HIRING A DRESS

Thousands of Brides each year choose to hire their wedding dress and forgo the expense of buying it.

Whilst there are perhaps certain disadvantages to doing so, it is fair to say that hiring a wedding dress is usually the cheapest way of getting hold of a top notch gown for your big day - let's face it, how else could you get hold of an original Vera Wang or Armani wedding dress for a few hundred pounds!

Wedding dress hire shops can be found all across the country, each offering a good range of styles and designs, typically with something to suit everyone. Invariably, you will only ever wear your your Wedding dress the once, so why spend a small fortune on something that will get such little use?

When it comes to hiring dresses there are a few things that Bride's need to be aware of. These things should in no way put you off going down the hiring route, and in the vast majority of cases bridal hire shops are more than a match for their bridal retail counterparts, but it is only prudent that they are pointed out up front.

Firstly, whilst hiring the dress is often considered to be the cheapest option, don’t accept this at face value - check out all of the terms and conditions before signing on the dotted line. For example, do they charge you for cleaning or alterations? What if you damage the dress on the day, or more importantly what if someone else damages your dress before your Wedding? Not all Wedding dress hire shops will be open and up-front about such costs, so make sure you ask or you could well end up paying more than if you had bought a dress outright!

The second thing is that the choice of dresses for hire is smaller than those to buy, so you will need to either shop till you drop, strike it lucky, or compromise. That said, Wedding dress hire shops will often stock dresses from discontinued lines at discount prices. Such dresses will be unable to be bought brand new and if you are struggling to pin down the dress of your dreams from shop selling gowns, then this may just provide the ideal solution - you may just find the Armani or Carolina Herrera wedding dress of your dreams!