In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mostly on the run, his desk in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
In the age of bankrupt grocery stores and strangling mortgages, lovebirds are cutting their wedding costs by renting or reselling the formal dress instead of letting it turn yellow in “mothballs.”
In the fitting section of the Oui, je le wish boutique on the Plaza Saint-Hubert, everyone is smiling.
Surrounded by mirrors, the happy and joyful brides-to-be strut in front of their mother, their sister or their friends, who are also moved.
Even if marriage is (normally) an affair of the heart, the question of the wallet worries… especially young couples who are starting out in life.
“I don’t want to pay a lot for a dress that will only be used once,” exclaims Marla Pierre, perched on a stool so that a seamstress can take the measurements.
For $725 (before taxes and alteration costs), the sweetheart will have her perfect bridal ensemble (dress at $1,750, veil, crinoline and adornment or tiara) on the Thursday before her wedding in August and she will have to return it on following Monday… which is the store’s usual way of doing things Yes, I hope so.
Marla Pierre, beautifully “dressed” and “diademed”, explains to me that she chose to rent her outfit to avoid waste.
Photo LOUIS-PHILIPPE MESSIER
Simplicity
“I like the fact that everything is sorted here and then we just have to bring the dress back,” confides Cathia Fumerlus, who I find trying on rental dresses with her twin sister.
Has this dress been worn before? Impossible to say. It is in perfect condition. If she returns in such perfect condition, perhaps she will ceremonially serve another bride…until a defect appears.
“We absolutely cannot rent a dress that has a defect… so we always keep a new spare,” says the owner of the boutique, Chantal Parizeau.
Other customers opt for the high-end second-hand dress whose price has halved.
“Buyers can bring their dress back to us and leave it on deposit. We pay them a share upon resale,” manager Ginette Morse explains to me.
A fairly popular wedding dress design therefore has an economic life cycle of sales, resale and commissions, where bride number 2 pays a quote to bride number 1 through the boutique ‘brokerage’.
The manager Ginette Morse shows me the altered dresses which are just waiting for their buyers or their tenants.
Photo LOUIS-PHILIPPE MESSIER
Popular
I look at a label for the Imani model (because these dresses have first names) and I see three reservations: two for next summer and one for December 2025… Some people really book in advance!
“Some popular models keep coming back to us for touch-ups. We say to ourselves: not this dress again! By seeing them, you end up hating them!” laughs veteran Nancy Grandilli, who supervises four full-time seamstresses.
Head seamstress Nancy Grandilli reinstalls a zipper on a rental dress whose size she has just radically reduced for a mini-size client.
Photo LOUIS-PHILIPPE MESSIER
For this boutique specializing in the rental of wedding dresses for thirty years, the current belt-tightening context brings in customers.
“More and more people are telling us they want a simple dress for a casual ceremony and a backyard reception,” notes M.me Parizeau.
