I Ordered a Wedding Dress from China & This is What Happened

Okay, well I actually ordered two wedding dresses from China. 

Let me explain! It all started a few weeks after Joe and I got engaged. I'd been browsing wedding dresses online without any luck. My problem was that I didn't want to spend very much money on a wedding dress (it's just not that important to me) and after what I thought was a pretty thorough search, I wasn't really finding anything that I liked. 

To be honest, I don't really like wedding dresses in general. I'm not that into the color white for clothing and I never wear gowns or dresses that go past my shins. 

How I Ended Up Ordering a Wedding Dress from China

After a couple weeks of endless browsing and bloodshot eyes, I finally found one on Pinterest that I really liked! But as Pinterest annoyingly goes, what you find there may not be a current style; the photo could be from anywhere. I tried to find the source, but the link was dead. 

A few days later, I showed my sister the Pinterest photo of my dream wedding dress, and after a quick Google search of "short wedding dress with pockets", she found it. There it was: my dream wedding dress on DHgate.com. 

source: dhgate.com

I mean, right? This dress is adorable. It's short. It's destination. It has pockets. It's me!

So after showing Joe the dope dress I found for under $200 (we are untraditionally not keeping that stuff secret—get over it), I messaged the company and told them I'd like one size-2 dress in stark white, please. 

But did I stop at ordering just one wedding dress from China? Oh no, honey. I did not. 

I got greedy. I mean, I thought that I had finally found what I was looking for. I thought the motherload lay in cheap, overseas wedding dress companies. And in this alluring, lacy, white promise land, I found a second dress for under $200. 

source: aislestyle.co.uk

Lovely, no?

I figured I could maybe wear one for our kickoff dinner and one for the actual wedding. Or one for photos and one for the party. I thought I was soooooooo smart. 

After making the purchases, I did what I should have done before. I Googled "ordering wedding dress from China experiences". The dresses were going to be knockoffs from whoever the designers are, which didn't exactly surprise me. (And to be honest, I don't really care if my wedding dress is a knockoff, as long as it looks good and somewhat close to what it does in the photos.) Also, my sister told me her friend ordered her wedding dress from one of those sites and it looked totally great, so I felt somewhat optimistic.  

I thought the second dress was coming from Europe since the URL said ailestyle.co.uk......I figured "UK" meant that it was from the UK. Makes sense, right?

Nope! China again. 

Needless to say, the Internet had mixed reviews about cheap China wedding dresses, which made me panic a little. But at this point, it was time to play the waiting game. 

The first china wedding dress arrived in the mail and before even opening it, I was very afraid. It weighed at least 10 pounds, and you can't really be an easy, breezy bride when your dress and the camera add 10 pounds, can you? 

I opened it up and immediately knew that I'd made a mistake. It did not look like the photos. It did not fit. It was heavy as shit. It was not good. 

I e-mailed the company to see if I could return it, and sadly, I could not. But they did offer me $50 to make me feel better, so I don't completely hate them.

Then the second dress arrived. It was not good either. After e-mailing Aisle Style back-and-forth a few times trying to convince them via whiney bridal pleas and badly-lit photos that the dress was not as it appeared on their website, I got $0 back. 

So our wedding savings was down about $350, and I felt like a not-so-savvy bride for a week or two. 

Moral of the ordering a wedding dress from China story? Trust no one, Google everything. 

But don't worry. I do have a fierce plan for my wedding wear that I'll share with ya'll sooner or later.

I am Bride-chilla. Hear me purrrrrr.