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When bride-to-be Amelia Nardinelli spotted an elegant Olivier Freine wedding dress at a shop in Great Neck, LI, in early 2004, she was taken by its classic silhouette and asymmetrical draping. She knew instantly it was “the one.”
She imagined gliding down the aisle in the dress, tulle underpinnings and all, during her Northern California ceremony. She imagined her fiancé’s eyes alighting on its elegant swoops of fabric. And she imagined carefully packing it away after her big day.
But she never imagined the dress would be unpacked, repacked and unpacked again, worn by three different brides (and counting!) over the next seven years. Forming a sort of “Sisterhood of the Traveling Wedding Dress,” Nardinelli has been passing her gown around to pals like a pair of blue jeans at a slumber party.
“It bonds you,” says Nardinelli, 31, whose mother grew up in Great Neck and whose family owns Kalmon Dolgin Affiliates Inc., an industrial real estate company in Brooklyn.
“It’s such a special item of clothing, and to share that with other women is a beautiful thing.”
Nardinelli is part of a small but growing group of brides who are begging, borrowing and lending gowns in order to save money on their big days — and, they say, to fortify lifelong friendships.
A survey last week of more than 900 Weddingbee.com users found that 64 percent of brides have considered borrowing or buying a used wedding dress. (Seventeen percent say they have worn or will definitely wear a used wedding dress.)
Loaning a pair of Levi’s jeans to a pal is one thing. But a designer wedding gown? That’s a white dress of a different color. Besides, aren’t betrothed women supposed to morph into monstrous bridezillas who wouldn’t share a bobby pin, let alone a wedding dress, with another bride?
“It just seemed like something that would bring me closer to the person I was doing it with,” says Nardinelli with a shrug.
“It’s the most meaningful and memorable piece of clothing I’ll ever wear, and to share it with such close friends is an honor.”
Nardinelli’s sisterhood began shortly after her wedding in June 2004. Her new co-worker and pal, Catherine Weis, was fretting over a frock for her nuptials the following April. During a lunch break at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco (where both women worked as graphic designers), Weis described her dream dress, lamenting its lofty price tag and asking Nardinelli for a second opinion. Nardinelli perked up — the dress Weis was describing sounded uncannily similar to her own.
Would Weis want to slip it on and see what she thought?
Well, sure. What did she have to lose?
“When I tried it on, I was taken away,” Weis, now 33, recalls breathlessly. “It was perfect.”
It was all hers, Nardinelli said. Her friend was free to borrow the $900 dress at no charge, save for dry cleaning and alteration fees.
“She’s a pretty sincere person, so there was no question that she meant to follow through if I decided to use it,” notes Weis.
But she still had one more tiny favor to ask.
“I wanted to add my own personal flair, and came up with a plan to add pink tulle as accents to the piece, and a bustle,” explains Weis.
Many brides would turn wedding-white at the thought of hot-pink splashing across their alabaster gowns. Not Nardinelli.
“I loved that she personalized it,” she says. “If anything, I wished I had thought to do that!”
(In fact, after the wedding, Weis removed the bustle, but left the pink tulle at Nardinelli’s request.)
But doesn’t watching someone else walk down the aisle in “your” dress (or dance perilously close to red wine, small children and frosting) induce fear and loathing in the lender?
“The only part that was a little tough was keeping my mouth shut at the wedding, when everyone was commenting on how beautiful her dress was,” says Nardinelli.
“But on that day it was absolutely hers — there wasn’t any awkwardness.”
As icing on their wedding cakes, the women’s husbands have now become BFFs, following their wives’ wedding-dress bonding. The foursome frequently meets for dinners, drinks and even vacations. “Like family,” says Weis, who now works as a graphic designer for Old Navy and runs an arts-events company, Local-Social.net.
But the dress train didn’t stop there. Last year, Weis’ friend, Anne Dimas, was struggling to find a gown for her upcoming Oakdale, Calif., wedding.
“Buying an expensive dress was not a priority,” says Dimas, a 33-year-old social worker.
“However, at the bridal shops, I fell in love with the structured dresses. I realized you can’t just buy a white dress and look as good as you do with a real wedding dress.”
Once again, Nardinelli played wedding fairy, offering Dimas her gown.
“When I tried it on, I loved it immediately,” says Dimas, echoing Weis’ exuberant reaction.
“It’s simple, classic, flattering and feminine.”
But Dimas had just one tiny favor to ask of Nardinelli: “There was some hot pink fabric that I knew I would remove,” she says. To each bride her own.
In June of last year, after only $90 in alterations and cleaning, Dimas became the third bride to don the traveling dress.
“It gives me great satisfaction to have worn a dress that I loved, to have gotten such a great deal on it and also become closer to a friend,” she says. “It made me sort of the opposite of a bridezilla.”
Meanwhile, Nardinelli’s still racking up the good karma. “Actually, my brother-in-law is getting married, and my future sister-in-law was interested in trying the dress,” she laughs. “I found that hysterical — I could not believe a fourth person might be wearing it!”
Turns out the dress was the wrong size. But Nardinelli has three single female cousins back in New York, and “if one of them wanted to wear the dress, I would lend it to them, absolutely,” she says. Are you reading, cousins? That wedding gown is burning a hole in your relative’s closet.
GOWN-GETTING GUIDELINES
Borrowing a wedding dress can be a tricky affair, even for the best of friends. For a smooth “something borrowed” exchange, try these gown-sharing guidelines:
* Pick your dress and lender wisely. “Keep communication open as to the alterations and cleanings and make sure she is OK with your agreement,” says bride Catherine Weis.
* Make the dress your own. “It’s a great idea if each bride customizes the dress a bit to her liking,” advises Amanda Halbrook, co-founder of 100LayerCake.com.
* Keep it clean. Halbrook recommends meticulous tailoring and cleanings between brides.
* Keep it green. Remind your FWB (friend with bridal gown) that recycling the dress is her wedding gift to you — and the environment.
* Have a plan in good times and in bad. “Agree on a fee in case something happens to the dress,” suggests Weis. “You never know about that red wine!”