I love thrift shopping and often frequent the local Desert Industries thrift store (The Goodwill of Utah). Every time I go, I’m always surprised to see the different wedding dresses that were donated to the store. I wondered if you could buy everything you’d need right there for a wedding, and decided to give it a go. Through my experience, I learned that cheaper may not always be better, but I was surprised by all the things I found. Thrift stores are definitely worth a peak when planning a wedding.

Bohemian Wedding Dress $6

Every girl dreams of being a beautiful princess in a lovely gown on her wedding day, but they probably aren’t dreaming about the wedding dresses I found. There were three wedding dresses I tried on. They all had a 70s style but were in pretty good shape. The first two had long sleeves with puffy ball gown shoulders. They were pretty big on me, but looked like they could be altered into a more modern style with a little work and prayer. I liked the last one I put on best. It had a lace top and an easy moving skirt. In the back it could lace up. It did have shoulder padding, but that would be easily removable. Although it was also too big for me (I’m a couple inches tall of being a dwarf) I thought it’d be the easiest to alter to my size. It’s definitely a more bohemian look, but I actually felt pretty good about it.

Bride’s Maid Dresses, $6 Each

I knew looking for the bride’s maid dresses next would help me figure out a color scheme to the wedding. You really have to be easygoing to find things at the thrift store and make do with what you found. Sometimes, depending on the season, Desert Industries gets a lot of prom dresses. Some of them are similar in design. I wasn’t so lucky when I was looking around. I picked out a beautiful, simple grayed pink dress out that I really liked. I also found a black and pink dress that was similar in size (and had pockets, always a bonus) that matched it surprisingly well. I found one more dress that was sleeveless and in a different cut, but its colors matched the other two so well that I settled on it. When I put them together they actually didn’t look too bad. I wished I could have found a black dress to replace the sleeveless one, but what can you do.

Bride and Bride’s Maid Shoes, $6-8 Each

There were a lot of cute options in shoes. When I saw the white boot heel, I had to take a picture of it. It was a little over-the-top, but might look cute with a shorter wedding dress cut. There were a lot of white heel to choose from and I found a black and white heel that would look good with a lot of the bride’s maid dresses. My favorite shoe was the nude heel that matched the pink color scheme perfectly.

Groom’s Suit: Jacket $10, Tie $4, Pants $6, Shirt $5, Total= $25

Groom’s Men Suits: (Just Factoring in Pants and Shirt) $11 Each

Groom and Groom’s Men Shoes, $6 Each

I brought with me a lovely model and good friend Adam to try on suits for the groom and groomsmen. We went with a black suit and cream colored shirt. This actually was pretty easy to find in his size. The hard part was finding a tie to match the pink and black color scheme. There wasn’t even a black tie in the whole place. We found two ties that were OK; my favorite was the blue tie and pink dots. It looked like I’d have to expand the color scheme to pink, blue and black. It was funny to discover that because the suit had so many different parts it was more expensive than the bride's dress. To really look good though the suit and shirt would have to be tailored to fit him. But using local tailors still might be cheaper than getting a new suit fitted to him.

Wedding Invitations $0.50 to $1

Envelopes $0.75

Wedding Memory Book $2

While searching for something that resembled wedding invitations we came across invitations for a bridal shower. It was a really lucky find. There was lots of beautiful craft paper that would be great for a DIY invitation. There was also a bunch of envelopes that would work pretty well. It’d take a little bit of elbow grease or Modge Podge, but they’d turn out pretty cute. The Wedding Memory Book was also an amazing find. It was in pretty good condition and not written in at all. The paper seemed a little aged, but overall the cover was gorgeous. It could probably use some embellishment to be added later to match the theme.

Decorations:

Lace $2 – 3

Table Cloth $0.50 per Yard

Large Suitcase $20

Mailbox $5

Basket $1

Candles $1

Wedding Bell Decoration $0.75

Glassware $0.75 – 1

Vases and Jars $0.50 – 2

I was actually surprised by some of the great things we found. You could get a lot of fabric and lace in bulk or by re-purposing sheets and curtains. There was good quality but cheap glassware, vases and jars in several different colors and styles. You could get pretty crafty with a lot of these items and actually make them look very chic and beautiful. I really liked a large suitcase and mailbox, and thought they could be fixed up for cards and presents. Depending on what you and your spouse are into, the decorating ideas can be endless. Sometimes thrift stores have specials on twinkling lights if you can find them and there are multiple DIY’s for old books, records etc.. Vintage and free spirited weddings can find a lot of inspiration here.

We totaled up everything we found and it came out to be about $170. We were amazed by how cheap that wedding would be. If you had your wedding in your parent’s back yard and was able to get some help make food, a $500 dollar wedding would absolutely be possible. It was so much fun putting this thrift wedding together, although it was a little hard putting everything back in their place afterwards. I was even a bit attached to the wedding dress I found. It would be a lot of work to make sure nothing looked tacky in the end. This experience was a blast though, and I had a lot of fun putting it all together. I think if anyone wanted to go about doing a thrift wedding, I’d suggest going to different thrift stores or to check up every couple weeks for a while so you won’t have to settle on something you’re not happy with. Best of luck!