns to a local seamstress, who can make something similar for half the price by swapping out materials. “When you’re participating in that process, you have much more flexibility than when you’re buying something through a store,” she said. “That customization opportunity is really nice.”

Related: We Got Our Hands on Sofía Vergara’s Custom Wedding Day Lipstick

4. Adjust your budget. If you can enlist the help of a wedding planner, he or she can help you prioritize which elements you’re most attached to and which ones you don’t really need to match the perfect images on your Pinterest page. “That’s really a lot of our job, especially when it comes to disappointment,” Morrill said. If the gown exceeds your original budget, a professional can help figure out something else to trim … or help you come to terms that a gown is not more important to you than being able to invite your friends from college to the wedding.

5. Make this about you and your spouse-to-be. “Stay focused on what the day is about — the coming together of families and building that future with your significant lover, the love of your life, and not letting [the dress] affect the overall mood,” Morrill said. While the wedding-industrial complex has made this event into something else entirely, use this moment as a reminder of why you’re getting married in the first place. You weren’t wearing the perfect wedding gown when you met this person (we hope!) — and you don’t need it to mark the rest of your lives together.

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