We often hear from wedding dress sellers that part of the reason they decided to sell their gown was so that someone else could get as much joy from it as they it.  Rather than have the dress sit in the closet for 20 years, they want to share it with another bride now.

This gown recently sold on PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com and is currently enroute to its new owner.

If you are passing your dress to its second bride, here are the three things you should do to ensure that it gets to its new home safely.

1. Package it properly.
2. Insure it for the full value (its selling price, not the retail price).
3. Use a trackable shipping method and require a signature release.

Proper Packaging

1. Use a sturdy corrugated cardboard box. Boxes are rated according to “burst strength.”  Look for a box that is rated for 200-lbs-per-square-inch burst strength or the equivalent.
 (A reputable wedding dress cleaner is a good source for this).
2. Make sure you get a box that is the right size for your wedding dress. You want to ensure the dress doesn’t move around too much inside the box.  If the box is too big, fill extra space with tightly wadded kraft paper, peanuts or other materials.
3. Fold the gown as required and use plastic to cover it (for the unlikely, but possible event, that the box gets wet).
4. Seal the flaps and seams with strong mailing tape that is a minimum width of two inches.
5. Place the shipping label on top and avoid putting the label over a seam/closure or on top of the tape. Put a duplicate label (with a phone number) inside the box.

Often (but not always) online sellers ask their buyers to cover the shipping costs.  If you want to get a reliable estimate as to what that cost would be, use any one of these shipping cost calculators.

• USPS
• FedEx
• UPS

Here’s to one wedding dress being a part of two amazing weddings. (And two smart brides each paying less).

Evonne turned this:

Into these.

We hear so many stories from PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com sellers about why the decided to sell their wedding dress.  I just loved what Evonne (who sold her wedding dress in June) had to say about selling her gown.

“I absolutely loved my dress and I wanted someone else to enjoy it as much as I did.  I thought about passing it on to my daughter but I had so much fun choosing my dream dress, I would never want to pressure her to wear mine and miss out on the experience. I also live in NYC so I knew I didn’t have room to store the dress.

With the dress proceeds, I bought a pair of diamond earrings.  These I can wear over and over again to remember my wedding.  They are a true momento to pass to my daughter.”

Earrings (or something else you can enjoy on a daily basis) are such a better way to “preserve” your wedding dress than keeping it in the closet for years.

And Evonne giving those earrings to a daughter one day – perhaps on that daughter’s wedding day – is a modern and lovely template for a mother/ daughter wedding dress tradition.

Pre-Sale: Monique Lhuillier Meriah Available Apr. '11

Today’s brides view their wedding dresses differently than our mother’s generation.  While our moms carefully heirloomed and stored their gowns for future daughters, women today want to pass their dress along to another bride now.  And recoup some wedding costs in the process.

And if you’ve got your heart set on a more expensive wedding dress, pre-selling it is smart option.

Pre-Sale: Vera Wang Diana Available Sept. '10

Wedding dress pre-sale means a gown is listed for sale before it is worn by its first owner. The buyer and seller agree – in advance of the original wedding date – on a price, cleaning method, and shipping date.

For the seller, the advantage is knowing that the dress is sold (and money has been recouped), before she walks down the aisle.

For a buyer, the advantage is knowing when she can purchase the exact gown she is looking for, in her size, at a price she knows she can afford.

Wedding dresses that are going to be offered as pre-sale can be altered with that in mind. This means that the seamstress leaves extra fabric in the seams, or saves it, which will make any future alterations easier.

Pre-Sale: Enzoani Diana Available Oct. '10

Pre-sale brides will also wear their wedding dress with resale in mind.  Brides who have sold their gowns in advance will take even more care of the gown while wearing it to ensure that it is in excellent condition for the next bride.

On PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com – sellers can list their for sale until it sells.  So putting a gown up for pre-sale, gives it even more time to find its next happy bride.  And when two brides can share an amazing dress, at half the price, everyone wins.

You can see PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com in today’s print edition of the New York Times.  The article writes about a surprising trend that we’ve been noticing for a while now: Multiple Dress Brides.

These are brides who buy not one, but two, three, four, five, or in one case even seven (yes 7!) wedding dresses.  I’ve literally heard this same story from scores of brides.  And why the particulars vary from bride to bride, the common thread is usually that they jumped at a dress early in their engagement (either from sheer excitement or from sample sale – get it or it will be gone – pressure).

As their engagement progresses, they realize it what they thought was “The Dress” is really not.  So they buy another (and sometimes another, and another) until they get it right.

One bride, Heather, realized she would purchase a second dress when her sister asked her,  “are you more uncomfortable with spending the money on a second dress or with the idea of walking down the aisle in a gown you’re not in love with.” (Heather did end up buying another dress that she says was “truly meant for me”).

For sellers, buying more than one dress definitely adds to the stress level.  But for buyers, it can mean great savings on gowns that have never even been worn.  (Here are three examples of gowns for sale from Multiple Dress Brides).

1. Sample Carolina Herrera: $1700 ($4800 less than retail)
2. Sample Melissa Sweet: $1900 ($1950 less than retail)
3. Sample Alvina Valenta: $900 ($2600 less than retail)

And I’ve also had Multiple Dress Brides tell me that they don’t tell too many outside of their inner circle about their dress count.  But if you are a bride like this, I can tell you, you are definitely not alone