Getting ready for the big day is not easy. From planning the whole celebration to sending out fancy invitations and picking up the most show-stealing wedding cake the guests have seen, there’s always too little time and too many things.
But no matter how the prep goes, there’s one thing you can’t really give your “I do” without, and it’s a wedding dress. And one social media influencer from New Zealand named Shannon decided to share her wedding dress haul with 3.14 million YouTube subscribers. Except they were all cheap and ordered online. And that’s a screaming red flag.
You’ve probably heard of the expectation vs. reality phenomenon: when a real item looks a far cry from how it’s advertised on the web. But Shannon is no rookie. “It took so long to figure out what dress was what because they usually take other designers’ dresses and pretend that’s their photo.” So let’s see how it all turned out, and you can already suspect it’s not gonna be picture-perfect.
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The Youtuber named Shannon ordered a bunch of cheap dresses online to see if any of them were good
The first thing Shannon tried was a super shimmery and glittery wedding dress for $30
But she said it made her look like “one of those Barbie dolls on top of the Christmas cake”
For most brides, picking out the perfect white wedding dress is one of the most exciting parts of planning a wedding. But in reality, it can be a really expensive purchase, and depending on your budget, the search can become rather daunting.
While Americans spend on average $33,391 for their weddings, with the venue and the engagement ring being the most expensive, the average wedding dress cost in 2019 was $1,600.
It also varies by region: for example, spending for the dress in the Mid-Atlantic reached almost $2k, while in the Midwest, it would set you back around $1.5k, according to the 2019 survey run by the Knot.
The second dress for $34 looked “similar-ish” to the picture online but the quality was not that good
Interestingly, the same data showed that couples who dress for a hometown wedding tend to spend much less than the ones who pick an international destination for the celebration. On average, they are happy to spend $2000 on their look.
But while splashing on your dream wedding dress may be truly tempting, some couples opt for more budget-friendly alternatives like renting one, buying a pre-owned dress, or selling it after the celebration is over.
This backless floral lace dress cost $16 and, according to Shannon, it’s not a bad option for whoever doesn’t want to spend much on their wedding dress
Many Youtubers have recently tried their luck at finding a cheap dress on online shopping destinations like Wish, Etsy, or Amazon. “This isn’t exactly a new trend,” lifestyle vlogger Tina Yong told Insider. “There are quite a few other videos from other creators buying products from Wish.”
Even if the price and quality ratio is not always the best, many were surprised to actually try on a nice-looking dress that would indeed work for their big day after some minor alterations.
In the picture, this $13 dress looked exactly like the one Shannon had, but in reality, it was totally different
This $23 deep-neck dress “looks kinda like the picture,” but it doesn’t sit nicely on the skin and is really thin
Shannon found this $16 chiffon dress really cute in pictures, and it was “kinda similar” in reality, but not exactly
This $25 embroidered dress has a beautiful silhouette and Shannon said it fit her as perfectly as she could have hoped for
This $40 dress made Shannon feel like Cinderella, but the bottom looked like a “marshmallow” and it didn’t quite fit her figure
This affordable $19 dress had a rating of 5/5 and looked very flowy in the picture, but when put on, Shannon felt a little “frumpy”
The $17 dress was “made terribly” but the Youtuber loved its beige color
Watch the part 1 video of Shannon trying out the wedding dresses under $40
And this is what people had to say about her cheap wedding dress haul
Some of these I think might be a body type situation more than the dress being the problem.
These websites steal pics of actually well-made dresses off the internet, then sell cheap, badly-made copies of them. It's no surprise they look terrible.
Agree, people should stop using Wish. People behind Wish even knowingly changed the reporting system to make it almost impossible to report these thieves and thus they can make easy money happily ever after.
Load More Replies...A dress displayed with a wired underskirt won't look the same on you when you don't have *surprise* a wired underskirt.
Even a 3000 Dollar dress looks different on a size XL or XXL than on XS or S size models on pictures
First, to save time and money read the customer comments for the item.No comment section means don't touch it. Don't just look under "wedding dress", try "formal dress" or even "party dress", many come in white or cream. Remember most are designed for the small, slim Asian woman. If you are tall and curvy keep that in mind. Don't go too cheap there are lovely quality dresses to be had for $100 to $200 which is still a lot cheaper than bridal boutiques in your own country.
Exactly! My wedding dress came from Wish, was $96 and was exactly what I expected. Even though there were no comments, I ordered, cos I know how to "read" the pics, bringing them to reality and my body type, even tho it was still quite a gamble. Also, it was not advertised as a wedding dress (nor it was white/cream). Was infinitely better then what I had found shopping around in high couture and bridal shops (considering my personal taste for style and color)
Load More Replies...Actually, they are made in countries where the cost of living is very low. Perhaps the wages there are low compared to where you live but so are rents, utilities and food. Don't jump to conclusions because the product appears cheap to you. Also, there are shoddy goods and quality made everywhere.
