Hello everyone! I just HAD to share this with you!So my fiance and I have been engaged for some time and we finally set a concrete date a couple months ago. Since then i've been going insane with all the preperations. I've only been to one wedding and that was a long time ago so i'm totally new to everything i'm doing.

I went to David's Bridal and tried on two dresses and thought i'd found the one... THE dress... I had to settle on the one I chose due to monetary constraints. Thankfully I haven't bought it yet. I was looking on Ebay the other day (i know i know.. not the most reputable place to buy clothing sometimes). And I found a person that is based in China (again not the most fantastic) but the prices are phonomenal and the dresses are custom.. I send in my measurements and they create the dress to those specifications. My dress through David's Bridal was going to end up being about 450 with the dress, slip and corset. For a dress I'm only going to wear once I wasn't thrilled. But on Ebay I found the dress I was REALLY wanting in the D.B. catilogue that was about 650.00 without the corset and slip. It comes with the corset (might be built into the dress) and the slip is an extra 15 bucks.. So total it is going to cost me about 175.00 for the dress of my dreams. That includes shipping. For that price i'm willing to try Ebay. It's not a used dress and it's custom.. I nearly cried when I found it.. I wanted to share this with all the other engaged people on here as an alternative to the costly dresses that you then have to alter. And considering all the negative things I had read about online for D.B. I was really not wanting to go through them unless I absolutely had to. The Ebay online store for this place is April Bridal http://stores.ebay.com/April-Bridal And it appears that they have good feedback.. 26 neg and over 1600 posetive... In a world where a woman buys a dress to wear only once it is aweful to have to pay a months rent for it.

Good luck to everyone engaged and congrats to all those married!

Here is a picture of the dress I found..
[Picture deleted for copyright reasons ~ a link will be added. PDM]

Congrats!

Found my dress already. It was from DB and we paid 450 for it. Much less than any of my other friends dresses. They all paid 1000 plus... Which is RIDICULOUS to me. 450 is a little much for me too, but its GORGEOUS! Now I just gotta fit into it...

yaaay congrats thats an aweosme deal:)

my friend had this dress exactly:) and she had a long coat made to go over it that was long as the dress and had the red embroidery even it looked awesome it was a christmas wedding outside:)

the dress is gorgeous

i like how, its traditional but has the burgandy in the back

The nice thing is that since it's customized you can change the color of the accent.. it could be gold or baby blue or whatever you want.... could even have it all white... But i'm going to keep it red...

that is a really pretty dress hope everything turns out ok for you. I can remember my dress (over 40 years ago) It was a sample dress for people to try on we got it for $75 and my mom is a seamstress so she did all the alterations on it. I loved it but I do have a funny story about it. I'll post it in the funny story section.

Wow, very nice dress! Nice. The back is just gorgeous Congrats.

Peanut and Bella, it's a beautiful dress, but unless you took the photo, or have permission from the person who took the photo, it cannot be posted on this site.
Sorry, but without permission it is illegal.

Please let me know, asap, if you have permission.

Thanks!

Here is a link to the ebay listing. I asked permission to get the photo but not to post it on the site.. I stupidly thought that it would be ok If i left their tag on it.. Sorry!! the link is
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110208107718&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

It's expired but it's constantly relisted and I think it will still be viewable for a while..

i love the color you picked, but are you goin to have your briadsmaids and the color of your wedding mathcing?

Make sure the dress comes in on time! =P

I wouldn't do it, buying a dress on e-bay, hehe, but congrats! ^-^ They sure do get costly!

I am a professional seamstress and have been working with brides and making corsets for years. I also "fix" BIG PROBLEMS they have with places like David's and e-bay....I was just wondering how it is going with this dress.
I love it but have seen it several times in stores and magazines...so I was wondering how it was "custom made".
I custom make dresses, women come to my studio and it can take several fittings to get it right...so I just wondered...(ps. I have made amazing dresses for as little as $100 you just have to know were to find a good seamstress...we are a dieing breed!!!)
By the way, I got married my last Dec and I WORE RED!!!!! NO WHITE!!!!!...it was perfect for Christmas...I wore a corest under my dress and my aunt said it looked like I was poured into it...but it fit perfectly and I felt so sexy.......

Hey, anybody out there who's the right size for the try-on sample dresses to fit pretty well, if you want a bargain or just need your dress in less than the ridiculous 6-month lead time they demand (or however long it is nowadays), go ahead and ask the store(s) if they sell those off the rack. If you buy the try-on sample, you will usually get it at a good discount. And you can take it home right then, if you want.

Obviously, you will have to look the dress over carefully to make sure it has no damage. But you could luck out and get the dress for half price, or sometimes even less.

I got mine that way, since I was lucky enough to be a size 10. And if I had bought a dress for the same price at David's, it wouldn't have been anywhere near the quality of the one I did buy.