Does “Discount” Mean Lack Of Quality In A Wedding Dress?



Vera Wang Wedding Gown
– 2010 Spring Collection

There’s often a mindset associated with the word “discount”, that being that the quality of an item isn’t quite up to standard. Truthfully, that does apply to many thing, but the other side of the coin is that discounted items can also be items of high quality. For instance, retail stores that sell televisions often discount them for special sales; does that mean those TVs have lost their quality, or is it just a push to sell more TVs?

The same kind of reasoning applies to discount wedding dresses. A Vera Wang gown is still a Vera Wang gown even if offered at a discount rate. Sure, it may now cost you $1,500 instead of the original $5,000, but that doesn’t mean the quality of the dress has fallen any. As a matter of fact, when it comes to discounted wedding dresses, there are many reasons why they might be discounted. Here are a few of those reasons:

1. The dresses might be used. Most brides only wear a wedding dress once, and these days fewer are keeping them for posterity. This means they’re either giving them away or selling them to someone so they can be sold to someone else later on. The bride isn’t going to get what she paid for her dress, but the retailer also knows they’re not going to get what the dress was originally worth either. Still, a $10,000 Reem Acra gown is worth a lot of money.

2. There might have been too many of a specific design made. A Badgley Mischka custom designed dress doesn’t necessarily mean “exclusive”, and sometimes a designer gown will have made more of a particular design than they were able to sell; the buying public can be fickle and unpredictable. Because designers and retail stores have to push inventory, sometimes these brand new dresses might be drastically discounted so they can make a little something out of them.

3. Pushing inventory across the board is very smart for all retailers, especially if they’re going to be getting in new products. The right price can convince a bride that a certain dress was made just for her, even if it wasn’t her choice when she walked in the store.

4. There might be a minor flaw somewhere. By minor, there might be one stitch that was sewn in the wrong direction, or something similar. To top designers, that’s a dress they wouldn’t want going out as one of their top named brands. Some designers have secondary brand names to push these dresses onto, and thus they’ll also offer them at lower rates. The quality overall is still the same, even with the one mistake.

There are many other reasons for discounting wedding dresses, but these few should indicate that many of these dresses are still of high quality and worth taking a look at.