Load More Replies...Fast fashion doesn't work. When will people learn? Those dresses are terrible and cheap.
Thank you! Yes! What are people thinking? "Don't want to spend much on a wedding dress"?! 15 dollars for any garment is a pittance, when it's something as elaborate as a wedding dress it's just ridiculous. Anyone buying something that cheap ought to know that somewhere someone else payed the difference for their "bargain buy".
Load More Replies...The dress on you won't look like it looks on girls on the pictures if you are not like the girls on the pictures. While the girl has nothing to be ashamed of, she's twice the size.
Are we just going to ignore that these dresses most probably are made by slaves? Not cool.
As long as no one look too closely, they look pretty decent for the price
Not quite sure why there is a tangent running off towards sweatshops. It doesn't really add much value to this post because sweatshops isn't an exclusive problem to cheap Chinese retailers. Its usually tied to mass market fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara but even luxury brands like Gucci, Prada and YSL may not be that innocent either. Its an industrial-wide problem. Chinese retailers just skips the third party subsidiaries in the supply chain. I find unnecessary to demonise Chinese retailers with assumptions because for all we know, perhaps its a direct sale from the factory where they are not exploited by first world countries. Other than researching the individual brands and their ethical practices, the way to avoid sweatshops is to go to a bespoke tailor (but even then, who makes the fabric?).
In short:" I bought some cheap Chinese stuff and I wonder why they aren't of the same quality of the $3000 version in the US. Also I contributed again to the plastic soup and airpollution."
Why are you downvoted? Everything you said is 100% correct. People just want cheap s**t, they don't want to be confronted about the moral consequences of their choices.
Load More Replies...Y'all didn't actually read this did you? She had nice things to say about a lot of them, and I don't think she ever overlooked her own body shape.
These videos are fun but I think it's time to stop publicising Wish and similar sites further. Everyone knows by now that the quality is bad, it's not worth the ethical concerns of spending money on several dresses to make an entertaining youtube video.
I hate Wish. People buying s**t they will just have to throw away. It is not worth the time and labor someone put in (probably in a sweat shop) to make. People are being abused and working in unsafe conditions to product crap that is worthless. Drives me insane to see all of these cheap clothing manufactures mass producing items using pretty much slave labor for it just to be tossed into a landfill. It literally wasn't worth the effort to make it in the first place. Human suffering for absolutely no benefit other than a few select people making tons of money for sell garbage. And I do mean garbage because that is where all of this ends up. I hate it.
They're dresses from Wish. What did you expect? If you want to save money, go to a second hand store and check the dress section for wedding dresses and pay for alterations.
Women need to understand, unless they have a body like the model that is showing off the dress, they will not look like the model in the dress. You have to be realistic, if you’re a bigger woman don’t choose a dress modeled by a small woman.
That was not her point nor her expectations. Look at the dresses in both picture and compare them. They are different design because they are knock-offs. Sleeves, cut, color etc. There are several of these kinds of posts around now. As for buying clothes online it is always takinga chance because the models the sites use have particular measurements decided by the site and/or label. It is unlikely to be even close to ones own measurements. She is obviously well aware of both these things.
Load More Replies...When someone pays $14 for a wedding dress, seriously what in the hell are your actual expectations? Did you honest to God think it was going to show up look like and fit a $600 wedding dress? really? Are people this Gullible? No no one should get taken advantage of but for gods sake’s use a little common sense.
Easy, this Youtuber didn't have such high expectations? I would say she even have low expectations as she was pleasantly surprised by some of them and had nice things to say.
Load More Replies...Another solution would be to skip all the formalized, overpriced, and unnecessary paraphernalia and simplify things. Maybe skip the wedding altogether.
She's built absolutely nothing like any of the super skinny models, but she expects the dresses to look the same on her?? I can't fathom such silly "thinking" as that.
