Reader Casey D writes in with this great story about her $500 dress deal at Filene's sale:
Hello Denise and Alan,
I wanted to start off by thanking you for making such a wonderful
book! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!
Upon reading your book I understand that you like to hear success
stories so here we go!
Upon your books recommendation, I decided to check out the Filene's
Basement Running of the Brides in Chicago this past weekend. I did it
more for the fun experience than anything but kept an open mind while
I was there. I gathered my team of friends, Sister and Mom; we dressed
up like the Running of the Bulls in all white with red sashes around
the waist, red bandanna's around the neck and silly Spanish hats with
dingle berries. As the Bride, I dressed as the Bull in all brown with
giant plastic horns and a T-shirt that said "Bullzilla". Our costumes
were a hit and everyone loved us, most importantly the people who were
sponsoring the event, who handed me a $250 gift card to purchase my
dress with.
Though we arrived at 6am, the line was already wrapped around the
building. By the time we made it into the store, all the dresses were
taken off the racks and hoarded by the lucky brides who camped out at
who knows what time in the morning. The dresses we were able to get a
hold of were not very desirable and no one wanted to trade with us. It
was quite disappointing for the first couple of hours and we were
ready to leave empty handed and then people started putting dresses
back up on the racks and were more willing to give up what they didn't
want.
At about 10:30am is when things started getting good. We came across
more and more designer dresses, I was quite amazed at what we found.
Several Ramona Kaveza, Reem Acra, Paloma Blanca, Marisa, Amsale,
Priscilla of Boston and we even came across the coveted Vera Wang
among other designers. Many of the dresses were dirty or slightly
damaged but we found many that looked as if they had never been tried
on, even at this event.
We paired up with a really nice group from Texas. The bride was tall
like me with similar tastes and needed the same dress size. Both our
teams would find dresses separately and the two of us would swap with
each other when we found something good. Most of the brides there are
not friendly and won't even let you look at the 20 dresses they have
in their pile. We truly lucked out to find such nice women on the same
page as us.
At 11am, I found an amazing, brand new, $2500 Nicole Miller Dress.
(I've attached a picture of the dress from their website.) Someone
hung it back up on the rack and I dove to retrieve it within seconds
of spotting the beading detail. This dress was absolutely perfect, no
markings what so ever and is plenty big for me to get altered to fit.
The sale price was $500 but with my $250 gift card I paid a whopping
$250.
The best advise I can give about this event is don't bother to go
until 10am unless you plan to camp out the night before. The good
dresses will all still be there because no one wants to give them up.
There are very few purchases in the beginning because there are only a
few brides who have huge stacks that they won't share until they make
their purchase. Many brides give up and go home like we were about to
do. Late morning, the crowd thins out and more dresses become
available.
This event is about patience. The good dresses are there, you just
need to wait patiently with eyes open. The nicer dresses can be easily
spotted amongst the cheap ones if you know what to look for.
Thanks again for your wonderful book! I look forward the the baby
books when the time comes.
