How To Consign Your Wedding Dress

On your wedding day, your gown was probably the most important thing (well, following your new spouse, of course!) on your mind. It took weeks to find, weeks of anticipating its delivery, more weeks of waiting for alterations, and then, in one single day, you affixed more love you thought you had for a garment to its lacy bodice, its flowing skirt, that beautiful back detail. This is a dress you can never let go, you thought to yourself as you spun around the dance floor. 

And then, as you tried to lovingly shove the unwieldy thing into your closet, your tune changed just a little: well, maybe I could find a new home for it. But where?

The answer is not offsite storage: it's consignment. We can sense your reticence, but hear us out.

Featuring our Lace Bodice Bridal Gown!

The Benefits of Consigning Bridal Gowns

There are truly no downsides to consigning your bridal gown. Zip, zero, nil. We challenge you to come up with one and tell us in the comments. We will genuinely update this blog post to include any reported downsides. Seriously, that's how passionately we feel about the consignment cause.

There are four serious benefits that we feel most adequately represents all of the good the act of consigning your wedding gown can do. These are:

• You are breaking the cycle of harmful production conditions that go into most new wedding gowns, including environmental impacts and unsafe or unfair working conditions,
• You are creating an opportunity to inject money back into your local economy; when your gown sells, you earn a portion, the salon with whom you are consigning earns a portion, and you save the person buying your gown up to thousands of dollars,
• You're able to reduce the clutter within your home and the guilt you might feel for keeping but never wearing your gown, and
• You're passing this garment, for which you have so much love and adoration, on to another person that will love it and enjoy it again, just as you did.

See? No downsides. But how do you prepare and consign your gown? It's pretty easy.

Find a Consignment Shop That You Love

The first step is creating a shortlist of consignment salons that you like and want to support. These should be companies that align with your values, and that makes you feel valuable as a consignor. This way, you'll never worry that your dress is going to a good home. 

Next, strike up a conversation with these companies! Get in touch which each salon on your short list and ask if they'd be interested in your gown. Ask, for bonus points, what would make your dress the most attractive to potential buyers. Is there a button missing from the back? Has a seam begun to come unstitched? Discuss these flaws with the shop and decide together if they're worth fixing. 

Next, take your gown to the cleaners to be professionally cleaned. Normally, your shop will be able to provide a recommendation if you don't already have a preference. You may be able to strike a deal with the salon if it is very costly to have the gown cleaned professionally, so be sure to ask!

Featuring photos from PracowniaMayflower and Tono And Co.

Consigning Your Bridal Gown

Once the gown is clean and mended if necessary, it's time for the hard part—saying goodbye. Put your dress on one more time, have a nice twirl, and remember all of the beautiful memories you have. Thank your dress, and bring it to your consignment shop to bring the same joy to other people. Have a little cry when you drop it off, it's all good.

To make sure you consign your gown successfully, most salons will ask you for photos and the details of the brand, model, and year. Luckily, all of these asks are super simple. Go through your wedding photos and find a few of your favourites to share with your salon. These should include:

• full body photographs,
• waist down to include the hem or train,
• the back closure, be it zipper or buttons,
• the front bodice, and
• any special detailing, like applique or beautiful lace or sequins.

These photographs from your wedding day will help other brides imagine the dress in its glory, looking the best it ever has, as it will for them too. 

Share the designer and name of the gown, and if you have them handy, all of the measurements pertaining to the gown's critical structure, including the waist, length, and bust, etc. With your blessing and all of this information, your gown is sure to find a beautiful home.

 

Consigning with La Laurel Bridal Consignment

If you found this post organically, we're glad you're here and we'd love to introduce ourselves as an option for your consignment journey.

We are La Laurel Bridal Consignment, a consignment business founded by two sisters and operated by a small female led team in beautiful Vancouver, BC. We have ten years in the bridal industry—and have even made our own gowns—before we realized that we had to change how we interacted with the bridal supply chain; however, we loved helping brides find their dream gowns. After much soul searching, La Laurel was created to fill this niche: low waste operations that still connect brides with the perfect dress.

Our specialty is feminine and ethereal gowns for the modern bride, including everything from dainty slip gowns for city hall elopements to dramatic ballgowns adorned with sequins and lace. Our passion lies in contributing to a more fair and sustainable bridal industry. 

If these values resonate with you, we'd love for you to get in touch. You can find out more about how to consign by clicking "Consign With Us" in our banner at the top of the page.

We can't wait to hear from you. Thank you for joining our little eco-friendly, pre-loved bridal revolution.