Regarding how ridiculously cheap these are I think they're not bad at all, you can have them altered a bit to fit better or change details and still save so much money, especially if you can do it yourself
i honestly think the dresses looked the same. she is being ungrateful. in a lot of pictures she looks really bored. i know that some of you think differently, but this is just me.😔
Why would anyone think they're going to get a drop dead gorgeous wedding dress online for fifty bucks or less? Yes, wish.com is shameless, but it's pretty obvious the dresses the models are wearing have been tailored to them specifically. So unless you look exactly like the model, I'm going to bet the dress isn't going to fit the same. It's just like with anything else, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
Nothing replaces the feel of a wearing a well made gown crafted with quality fabrics on your wedding day. Personally I would rather buy a better quality gown on the resale marker than a cheaply made gown from Wish. So many options for finding something nicer on a budget, just because a dress is white doesn't mean it's bridal quality. Think about vintage gowns that were hand crafted at home, families would do all they could to out their best materials into the gown. I'm sure this works for many people, but wearing a stiff, itchy or low quality dress on such an important occasion doesn't sound good to me.
Trying to be delicate here but she wants to look like the models in those photos. Her body type doesn’t fit most of the dresses hence why they look quite different on. Yes they’re from Wish so it’s not top quality but the dresses are pretty close to the pictures advertising them it’s the size that differs.
There does not seem to be a middle price. Either $40 or $1600 and up.
the problem for her is.....don't look a dress in a medium size when you need a XL... no offence, just be real.
More like don't look at a dress in small size when you need a medium size. Come on, she is not overweight by any standards. The models are super skinny.
Load More Replies...The woman looks totally different to the models. They are thin with small waists and the woman... is overweight with no waist definition. Plus, she isn't wearing proper underwear, tit tape, chicken fillets, etc. that one would normally wear to pull off dresses like that. You. Any make a comparison like this. It's like they've set out to do an unfair test to make some kind of a point but the bias is too obvious.
The woman is a lot bigger than the models on the pictures, but she is definately not overweight. She looks normal to me.
Load More Replies...I don't trust people who cover their face in make-up and then give fashion tips.
Do bare-faced people have better fashion sense or something?
Load More Replies...Some of these I think might be a body type situation more than the dress being the problem.
These websites steal pics of actually well-made dresses off the internet, then sell cheap, badly-made copies of them. It's no surprise they look terrible.
Agree, people should stop using Wish. People behind Wish even knowingly changed the reporting system to make it almost impossible to report these thieves and thus they can make easy money happily ever after.
Load More Replies...A dress displayed with a wired underskirt won't look the same on you when you don't have *surprise* a wired underskirt.
Even a 3000 Dollar dress looks different on a size XL or XXL than on XS or S size models on pictures
First, to save time and money read the customer comments for the item.No comment section means don't touch it. Don't just look under "wedding dress", try "formal dress" or even "party dress", many come in white or cream. Remember most are designed for the small, slim Asian woman. If you are tall and curvy keep that in mind. Don't go too cheap there are lovely quality dresses to be had for $100 to $200 which is still a lot cheaper than bridal boutiques in your own country.
Exactly! My wedding dress came from Wish, was $96 and was exactly what I expected. Even though there were no comments, I ordered, cos I know how to "read" the pics, bringing them to reality and my body type, even tho it was still quite a gamble. Also, it was not advertised as a wedding dress (nor it was white/cream). Was infinitely better then what I had found shopping around in high couture and bridal shops (considering my personal taste for style and color)
Load More Replies...Actually, they are made in countries where the cost of living is very low. Perhaps the wages there are low compared to where you live but so are rents, utilities and food. Don't jump to conclusions because the product appears cheap to you. Also, there are shoddy goods and quality made everywhere.
Load More Replies...Fast fashion doesn't work. When will people learn? Those dresses are terrible and cheap.
Thank you! Yes! What are people thinking? "Don't want to spend much on a wedding dress"?! 15 dollars for any garment is a pittance, when it's something as elaborate as a wedding dress it's just ridiculous. Anyone buying something that cheap ought to know that somewhere someone else payed the difference for their "bargain buy".
Load More Replies...The dress on you won't look like it looks on girls on the pictures if you are not like the girls on the pictures. While the girl has nothing to be ashamed of, she's twice the size.
Are we just going to ignore that these dresses most probably are made by slaves? Not cool.
As long as no one look too closely, they look pretty decent for the price
Not quite sure why there is a tangent running off towards sweatshops. It doesn't really add much value to this post because sweatshops isn't an exclusive problem to cheap Chinese retailers. Its usually tied to mass market fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara but even luxury brands like Gucci, Prada and YSL may not be that innocent either. Its an industrial-wide problem. Chinese retailers just skips the third party subsidiaries in the supply chain. I find unnecessary to demonise Chinese retailers with assumptions because for all we know, perhaps its a direct sale from the factory where they are not exploited by first world countries. Other than researching the individual brands and their ethical practices, the way to avoid sweatshops is to go to a bespoke tailor (but even then, who makes the fabric?).
