The Wedding Dress Markup
Weddings! They are so expensive! I have come to that age where all my friends are getting married, so I have five weddings slated on my calendar this year, which means: plane tickets, hotels, gifts, parties, and a very sad bank account.
Of course the bride has it the worst. I mean, besides getting to marry the man of her dreams, or the woman of her dreams in select states, of course. But spending thousands of dollars on the perfect dress is stressful, and I am glad I won’t ever have to do that. But Planet Money’s Caitlin Kenney looks beautiful in that dress, and even more beautiful when she discovers that she totally got ripped off.
I know that if it were up to me, I would just choose one of these J. Crew dresses for less than a grand, and call it a day. Also, read that last sentence again because it will explain to you why no one will ever want to marry me.
No! Mike Dang! I (a female) chose one of those J.Crew dresses for under a grand (on sale for $225, actually) and I found someone to marry me! Wedding dress mark up is The Worst.
@wondajules Oh, I think those dresses are beautiful! (Okay, maybe me saying that is why no one will marry me). But my best friend got engaged, and I said, “ooooh, you should get a dress from J. Crew” and she said, “Oh god, they are so boring, you aren’t my best friend anymore.” This was the bad sequel to My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Yo, even if you’re a dress-wearing person getting married you don’t have to deal with that racket! The whole wedding industry is a total joke and a mess. In general y’all (“y’all” as in The Billboard and also “y’all” as in, just, like, “y’all”) might want to be aware of A Practical Wedding—lots of very very smart wedding-planning (and life-planning) advice, about money and budgets and everything else: http://apracticalwedding.com/. Apologies if I sound like a shill—I’m not, but the site kept my head screwed on straight when I was planning my wedding last year so I feel continually obliged to spread the good word.
@Rachael Maddux@twitter Ahh!!! That site is amazing!!!
I’m confused by why she thinks she got ripped off. The guy at B&J thinks that there is $500 of fabric in there (and that is him assuming a 50% discount) and there is $200 of labor.
Is a 400% markup on clothes too high? I can’t imagine any of the $60 shirts I buy at Anthro have more than $15 of materials and labor in them.
@Tuna Surprise I can’t tell if you are being serious? Because I can’t think of a single reason why any store should get away with charging 400% more than what an item is worth.
@tiptoemammal
Being totally serious. All retail items have markups in them. Do you think your iphone has $300 of raw materials plus labor in it?
When you get a $25 entree at a restaurant, do you think it has $25 of food and labor in it?
My wife married me in the J Crew wedding dress in 2005 when they were still selling it as a bridesmaid dress that happened to come in white and only charging like $250! Everyone should at least know they exist, just to know you have OPTIONS, yo.
At least as a dude you can get away with wearing the same suit to the 5 different weddings.