There is no way on God’s Green Earth I would get in the way of any of those ladies.
There was a report about it on TV the other day and I had to turn the volume nearly all the way down. I just couldn’t stand the noise in the background as the reporter was doing her overview. I can’t even imagine being there in person. My ears are bleeding just thinking about it.
They do that story annually, and I thank god none of those women will ever be MY wife.
Doesn’t sound THAT much more insane than a typical mark-down morning at Filene’s Basement.
Oh, I don’t know- if my gal scored a $3000 wedding dress for $649, I’d be pretty pleased.
How many people were killed?
[Al Bundy] “Does wishing for death count?” [/Al Bundy]
Why does a wedding dress need to cost $649, let alone $3000? Are they that hard to make? Are they made out of gold?
I had mine made, and got a very good deal on the seamstress work, which cost $450. The materials cost me another $450, bought in the fabric district in Manhattan; I could have spent somewhat less, or lots, lots more. I know people who rented dresses for three times what I paid to have mine made, so I considered myself lucky to have gotten away with only spending $900. (Plus renting a veil and headpiece, plus getting it cleaned and preserved afterwards.)
Bear in mind that, for example, beading is still done by hand. Many dresses are beaded, which costs plenty. Silk and satin, are expensive, and you can easily pay $150-200/yard for high-quality lace, good cutwork or other complicated materials. (You need a bunch of yards to make a dress, although it depends how poofy it is, whether it has a train, etc.) Many people also pay tons of money for brand name dresses. It’s not something important to me, but you can spend thousands of dollars on a Vera Wang, or another name-brand designer dress. Many women feel like this is Their Day, and they should look as fabulous as possible in a designer gown.
You can find much cheaper wedding dresses, but they tend to be of cheap materials and not fit that well.
Pamplona is an apt analogy (although it looks like a pleasant stroll, compared to this spectacle)
Can someone explain a few things…
Are these women typically buying more than one garment each?
Wouldn’t the dresses be ruined by this sort of manhandling? (one photo, for example, shows a man sitting on a pile of bunched-up bagged dresses)
“The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.” – Sam Spade
Curiously, no matter how long it sits on the rack it evaporates shortly after the ceremony is finished; shades of The Man In The White Suit. Then you’re just left with a hangover, a checkbook-sucking morgage, and debt payments equivilent to the annual operating expenses of an aircraft carrier on a lump of allotropic carbon the size of a pea. And this is if it works out.
Actually, these pictures remind me of a Romero zombie flick. That might make a good premise for his next film; call it Bride of the Living Dead.
Stranger
I think they’re just snagging as many as possible in the style/price range/size range, to then be winnowed down through trying on. But the idea that someone else might snag THEIR PERFECT GOWN is what makes them all so frickin’ hyper, I’m guessing.
As for the treatment, most of them will need to be altered, then cleaned/steamed/pressed before they are worn anyway. The only thing that would be a major problem would be a tear.
As was mentioned earlier they do this every year, and the dresses survive quite well. Since they probably all have to be fitted it’s not a big deal to fix up a few small tears if they occur.
People grab as many dresses as they can to start off with (teams of people, really) and then start trying them on. The more dresses you control, the better position you are in to trade and swap with other teams for “the right dress”. It’s actually a pretty good testing ground for some types of game theory.
Heh, I didn’t even have to open the article to know it was about Filene’s annual wedding dress sale. Scary scary image. The did a decent sendup of the concept on Friends that was really funny.
That spectacle is my personal version of hell. You’d think there’d be better ways of organizing the thing than such a chaotic free-for-all. Are the dresses even organized by size? What a ridiculous way to find clothing!
Doesn’t really look all that different from your average sample sale.
I once saw a full on hair-pulling, nail-scratching cat fight break out over a bin of $10 handbags at a Puma sample sale… and don’t get me started on the insanity that is the bi-annual Lululemon sample sale - you don’t want to be standing between a gym bunny and the perfect pair of size 2 yoga pants when she spots them, trust me. Oy!
But are there better ways of obtaining annual free international advertising?