In short:" I bought some cheap Chinese stuff and I wonder why they aren't of the same quality of the $3000 version in the US. Also I contributed again to the plastic soup and airpollution."
Why are you downvoted? Everything you said is 100% correct. People just want cheap s**t, they don't want to be confronted about the moral consequences of their choices.
Load More Replies...Y'all didn't actually read this did you? She had nice things to say about a lot of them, and I don't think she ever overlooked her own body shape.
These videos are fun but I think it's time to stop publicising Wish and similar sites further. Everyone knows by now that the quality is bad, it's not worth the ethical concerns of spending money on several dresses to make an entertaining youtube video.
I hate Wish. People buying s**t they will just have to throw away. It is not worth the time and labor someone put in (probably in a sweat shop) to make. People are being abused and working in unsafe conditions to product crap that is worthless. Drives me insane to see all of these cheap clothing manufactures mass producing items using pretty much slave labor for it just to be tossed into a landfill. It literally wasn't worth the effort to make it in the first place. Human suffering for absolutely no benefit other than a few select people making tons of money for sell garbage. And I do mean garbage because that is where all of this ends up. I hate it.
They're dresses from Wish. What did you expect? If you want to save money, go to a second hand store and check the dress section for wedding dresses and pay for alterations.
Women need to understand, unless they have a body like the model that is showing off the dress, they will not look like the model in the dress. You have to be realistic, if you’re a bigger woman don’t choose a dress modeled by a small woman.
That was not her point nor her expectations. Look at the dresses in both picture and compare them. They are different design because they are knock-offs. Sleeves, cut, color etc. There are several of these kinds of posts around now. As for buying clothes online it is always takinga chance because the models the sites use have particular measurements decided by the site and/or label. It is unlikely to be even close to ones own measurements. She is obviously well aware of both these things.
Load More Replies...When someone pays $14 for a wedding dress, seriously what in the hell are your actual expectations? Did you honest to God think it was going to show up look like and fit a $600 wedding dress? really? Are people this Gullible? No no one should get taken advantage of but for gods sake’s use a little common sense.
Easy, this Youtuber didn't have such high expectations? I would say she even have low expectations as she was pleasantly surprised by some of them and had nice things to say.
Load More Replies...Another solution would be to skip all the formalized, overpriced, and unnecessary paraphernalia and simplify things. Maybe skip the wedding altogether.
She's built absolutely nothing like any of the super skinny models, but she expects the dresses to look the same on her?? I can't fathom such silly "thinking" as that.
Regarding how ridiculously cheap these are I think they're not bad at all, you can have them altered a bit to fit better or change details and still save so much money, especially if you can do it yourself
i honestly think the dresses looked the same. she is being ungrateful. in a lot of pictures she looks really bored. i know that some of you think differently, but this is just me.😔
Why would anyone think they're going to get a drop dead gorgeous wedding dress online for fifty bucks or less? Yes, wish.com is shameless, but it's pretty obvious the dresses the models are wearing have been tailored to them specifically. So unless you look exactly like the model, I'm going to bet the dress isn't going to fit the same. It's just like with anything else, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
Nothing replaces the feel of a wearing a well made gown crafted with quality fabrics on your wedding day. Personally I would rather buy a better quality gown on the resale marker than a cheaply made gown from Wish. So many options for finding something nicer on a budget, just because a dress is white doesn't mean it's bridal quality. Think about vintage gowns that were hand crafted at home, families would do all they could to out their best materials into the gown. I'm sure this works for many people, but wearing a stiff, itchy or low quality dress on such an important occasion doesn't sound good to me.
Trying to be delicate here but she wants to look like the models in those photos. Her body type doesn’t fit most of the dresses hence why they look quite different on. Yes they’re from Wish so it’s not top quality but the dresses are pretty close to the pictures advertising them it’s the size that differs.
There does not seem to be a middle price. Either $40 or $1600 and up.
the problem for her is.....don't look a dress in a medium size when you need a XL... no offence, just be real.
More like don't look at a dress in small size when you need a medium size. Come on, she is not overweight by any standards. The models are super skinny.
Load More Replies...The woman looks totally different to the models. They are thin with small waists and the woman... is overweight with no waist definition. Plus, she isn't wearing proper underwear, tit tape, chicken fillets, etc. that one would normally wear to pull off dresses like that. You. Any make a comparison like this. It's like they've set out to do an unfair test to make some kind of a point but the bias is too obvious.
The woman is a lot bigger than the models on the pictures, but she is definately not overweight. She looks normal to me.
Load More Replies...I don't trust people who cover their face in make-up and then give fashion tips.
Do bare-faced people have better fashion sense or something?
Load More Replies...
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