And they all lived happily ever after ... with the princess peddling her wedding dress a few years later for a pittance of what she paid for it. The dress was just taking up room in her closet. She was never going to put it on again, and her daughter wasn't going to wear it anyway.
That is how the story really ends for many women; well, maybe not the "happily" part, either. But dress disposal is a commonly whispered postscript to the princess-wedding fantasy.
Brides-to-be often start thinking about their wedding dresses before their fiancés even get off of their knees in proposal, said Kelle Herring, owner of Beautiful Brides for Less, a downtown Vancouver bridal shop. Brides spend hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of dollars on a gown that rarely is worn more than once. This tailleur surplus typically is borne by the undersides of beds, or corners of closets, or attics.
This weekend at the Clark County Wedding Expo, many of those dresses will be on display and available for a new generation of brides to fulfill their wedding fantasies.
Event organizer Matt Ferris acknowledges he doesn't know much about wedding dresses, but he thought there must be untapped potential in them and created a consignment sale. He expects hundreds of dresses to be bought at the event and then reused, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Virtually all of these dresses will be white, Herring predicts, an homage to Queen Victoria's choice of hue in 1840, when she married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. Before Victoria, wedding dresses could be any color. Within the decade, though, sources such as "Godey's Lady's Book" were declaring: "Custom has decided, from the earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one."
Wedding dresses generally have been white since, except for some wartime rationing, and the occasional rogue "blush and bashful" scheme, a la the film "Steel Magnolias." Dress consultant Herring said most newer gowns can be resold at about half of the retail price, with any item more than five years old dropping to 20 percent of retail or less, with few exceptions.Price doesn't matter
For some, the return on the investment doesn't really matter. Sisters Tanja Newton and Kristi Sullivan and one of their friends, Paula Deans, were among the first to drop off their dresses at the Clark County Fairgrounds earlier this week. The women -- all in their mid-30s, divorced, Columbia River High School graduates who live near each other in a Hazel Dell apartment complex -- had been lugging around the dresses for years, through many moves.
Newton heard about the sale, told the other two, and they decided to dump their old dresses together. Sullivan acknowledged dreaming about what her wedding gown would look like since she was young, and that she planned the entire event around that choice. Her two daughters, 4 and 5, for years have had her put on the dress whenever they played dress-up princesses together. So when she was packing the dress for sale, her girls were curious about what she was doing with the beautiful costume.
"It's hard to explain to children that age," she said. "They don't understand why I would be selling it."
Newton said even though she would like to get married again, she certainly wouldn't want to wear the same dress.
"It's getting rid of the emotional part, too," she said. She didn't flinch when Herring suggested a consignment price of $200.
After handing over her dress, their friend, Deans, commented, "This is bittersweet. You want to get rid of it, but you don't." Tough to let go
Nearby, Evy Curl was having different mixed emotions. The Vancouver resident, who has been married for nearly three decades, brought two dresses to the sale.
One was her own white wedding gown that her parents had custom-made by a seamstress in Mexico, when they were living in San Diego. The 50-year-old said the design is Eve of Milady, copied out of a bridal magazine. She had seen the same dress once on a rack in a bridal store for $3,000. Herring, offering volunteer pricing advice, said the distinctive '80s style and condition of the dress likely, unfortunately, ahem, wouldn't fetch any more than $100.
"Eeoow," Curl responded. "I can't do $100. It's a $3,000 gown. I just can't do it."
Herring countered, "How much would you like to sell it for?"
"I'd like to see $500," Curl said. "That's still less than I want for it."
"I know, I know."
"For $100, I might as well take it home and put it on Craigslist. Or donate it and use it as a tax write-off." "OK, you tell us the lowest price you'll take for it, and if it doesn't sell, it'll be here for you."
Unsold dresses can be returned to the owners or donated to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Curl thought that proposition over, while Herring looked at the other dress she had brought. That one was a 1949 blush dress, mostly tulle complemented by satin and lace, which Curl found at an estate sale last year in the West Hills of Portland. The dress, in near mint condition, was near belongings that included a photograph of the bride standing in the same dress in almost the exact spot where it was being sold more than half of a century later. The asking price: $25. Curl also asked if she could have the photograph, and the sellers tossed that in as well, for no charge.
Herring raved about the gown, "It's gorgeous. That's an extremely rare piece. Such a treasure. ... Why in the world didn't someone in that family want this?"
She suggested a price of $500. Herring watched skeptically as Curl priced her own dress at $500 as well. Curl explained, "I had hoped my daughter would want to wear it someday. I had it dry cleaned and kept it in a special box, under my bed."
Within the past few months, her 21-year-old daughter, Sarah, decided she would rather pick out her own dress and let her mother know that.
"I understood," Evy Curl said. "I'm a little sad, but she's her own person."
When Curl heard about the consignment sale, dubbed Get Rid of Your Gown, she thought it might be a way to fund her new dream, a jewelry business called From the Heart. Curl needs the money to hire a designer, this time to create a website.