A dress shop worker’s tips on how to get a better deal on your wedding dress
I’m a retail worker in the bridal industry in Australia, and I’m also a bride myself. Everyone wants a better deal on their dress, and for those of you shopping at brick and mortar dress shops, I wanted to offer some tips about how to talk to retail workers if you want to negotiate the price of your wedding dress down… from someone who works in the industry and knows.
Don’t tell my boss, but I want you to get a better deal!
My biggest wedding regret: don’t let someone else pay for your wedding!
It’s for me to hard to look at my wedding photos, because of wedding regrets. I have many regrets, but my biggest golden kernel of advice to couples is this: Never, never EVER let someone else pay for your wedding.
Not if you’re marrying a trust funder, not if your parents are insisting, not if you can’t pay yourself. Save up your dollars and have an extended engagement, then use those cold hard Benjamins to have the wedding YOU want.
I am planning a pre-invitation survey to get a guest list headcount. Will this work?
I have been scouring all the posts and comments threads about RSVPs and guest lists, and haven’t seen an answer to a tricky question. How do you deal with guest list ambiguity when you live in an extremely expensive area, 2/3 of your desired invites are from out of town, and venues require guaranteed minimums on catering?
Is it over okay to make a survey for your friends and family to gauge best-guesses for will they/won’t theys for a wedding a year and a half or two years away?
Bait-and-switch brides: would you lie to vendors to get a better deal?
If you’re planning a wedding, you’ve probably realized just how much wedding vendors will mark up their prices when they know it’s for a wedding. You may be pretty peeved that you’re having to pay a “wedding tax” for something that would cost less on any other kind of occasion. But in most cases, these extra costs are incurred with good reason. Despite this, some couples are trying to snag a better deal from their vendors by withholding the fact that the service will be used for a wedding instead of, say, a vow renewal, family party, or similar. We’ve heard these called “bait-and-switch brides.”