All About Selling Your Wedding Dress on Consignment
Calling all sustainably-minded former brides out there! Are you wondering what to do with your old wedding dress? Sell it on consignment and share the love with another blushing bride.
As a bridal shop in New Jersey that sells pre-owned wedding dresses, it's no shocker that one of the most frequently asked questions we get is "how does selling a wedding dress on consignment work?" A former blushing bride herself, Caitlin opened Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal to serve all brides-to-be in the market for an affordable, stylish, and sustainable designer wedding dress option.
So, if you're wondering what to do with your old wedding dress, going the consignment route can be your best bet. Selling your wedding dress on consignment mean that you can collect some of your investment back, all while getting your beautiful gown into the right hands. Like we say all the time, it’s a win-win!
Thinking of selling your wedding dress on consignment? It doesn’t have to be so complicated.
If the big day has passed and you're looking to sell your wedding dress, choosing the right consignment option is of course an important decision, and this is where Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal can help. Your local wedding dress consignment shop in Downtown Hammonton, South Jersey, we currently serve all brides-to-be in the Philadelphia and New Jersey area who are on the hunt for their perfect pre-owned wedding designer gown.
In this post, we lay out all you need to know about selling a wedding dress on consignment, including how much return on investment to expect if you sell your gown at our bridal boutique.
Why sell your old wedding dress? 3 major perks
Thinking of selling your old wedding gown? There’s so many great reasons for selling your pre-owned gown, and here’s a look at 3 big ones:
It’s a budget-friendly option
It’s sustainable
It’s practical
Curious to find out more? Let's dive a little deeper to discover how to sell your old wedding dress.
1. You get some of your wedding budget back
Are you a recent bride who may have gone a little over-budget when buying your gown? Oh, we know the feeling. Being such a special occasion, it's no surprise that your wedding dress purchase can take a decent chunk out of your wedding budget. But, it doesn’t have to be such a big blow to your budget.
According to the latest info, the average cost of a wedding dress in the USA is around $2,000. Not only that, the average wedding dress price varies by location, with the Philadelphia and New Jersey area being actually one of the most expensive places to buy a new wedding dress in the country.
To help brides-to-be combat those costs, lots of blogs will offer some budget-saving tips like buying wedding gowns made with synthetic fabric, but we think you can do better than that. Want to get some of your bridal gown investment back? Consign it. Selling your old wedding dress on consignment means that you can still invest in your perfect dress and feel like a princess on your wedding day.
We really can't help but emphasize the win-win of selling your wedding dress on consignment enough. The affordability factor is a big one here. If you sell your wedding dress on consignment at our bridal boutique, we’ll sell it for approximately 30% less of its original retail price. Once it's sold, we'll split the sale 60/40 with you. Or 50/50 in the cases of an older dress (2 to 4 years old). That's the best deal compared to other consignment shops out there that we know about.
Help other brides find their perfect gown on consignment.
2. Pre-loved bridal gowns are the sustainable option
Eco-friendly, green weddings, sustainable weddings, whatever you want to call it – sustainability is on people's minds.
And to us at Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal, ‘sustainable’ or ‘eco-friendly’ isn't just a buzz word. We truly believe that practicing sustainability is simply making practical decisions in your life. You want a wedding budget (or any budget in your life) that's sustainable, a world that's sustainable, a city…the list goes on.
Selling your old wedding dress plays a little (big) role in making the world go 'round in a more sustainable manner, because frankly, the facts behind fast fashion and wedding waste are no joke. For the amount of resources it takes to create these beauties, making sure that an expensive purchase like a wedding dress is used more than once can make a big difference.
So, whether you're an eco-conscious trend-setter or just a practical bride with a budget to consider, selling your wedding dress on consignment is the way to go.
3. It’s easy to consign with a local bridal shop
While many brides choose to sell their old wedding dress online on their own, selling your wedding dress on consignment does most of that legwork for you.
