Darcy Wintonyk and Lynda Steele, ctvbc.caPublished Wednesday, May 30, 2012 3:19PM PDT
If you're planning to say "I do" this summer but don't accept a lot of money, there are abundant means to cut costs on your conjugal gown, including renting the dress or opting for a white bridesmaid apron instead.
With the bill of an boilerplate Canadian bells aerial about the $30,000 mark, a conjugal attitude accepted in abounding genitalia of Asia is accepting absorption actuality in B.C. – rental gowns.
Japanese pediatrician Junko Yamanaka, who is accomplishing blight analysis in Germany, chose to hire a dress afore marrying her Canadian-born fiancé Scott in Vancouver's Stanley Park.
She came to Amara Bells in Richmond to acquisition the dress of her dreams, aloof bristles canicule afore the ceremony.
"In Japan abounding brides borrow the dresses, and you can aloof acquisition so abounding kinds of dresses, and you can acquisition the one that you absolutely like. So I anticipate it's a acceptable system," Yamanaka told CTV's Steele on Your Side.
Wedding advertisement WeddingBelles says that acceptable gowns accept accomplished prices of about $2,200, while a simple dress can run $1,275.
At Amara, brides accept from a big alternative of rental gowns, best amid $400 and $600. The dress, veil, crinoline and dry charwoman are included in the rental price.
Even the best big-ticket rental gowns are beneath than $1,000 -- accumulation that can be acclimated for the couple's future, says abundance administrator Miwako Ozawa.
"You can use the money you adored for your amusement or the bottomward acquittal for your aboriginal house," she said.
The boutique additionally does cape rentals, photography casework and architecture application, authoritative it a one-stop boutique for a active couple.
The convenance of clothes rental is already actual accepted in Japan and Korea, Ozawa said, because brides feel it's careless to accept a bells dress sit in the closet unused, and beneath allowance to abundance the gowns.
She said added Caucasian brides are now communicable on to the trend, but for altered reasons: "They see it as a acute and accessible way to save money -- and they appetite to be green. It's added environmentally affable – instead of abandoned cutting a dress one time."
Many brides on a account who are ashore on affairs the clothes are opting for a white bridesmaid dress instead of a acceptable gown.
Catherine Staveley, co-owner of Frocks Modern Bridesmaids, Vancouver's abandoned abundance committed to bridesmaid dresses, say 95 per cent of their dresses appear in white.
The bridesmaid frocks are hundreds of dollars cheaper and generally fabricated by the aforementioned designers that accomplish bells gowns.
While a 100-per-cent silk, glassy and ache check conjugal clothes sells in the boutique for $1,400, the about identical 100-per-cent cottony charmeuse bridesmaid adaptation retails for $900.
"The accumulation are huge and they can still attending gorgeous," Staveley said.
"You lose the alternation a lot of the time but a lot of brides who are attractive for a backyard bells or a simple destination wedding, they don't appetite the alternation anyway."
The boilerplate amount for a short, white bridesmaid dress is about $500 to $600, while a best adaptation retails for $600 to $900. Some white bridesmaid dresses amount added than their coloured counterparts because of the call of a thicker lining. Sometimes white dresses are bogus in a abstracted ability to ensure they don't appear into acquaintance with any bolt dyes.
There will be an estimated 158,000 weddings in Canada this year alone.
Watch CTV tonight for a abounding address from Lynda Steele to acquisition out how you can amplitude your bells dress budget. And appear aback tomorrow for added money extenuative bells tips, including how to use a affected cake…
Have your say: Would you hire a bells gown?
