The greatest tragedy during my wedding planning was when someone else bought my wedding dress. Or, more specifically, when someone bought the Valentino dress I had been obsessively watching on vintage dealer Shrimpton Couture’s website and considered mine—even though my then-boyfriend Gustavo was months out from proposing. When I saw that the dress had sold, my heart broke into a million pieces.
So when Gustavo popped the question on a mountaintop in Mallorca some months later, I wasted no time setting alerts on eBay, Vestiaire Collective, and The RealReal for white dresses in my size. Two years prior, I read about Chloe Kernaghan’s stunning Azzaro wedding dress and since then, I’ve followed a handful of vintage designer boutiques on Instagram, waiting for the moment when I got to hunt for a treasure of my own.
Shortly into my vintage bridal search, I realized two things. One: I needed to be realistic about what I liked and what looked good on me instead of only looking for certain brands. Even though I was drawn to silk slip dresses and body-hugging strapless gowns, what I really felt most comfortable in were higher necklines and A-line skirts. Second, while I loved looking at dresses online, in reality, I needed to try things on. It was the latter insight that compelled me to book a vintage bridal appointment at Happy Isles, which had just opened an outpost in New York.
On the night before the appointment, a wave of anxiety set in. I’ve swung out vintage shopping many times before. With the ever-changing inventory, it can be completely hit or miss. This shopping excursion carried an additional pressure, as I had made it a full-on pilgrimage: my mom and I were flying in from Michigan for the $185 appointment. What if I couldn’t find anything I liked? Or, on the other hand, what if I did? This would be my first bridal appointment and while I wasn’t 100% sure if I was ready to buy a dress at the first place I went, I knew I needed to be. As the Valentino dress taught me, good vintage waits for no one.
My mom and I showed up at the Happy Isles showroom—which looked like Carrie Bradshaw’s closet, but better—electric with nerves. The two incredibly kind sales associates immediately put us at ease and the overflowing racks of cotton candy-esque tulle made it clear that a lack of options wasn’t going to be an issue. Filling my dressing room with 10 beautiful dresses to try, as soon as the sales associate pulled the zipper up on an ivory midi-dress with pleated shoulder pads, divine pearl cuffs, and a lace skirt, I knew that it was the one for me. The added bonus? The dress didn’t need even a touch of alterations.
That day, I learned that one of the unexpected benefits of shopping for a vintage wedding dress is that it forces you to be decisive. The perfectionist in me wanted a few more hours to consider the dress, but my appointment time was running out. As we wrapped up, the sales associate cautioned me that another bride was coming after me, and unless I reserved the dress, there was no way to prevent her from buying it. In the final moments of my visit, stressed and sweating, I put down the deposit. But after taking a breather, I knew in my gut that this dress was perfect. I immediately emailed the sales associate to say I wanted it, and arranged for the dress to be shipped to Michigan.
Picking earrings, shoes, and a bag was more of a treasure hunt than my one-and-done dress success. I knew I wanted to wear Carolina Herrera in some way, because my husband is Venezuelan—and I eventually found a pair of three-inch, golden Carolina Herrera earrings in the shape of a flower on eBay. For shoes, I found a fabulous pair of gold vintage Manolos on Vinted for $50. This would have been the end of the story, but one of my friends was closely watching the weather forecast for the wedding and brought me a pair of slingbacks she had ordered from Amazon as a just-in-case precaution for our wedding day.
Because I live in Scotland, the dress was in Michigan, and our wedding was in New York, it was only four days before the wedding that I was able to try everything on together. Taking the dress out of the bag, I crossed my fingers that I still liked it as much as I had four months before. We both breathed a sigh of relief when I put it back on and lit up in the same way as when I first tried it on. Then came the shoes, which were perfect. The final piece was the earrings. I clipped them on and took a step back in the full-length mirror, my mom holding her breath. The moment felt impossibly long as I took every piece in, suspense hanging in the air. “I love it!” I exclaimed, finally. My mom’s relief was palpable.
On the morning of our wedding, I got ready with my three best friends, my mom, and my grandma at the Greenwich Hotel. Sliding into my dress, I put my earrings on just in time for Gustavo to come up for our first look. I was so excited that I started jumping and flailing around—movements for which the outfit apparently had not been battle-tested. To my horror, one of my precious earrings slid right off and crashed to the floor, the clasp broken open. For a beat, everyone in the room froze and stared at the lone gold flower on the floor. Then chaos ensued. My friend Claire—who is a nurse practitioner and absolutely the person you want to have with you in an emergency—jumped into action. She scooped up the earring and began to try to fix it. Another friend started to fan me, like an ailing Victorian woman.
“Well, maybe you don’t need the earrings,” Claire suggested kindly. “I have to wear them,” I said. Without even a moment’s pause, I took out one of my stud earrings and pushed it through the clasp. “Just jam this in my ear,” I told Claire. The stud earrings would lock the clip-on earring into place, but would make the earring very heavy on my ear. “Isn’t that going to hurt?” she asked. “I don’t care!” I said, which was true. (My next option was to get super glue, which I was not afraid to do.) Note to any future vintage brides: make contingency plans around essential accessories.
The earrings lasted through our ceremony, but I’ll admit that at the party I swapped them out for a pearl pair that Claire had brought as a back-up. The shoes had also proven to be a bust. It had rained all day so I hadn’t been able to wear the Manolos anywhere but in our hotel room, not wanting to wreck them in the rain. But each of these stories became part of the wedding day lore about my stubbornness to stick to my secondhand commitment at all costs. Because each piece had required such an effort to procure, I spent my wedding day telling the stories of each item, and all the people who had made it possible, which felt like an expression of love in itself.
Now, when I look back on my wedding day, I think of all the days that led up to it too. The hours my friends spent sending me vintage listings. The special outing to Happy Isles with my mom. The kindness of Jose at Hamlet’s Vintage who moved mountains to repair a gold clutch just in time. Even though it was a hassle, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.
And there are other benefits to shopping second-hand for bridal than just having a one-of-a-kind outfit. Because I had gotten everything for a fraction of what it might have cost new at a designer boutique, I wasn’t stressed about things getting ruined. I could be less precious. When it rained all day, I didn’t panic when the dress got wet. I hugged everyone and ate messy arepas and cake. The look wasn’t trendy or exactly in style, but I felt exactly like me. And by doing everything secondhand, I got to put what really mattered first.