It can be easy to experience déjà vu browsing through the racks of a modern bridal store. The dresses — mostly made from white polyester fabric and cut into synonymous shapes — all start to look the same.
So, when it’s time to find the dress, some brides are ditching modern uniformity in favor of vintage bridal gowns with lace, rosettes and other unique design elements that add depth and texture.
“With overcommercialization, everything is the same and bleak, and there’s not a lot of character — there’s not a lot of flair to it,” said 24-year-old bride-to-be Helena Chavez. “I love a good plain, simple satin dress, but a lot of weddings look the same. When you get the vintage aspect, everything is very unique and characterful.”
Chavez is one of a growing number of brides looking to old fashions for their wedding gowns. Pinterest’s 2026 Wedding Trends Report shows searches of vintage motifs are spiking. Last year there was a 1,090 percent increase in people looking at 1980 wedding dresses compared with the year before.
People also looked for specific styles from previous eras, such as drop-waist wedding gowns, a style first popularized in the 1920s, which had a 1,405 percent increase in searches.
Flipping through a rack of curated dresses at a pop-up in downtown D.C., Chavez, who has lived in the District for seven years and is getting married next fall, said big business has made weddings sterile, but vintage gowns are evidence that “throughout the years, love exists and persists.”
Libby Rasmussen, co-founder of Vintage Vintage Vintage, a shop near Union Market that hosted the pop-up, said shopping vintage is the best way to avoid dresses that feel cookie-cutter. When Rasmussen and co-owner Rajni Rao first hosted a bridal pop-up in December 2024, there were four vendors. At the most recent iteration in March, more than 30 booths packed into the Square on K Street NW.
The region is going through a vintage revival, Rasmussen said, after high rent prices pushed a lot of established vintage stores out of business in the early 2000s.
Along with finding a cool way to express personal style, young consumers are shopping retro to lessen the harmful environmental effects of fast fashion.
The clothing industry contributes 2 to 8 percent of the world’s total carbon emissions, according to the U.N. Environment Program. Some brands use fabrics such as polyester, a fiber made from petroleum, which are inexpensive but produce high carbon emissions during the manufacturing process.
When Margaret Cohen, 29, got engaged last October, she immediately decided to shop for a secondhand dress. She grew up composting with her “hippie” dad and said sustainability is what brought her into the world of vintage.
“Not to get too political, but I feel that our government is not caring at all about the impact of the policies that they create on our environment, which is, I think, the number-one existential threat facing our world right now,” she said. “So I try to do my part, whatever that means.”
Cohen came to the pop-up just to browse for her May 2027 wedding, but she left with a holy grail — a $3,200 cream-colored strapless Vera Wang from the 1990s. It was the first wedding gown she had ever tried on.
“I like that it has a history and a story to it — that it has lived through decades,” she said.
Weddings are expensive, and gowns are no exception. The bridalwear market is a $65.5 billion global industry. Brides in the United States spend on average $2,100 for a dress, according to the Knot, though luxury gowns can go for $20,000 and more.
Vintage shoppers aren’t necessarily looking for a cheaper alternative, as pieces are still sold for thousands. True budget shoppers are more likely to go to a thrift store, where there’s the chance of finding a gown for less than $100, but it may not necessarily be “vintage,” meaning anything more than 20 years old but less than 100, which is officially antique territory.
Vintage gowns offer a glimpse into the past that modern gowns can’t. That sense of a continuing story is what draws in brides like Ray Dominguez, 28, who said vintage wedding dresses feel more intimate and personal than modern designs.
Dominguez got into vintage fashion as a way to connect with their grandmother Nellie. The pair bonded over interesting silhouettes and colorful brooches. Dominguez said searching through pre-loved garb has made them feel even more connected to Nellie, who died in 2024.
When wandering around vintage shops, Dominguez said they like to imagine what pieces their own grandchildren may like to see in their closet one day. As far as wedding gowns go, Dominguez started looking well before they got engaged on New Year’s Eve.
Once it was time to buy, they made an appointment at With Love Studios in Alexandria, the only dedicated vintage bridal store in the capital region. Other shops have vintage collections but don’t exclusively sell vintage bridal.
Dominguez, whose wedding date has yet to be set, tried on a handful of sleeveless gowns ranging from a drop waist with flowers along the bodice, to a more subdued A-line cream-color dress that they said matched their “gothic castle” aesthetic.
No matter the dress, the tattoo on the back of Dominguez’s left elbow was visible. “Love, Nellie” — written in their grandmother’s handwriting — served as a reminder of the connection vintage clothing had fostered.
Erica Hewins, the owner of With Love Studios, previously had sold vintage clothes and bridal gowns as a vendor at Vintage Vintage Vintage before opening the Alexandria storefront in October 2025. She has a bachelor’s of fine arts in fashion design from Syracuse University but really got into the vintage bridal space when planning her own wedding.
There weren’t any local vintage bridal stores, so she furiously ordered dresses off eBay and crossed her fingers that something would work. After her wedding, Hewins slowly started to build up her own retail collection.
She said she is drawn to the wedding industry by the romance and dreaminess that lets her “finally play dress-up.” Her customers are just as varied and unique as the dresses hanging around her studio.
Catarina Martinez, 32, busted through the door speaking a mile per minute. She already knew her way around the suite, as she had shopped there before.
She’s having a Catholic Mass in her hometown of Miami at the end of November and needs many outfits for the many celebrations — a ceremony dress, a welcome-party ensemble, a reception gown, a getting-ready outfit — and maybe more. She had already decided to wear a modern wedding gown with her mothers veil at the ceremony but wants vintage pieces for the other parties.
Martinez works on climate resilience at an engineering firm and said sustainability is part of what drew her to vintage bridal. But mostly, she is drawn to the interesting details you can’t find in a modern store.
“There’s a sentimental component knowing that someone wore it — I don’t know who wore it, but hopefully it’s got good juju,” she said. “Still, it’s just interesting, and I feel it was made with more care.”
Martinez grew up wearing her parents’ old college sweatshirts and was the target consumer when vintage trends exploded in the 2010s. She said when she got engaged in August 2025, she knew she wanted to look at vintage bridal but joked that the petite sizing didn’t always accommodate her bust.
“Modern ta-tas are hard to get into vintage gowns,” she quipped.
Still the whimsy of old garments eclipses the annoyance of their lackluster bustiers for Martinez, who is drawn to floral motifs and classic silhouettes. She ultimately left with a negligee, which she assured was “not for public consumption.”
Hewins plopped down on the old couch in the studio for a quick breather between appointments, surrounded by garments she called pieces of art. She views her job as more than selling cap sleeves and empire waists: She’s preserving physical representations of love.
“It’s not just a pretty dress,” Hewins said. “Whether I know the story or not, they all have them.”
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