Here comes the bride!

A friend of a friend has a daughter who is getting married next Labor Day and the hunt for the wedding dress in on! The budget for the gown? A whopping $5,000!

And since the first day of this shopping adventure coincided with the weekend I spent with my divorced sister, who spent a good portion of our time together picking my ex-CPA brain to help her re-group financially and ensure that she’ll be able to retire someday, well, it got me thinking…

Maybe every bride should consider slashing her wedding gown budget in half and investing the other half in a nice interest-bearing account that compounds daily.

Then, on her 25th wedding anniversary, she can celebrate her years of wedded bliss by buying herself something nice — like a Birkin bag.

But what if her marriage comes to a screeching halt midway to that 25th anniversary, you may ask. Well, then she could turn to her little nest egg to fund a trip to a tropical isle to drown her sorrows (and perhaps meet Husband #2 like that lucky lady who wrote Eat, Pray, Love.)

Of course, another option is simply to think outside the wedding gown box.

For instance, a business colleague recently confessed that his bride-to-be is renting her wedding dress when they marry next June. Sounds like a good idea, don’t you think?

Or, you could combine something old and something new and create your own design by grabbing today’s VPOD and attaching it to a lovely and classic sheath dress.

This antique lace train wedding train was handmade in the early part of the century and features floral Brussels bobbin lace with wide Duchesse lace borders.

It’s an exquisite find for a betrothed vintage fashionista!

Available at Vintage Textile.