Helping a bride select her dream wedding dress can be an intimate process, says Christine Greenberg. You're physically in someone's space, helping them in and out of a dress, talking about childhood dreams and big-day emotions.
"Talking about money, talking about body image issues," says Greenberg, who's done this for 11 years as a co-owner of Urban Set Bride, a boutique in Richmond, Va.
"So the last thing that I want to do — as someone has fallen in love with themselves in a gown, and everyone is crying and we're having this moment — is to start talking about politics and global trade policy."
But tariffs have now entered the bridal fitting room.
Couples are discovering that almost all U.S. wedding dresses are made abroad — even if they're designed in the States. And China is where most are stitched and embellished. According to the National Bridal Retailers Association, China accounts for a whopping 90% of the bridal gown market.
For a while, those Chinese-made wedding dresses faced a new tariff of 145% set by President Trump, which is now temporarily cut to 30% until July 9. The two countries are still negotiating, and brides are starting to pay up.
Jessica Kaplan from Boston arrived at her bridal appointment to a warning from store staff: all gowns now carry a tariff surcharge of 10% to 15% depending on the designer and their supply chain. Kaplan's A-line dress with a sweetheart neckline and a long tail ended up on the lower end, but still cost an extra $150.
"It wasn't detrimental," she says, "but it was definitely a bummer on the day."
Store owners struggle to budget
Unlike clothes bought off the rack, wedding gowns are usually special order. When someone buys a dress from Claire Landgraf's Finery Bridal Chic in Rochester, Minn., the order may take six or eight months.
"So what's the landscape of tariff charging going to look like in six to eight months? We don't know," she says.
Landgraf has already spent hundreds of dollars on tariffs for dresses that brides had ordered before Trump took office. What if the opposite happens now, and she charges brides a fee for a future tariff of an unclear amount?
"I don't feel good as a business owner about saying, 'Hey, Miss Bride who bought a gown at the top of her budget at $2,000 that included that tariff fee, months from now your gown came in and all of a sudden the tariff charge is another $300,'" Landgraf says. "I can't do that to brides. So it's just really, really uncertain."
It's not just gowns arriving from China, but also trims and crystals, veils and hair pieces, hangers and garment bags. Most designers, including the popular Grace Loves Lace and Revelry, have decided to simply raise prices across the board to cover new tariff costs. Some by as much as 30%. Many store owners have followed suit.
Landgraf, for now, is adding a surcharge that she can remove later if tariffs disappear — and budgeting for refunds.
Double the cost for Made in the USA
U.S. brides — outside of big cities — on average spend less than $2,000 on a wedding dress, Landgraf and Greenberg estimate. American-made dresses tend to start around twice that price.
And not only are there few people buying them, but there are very few people making them.
"Unlike other industries, these dresses cannot be made in the United States," the National Bridal Retailers Association wrote earlier this year in a lobbying letter to U.S. lawmakers, "as there is zero labor pool of skilled craftsmen that can hand-bead gowns with as many as 200,000 sequins, beads, and crystals."
One of Trump's arguments for tariffs is to jump-start more American manufacturing. But U.S. textile and garment-making prowess faded decades ago. It would take many years to train enough technicians in lace work or embroidery to dress legions of American brides.
"My dad was in the Army for 24 years — I would love to purchase American-made wedding gowns," says Greenberg, the Virginia shopkeeper. "But they don't really exist, certainly not at the price point that the average American consumer could purchase a wedding gown."
And so, some of the most popular U.S. gown makers, including Utah-based Maggie Sottero and Tennessee-based Allure, have urged the federal government to exempt formalwear from tariffs, saying instead of bringing back jobs, tariffs would shutter businesses.
Saying maybe to the dress
The price uncertainty has more brides hesitating to say yes to the dress.
Shoppers used to visit once or twice before buying their gowns, Landgraf says. Now she's seeing more "multiple-visit brides," as people shop around longer.
"This has been one of the slowest seasons that I have had from a buying standpoint since COVID," she says.
Brides are commiserating on social media, reassessing their wedding finances and trying to think outside the box.
"I'm kind of curious about — what if I get, like, a dressmaker?" says Chelsea Ritchie, another tariff-season bride, in Los Angeles. "You know, buy the materials, buy the fabric and see if somebody can make me a dress within the same price."
Her dream dress is dazzling white with a mermaid silhouette, flaring dramatically at the bottom. It's likely her fabric and materials would still have to be imported.
Boutiques are warning her that dress orders might take longer than nine months to arrive, as some designers are making the gambit to hold their shipments from China, banking on tariffs to fade out. One shop told Ritchie to expect a surcharge. Another said prices might rise later this summer.
"It does give me a little anxiety," Ritchie says. "I try not to overly think too much about it, but it's already been such a year for people, I mean, we can barely afford eggs, let's be honest. And now it means that I need to budget more just in case."
She says she feels like the people who rushed to buy cars ahead of tariffs on automakers — except it's a showstopper gown and one more thing to stress about during the joys of wedding planning.
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