Going this route can mean endless hours online without even much of a guarantee that your dress will actually sell. You'll have to take care of tasks like taking pictures and videos of the dress, editing them, posting them and writing captions and tags, finding the best options online to show your dress, arranging meet-ups with potential buyers, and so on. That’s a lot of extra time and energy, right?
Selling pre-owned wedding dresses is our profession and frankly, a big passion of ours. Since opening in May of 2022, Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal has had a very high sell rate. We offer a personal experience at our bridal shop to all of the brides-to-be that walk through our door, and we do all the work for you when it comes to finding the best buyer for your gown. And like we said, when your wedding dress is sold, all you need to do is wait for the check!
These are just some of the major perks to selling your old wedding dress. Now, what about the process of consigning your gown?
Here's a little step-by-step guide on selling your wedding dress on consignment.
Consign your wedding dress in style at Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal boutique in Hammonton, New Jersey.
Selling a wedding dress on consignment in 5 simple steps
Because our specialty is selling lightly or never-worn pre-owned designer gowns, your wedding dress is in good hands with us at Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal. If you're thinking of selling your old wedding dress on consignment and you think we're the right fit, here are the simple steps of the process from start to finish.
1. Prepare your dress
First things first: Is your wedding dress consignment ready? Once you’ve made the decision to sell your old wedding dress, it’s important to make sure that it’s in good shape for another bride. The dress should be clean and presentable to be sold right off the rack. We also don’t accept any gowns with any strong smells or stains, so we definitely recommend inspecting for those and getting your gown professionally cleaned before meeting with us for a consultation.
2. Contact us and let’s chat
If you’re in or around the Hammonton area, you can make an appointment with us and we can have a serious chat about consigning your wedding dress. Or, simply email or call us first to see if your wedding dress can be sold at our boutique. In your email, please send us some pictures of your dress (close-up and full-length!) so that we have a good idea of what we’re working with. If you'd like an idea of the types of wedding gowns that we sell at our boutique, check out Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal’s Instagram page for some inspiration!
3. Bring in your wedding dress
This is the fun part! Bring in your old wedding dress to our bridal shop in Downtown Hammonton, New Jersey, and deliver your dress to be sold on consignment for another bride to cherish and enjoy. Remember that an appointment is required first, so check out our available time slots and pick the most convenient time to come see us.
4. Set the price
Ready to make a deal and sell your pre-owned dress? This is the part where we’ll have a conversation about how much we can sell your old wedding dress for and what your cut will be. Typically for ‘like-new’ wedding gowns we will price them at around 30% off the original retail price to be sold at our bridal shop.
If you’re selling a new wedding dress with us, our consignment share split is 50/50! If your wedding gown is from a bridal collection released in the past two years, the consignment split is 60/40. That is the best consignment deal out there that we know of.
Have any questions? You can read more about our consignment guidelines here.
How to sell your wedding dress on consignment: Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal
5. Wait for your dress to be sold and get paid
After you bring your used wedding dress in to our South Jersey boutique and we make a deal, all of your work is done! Our professional and passionate stylists work hard to help every bride-to-be that comes into our boutique find their perfect pre-owned wedding dress. Let us take care of the heavy lifting to sell your gown.
Once you're wedding dress is sold, we'll contact you directly within 24 hours of the sale and share the good news! Then you'll get a check for the agreed-upon amount mailed directly to you from us at Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal on the 1st or 15th of the month (whichever is the closer date to the sale). So get ready to recoup some of that wedding budget, or gift yourself a little post-wedding treat.
Ready to sell your wedding dress?
If you're in the South Jersey, Philadelphia, New York or anywhere in the Tri-State area, the journey to successfully selling your old wedding dress is just a short drive away. Start by contacting us by email or book an appointment at our bridal shop, and let's take it from there.
Ready to get on the consignment bandwagon? Contact us at Hand-Me-Gowns and see what we're all about.
Sustainably yours,
Hand-Me-Gowns Bridal
