Wedding dress shopping may never go back to what it used to be.
Instead of collecting your entire bridal entourage to spend a few hours at a boutique trying on several dresses for the perfect find at a lofty price of a $1,000 or more, some retailers are offering to make the wedding dress hunt as easy breezy as buying a T-shirt off the rack.
Taking their cue from Millennials and Gen Zers who are turning stuffy traditions on their head and marking life’s milestones moments — such as weddings — in their own pared down way, a string of affordable fashion brands have jumped into the weddings industry to appease thrifty shoppers with inexpensive bridal wear.
Abercrombie, Forever 21, Boot Barn, Shein and Lulus, better known for their tank tops, shorts, ripped jeans, bikinis, cowboy boots and sparkly dresses tailor-made for Beyoncé and Taylor Swift concertgoers, are trying to dress brides for much less.
A couple exchanges rings during a Valentine’s Day wedding ceremony on the steps of the Miami-Dade County Courthouse on February 14, 2024, in Miami, Florida. Twenty couples tied the knot in an outdoor service conducted by the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts Marriage License Bureau. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The move isn’t a complete headscratcher. For one, it allows these mass-market brands to get their slice of the more than $100 billion US wedding industry, according to The Knot Worldwide, a wedding planning and vendor marketplace.
“These companies see bridal as a natural extension of their business given that they are already present in many of these product categories,” said Janine Stichter, managing director and consumer retail and lifestyle brands analyst with global financial services and market research firm BTIG.
Plus, many of their core customers are older GenZers and younger Millennials who are in the sweet spot age demographic for getting married and attending weddings, she said.
“The move into wedding wear makes sense so long as it’s not a distraction from their core business,” Stichter said.
One-stop-shop for jeans and a wedding dress
Teen favorite label Abercrombie & Fitch — which has undergone a major metamorphosis by shedding its overtly sexualized marketing strategy of the past to more on-trend, age-appropriate and parent-approved clothing — is continuing its evolution, by going after brides.
The retailer in March launched the A&F Wedding Shop, a collection of more than 100 pieces for brides, the bridal party and wedding guests, all priced from $80 to $150.
Beyond dresses, the collection includes items such as bikinis, pajamas and skirts for other events tied to the wedding.
“Our customers live for the long weekend, and when we asked them about their exciting upcoming getaways, we heard so many of them speak about wedding weekends, wedding-adjacent occasions, and the all-important question of what to wear, which this collection is perfectly designed to answer,” Carey Collins Krug, chief marketing officer of Abercrombie & Fitch Co., said in a statement announcing the launch.