The secondhand wedding gown market says ‘I redo’

Four in 10 Americans tying the knot have previously been married, according to Pew Research data cited by the Washington Post. And now it seems that wedding dresses increasingly are making repeated trips to the altar, too.

White special-occasion and cocktail dresses from secondhand retailers have seen a 23% increase in sales this year compared to 2019, according to ThredUp data cited by CBS News.

Runaway train: While the wedding publication Brides noted that historically it’s been traditional for the bride’s family to pay for her gown, Sarah Ghabbour, who owns Loved Twice Bridal, a consignment shop in Beverly Hills, told CBS News that practice may be going the way of brides’ “love, cherish and obey,” vow.

“The girl who is shopping nowadays,” Ghabbour told CBS News, “she’s typically paying for the gown herself.”

While Brides found in 2020 that a wedding dress cost an average of $2,439, it emphasized that the range varies wildly; a 2022 feature highlighted brides who spent from $1,000 to $9,000.

Veiled threat: But the real cost may be to the environment. Ghabbour told CBS News a single wedding dress requires 2,300 gallons of water.

• Earth911 claims a silk wedding dress may require far more water than that, since a single yard of silk requires 2,542 gallons of water and a ballroom gown can require up to 10 yards of fabric.

“If you can make any kind of impact on your carbon footprint, and it’s in your wedding gown, why not?” Ghabbour told CBS News.

Note, however, that while the term “pre-loved” is common for secondhand wedding dresses, you’ll want to avoid that term when referring to the remarrying nuptials.