Wedding Dress and Wedding Photography

Lrd1985 on 12/08/2014 - 21:38
Last edited 12/08/2014 - 22:03 by 1 other user

Hi All,

We’re planning to get married in October/November. It's a small wedding with family and a very small number of close friends.

I need advice on wedding dresses. I like a particular Spanish design that’s around $2,000-$2,500 before alterations. This seems a bit much for just one use, so I want to investigate the possibility of selling it second hand (for half price?), or getting it modified to be a ball gown.

Alternatively, I could try to buy a gown that can double up as a wedding dress, but these are still $1,000+.

What’s your experience with wedding dresses and advice now that you’ve been through it all?

• Budget considerations
• Defraying the cost and what would the cost of this be (e.g. modifying the dress to be a ball gown); what could I realistically resell the dress for?
• Alternatives to the traditional white dress?

I live on the North Shore of Sydney close to Chatswood.

Many thanks for your help.

---

I also need advice on wedding photography. Can you please give me some guidance on wedding photography considerations such as cost/pricing structure and level of service, including any recommendations, and what to look out for when choosing one? And anything else you can think of.

Many thanks for your help.

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  nimnomnimy on 12/08/2014 - 22:33

  Regarding wedding photographer, interview a few, look at the top names in the aipp (usually a good start) and try to get them to give you the raw images on a flash drive or disk so you can print as you like

  Edit- p.s congratulations. Pps. Get the dress you want and hand it down to the next generation maybe? $3000 isn't that much is the grand scheme of things if you can afford it

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    SirFlibbled on 13/08/2014 - 09:52

    Files is the key here. You hire them to take the photos but some of them hold your photos to ransom for high prices. Happened to my sister, she didn't read the contract. They paid about $2K for the photog only for him to then only provide them with 100 photos with his watermark on them. They had to pay an additional $1K for a 'package' which included jpgs of the photos and a wedding album of prints.

    If you've paid for their time to take the photos/fix them up, they should be able to provide the raw images on a dvd for no additional cost. If they want to upsell a package then they can but you shouldn't be held to it.

    For my wedding, I just had the photog for the ceremony and after shots not the reception. Cost significantly less and so many people have cameras at the reception we had hundreds photos (some great some not so great) to pick from.

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  ZippyRoo on 12/08/2014 - 22:34

  +1

  I bought my wedding dress on eBay from China for $300, and then sold it for $180. I realised after I placed the order that the dressmaker actually copied the design from a really expensive Spanish brand, so it was an extra plus for me. The sequins were all hand stitched and I think it will beat any $2000 gown you can buy locally in Australia. But it really depends on what you want, it is your wedding and something you'll do only once in life, so some people prefer to have a few fittings and have the dress altered to hug your body exactly. If there's any tips I can give you, it'll be try to choose a dress that's not too heavy! My dress weighed a few kilos so it was very difficult walking down the aisle and even the constant sitting and standing at church was a drag. :)

  Again with photographers, it really depends on what you want. I only hired the photographer during church and we then went to do some location shots in a park nearby. I didn't use any one during the reception, we just took our own photos and asked all the guests to send us their good photos from their cameras/phones. I also didn't order any albums from the photographer either, I just went with the digital option and printed my own photobook, lots of vouchers for those.

  Congrats and I'm sure you'll find the perfect dress.

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    maximum on 13/08/2014 - 20:49

    +1

    Plus 1 for this. I buy my formal dresses from ebay (around $300 ) make sure you measure right and they for like a glove. If you have a design you like you can contact them and they can often make the exact same for you. That being said my wedding dress was $50 from an op shop then custom beaded by my mother (don't tell my husband he still thinks it was thousands).
    For photos like everyone says make sure you check out the ownership. I won my wedding (but used it for my engagement party) and had a photography package included but they would have charged a fortune for prints. I found a guy in the local free paper who was must cheaper with all the rights. He did a great job and did my wedding as well.

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    TheBargainShopper on 01/03/2019 - 13:27

    Hi @jerrizhao,
    Can I ask who you used on eBay? I am currently looking as well and not so sure I want to spend $3000+ on a wedding dress!
    Cheers.

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  rd1985 on 19/08/2014 - 22:37

  Thanks for all the advice peeps.

  I went to try on a few wedding dresses - they all looked really pretty on the model but when I tried them on, it just felt a bit too over the top. So I've decided to opt for a bridesmaid dress from J.Crew (came to less than $500), which is formal enough but can also double up for an evening dress for future use.

  As for the photographer, we've looked around for some local ones. Will be meeting with a few, so will keep everyone posted if any are good value! :)

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    anawth on 07/01/2015 - 16:19

    How'd you go with photographers? I'm looking for a decent one now.

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      Puska on 15/01/2015 - 10:55

      with Videography,

      anyone had experience with Iconic Films? if so, how were they, and what are their rough prices?

    • 

      danyool on 16/01/2015 - 13:41

      +1

      @anawth - they might not see your post here. You could send them a Private message

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  richmond12 on 22/04/2015 - 12:31

  Anyone got any recomendations for video in Melb?

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  DarthAntz on 01/03/2019 - 13:37

  +1

  My wife bought two wedding dresses second hand, about $300 for both of them.

  Both wedding dresses got trashed, including one that had a coffee spilt all down the front of it, and the other got plenty of my footprints, mud and sand on it from the numerous photo locations.

  The coffee stained wedding dress we ended up using kitchen bleach on to restore it to its natural beauty, and sold it for the same price we paid for it.

  What we paid and the memories/stories that came from it, was priceless. Looking back we can afford to do it again, a fwe times. And for photos, we had two friends with cameras, one an iphone, the other a DLSR, and we organised an hour or two to get a bunch of photos taken in numerous locations. iphone/camera phone was handy because we could easily switch between black and white etc, and we had plenty of time. out of 700 photos, 30 of them were awesome.

  This is ozbargain