Getting for bang for your wedding buck

Weddings are big business: the dress, the flowers, the food, the drink, the rings, the honeymoon....  Over 230,000 people walk down the aisle in the UK each year to the tune of £18,000 (the average cost of a wedding in the UK.)* Jaw-droppingly expensive! With all the "love" (read: money spent) it's really easy to see why people sell their wedding dresses (typically the most expensive item in the wedding) after the main event. But what about taking it one step further? People nowadays are more creatively involved in their own weddings sourcing table decorations, props, signs, suitcases (the 'in' thing in which guests leave cards in) but along with planning the wedding and sourcing all these individual props people also have lives to lead and often, little time to lead them in.

And here's where SELL MY WEDDING comes in, like a knight in a shining wedding dress and saves the day (read: money). Not only can you sell items from your wedding on here, recouping your costs, but you can also buy items for your wedding on here, making your wedding more affordable. The self-styled online wedding marketplace has over 500 completed transactions every year which just shows how successful it is.

Photography by Ally Byrom

Here's why I love SELL MY WEDDING and have already recommended it to clients and friends:

• It's fairly priced: registration to sell is only £10. You can list an unlimited number of wedding items, there are no individual listing fees, no sales commission and items won't expire until they have been sold. 
• You can Pin to Pinterest from the site - a great source of inspiration and fun when planning your own wedding deciding what you do and don't want.
• It's authentic.

After the glow of a wedding has faded you must look at the photobooth props you bought and think "am I ever going to use these again?" And that's where the authenticity and heritage of this site comes in: Rebecca Aspin set up SELL MY WEDDING after discovering bits and bobs from her wedding 3 years after the event and realised she would never use them again. That resonated hugely with me: I set up The Wardrobe Angel after my own personal experience of rapidly downsizing my own wardrobe.

Rebecca in her wedding dress shot by Simon Kench

When is the best time to sell your wedding dress?

"Straight away," says Rebecca, "with a dress sell it as soon as you can - it will still be in the shops and on-trend which will make it attractive to buyers to get it at a lower price. You can also sell bridesmaid dresses and we recently added a HIRE function so you can rent pieces for a day, rather than buy them outright."

And what make of dress sells the best?

"Jenny Packham. They retail at £3000 but sell for £1500 on Sell My Wedding."

Ally Byrom Photography

What's the best day to become a seller?

"On a Sunday. We have up to 1000 unique visitors per day."

What's selling well this month?

"DIY stuff - things people have made that other people don't have time or the creativity to make for themselves. Reception decor - particularly bunting, signs and paper lanterns along with centrepieces and vases. Vintage crockery is also very popular alongside vintage props such as suitcases and old fashioned sweetie scoops."

Photography by Ally Byrom

As mentioned there is no commission - all the sellers money is theirs (unlike with eBay) so it's win-win!

Check out SELL MY WEDDING here!

*Telegraph 2013