Why can you rent tuxedos for a wedding but not rent a wedding gown? Is this sexism?

Guessing:
Tuxes are easy to alter to fit.
Most wedding gowns aren’t.

Great question!

You actually can rent wedding gowns. Most women simply prefer not to. We tend to make a bigger deal about the sentimental value of the garment.

Men are more apt to get tanked and then puke on their tux. They return it and never have to see it again. Women think the dress is special and want to buy it, wear it once, then pack it up in a vacuum sealed box and never see it again. It will stay in a closet for the next 80 years.

As long as individual entrepreneurs are involved, supplying a service to fill a need (and not supplying what no one wants or needs), how could it be a matter of sexism in any case? It’s no more discriminatory than it is for a store to sell women’s shoes and not men’s, or to sell bagels and not egg rolls.

I would think it’s not as common because women come in all shapes and sizes and you can only alter a wedding gown so many times before it starts looking used and abused. I’m with @filmfann on this one. Tuxedos are just easier to work with.

Fashion.

@Jeruba The sexism comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

I get the contention that the tuxedos are, by design, can be re-used by other groups. The tuxedo tends to stay in style. I know folks here in town who own their own tuxedos that they wear to different formal events like fund-raisers.
Womens’ fashions change every season, wedding gowns are no exception, I guess.

thanks to all

you can totally rent wedding gowns!! Goggle rent wedding gowns (or dresses)
There are over 5 millions results

You can also buy used wedding gowns. My DIL got a $5000 gown for $250 that way. And actually she was going to rent a gown but she is very short but also Rubenesque and no one was willing to alter a rental gwon enough to fit her.

Ok, @srmorgan. I think I tend to react strongly to irrational and unwarranted claims of sexism, discrimination, offense, exclusion, etc., because I regard them as a form of domestic terrorism that may well have done more damage to our society than the harm done by two airplanes in New York. I did think you had more sense than that, but I didn’t see a clear sign that you were being facetious.

If both men and women spend thousands on a one-day wardrobe and lavish ceremony, what money is there left to start a nest egg?

My cousin got married at city hall in casual clothes and just put a down payment on a home.

That sounds a lot better to me than spending a lot of money so your friends and family can eat for free and drink themselves silly and embarrass you.

But I’m digressing. I err on the side of pragmatism so the idea of spending a lot of money on a wedding dress, essentially an impulse buy, doesn’t sync with my values.

I’m also not married.

It’s cultural.

Totally backwards, too, because buying a tux can be cost-effective. I’ve worn mine about 5 times in 5 years, original price $500. And I expect to get a few more decades out of it.

Urg! This smacks of “A Wedding Gown Is Forever, a Wedding Tux Is Until I Get Tired Of Being Married!” Good question!
@jaytkay Again, a Tux can be for many occasions, a Wedding gown can only be worn once!

My wedding gown cost all of $21 brand new but on sale, and if I hadn’t gained weight I could still wear it. It is a Guatemalan embroidered dress, great for casual summer wear.

I am amazed at the Wedding Dresses one can find at the second hand stores for twenty bucks that are so more ornate and beautiful than the one I got at Pennys for $70 when I got married. :/ For my second marriage I went with a dress that…...I had bought at a gargage sale for $3 two years earlier (black with a flower print) that I HAD NEVER WORN BEFORE…..I just thought it was important that I threw the “never worn before” part in there.

For my first wedding dress (over 20 years ago), I spent what I thought was a fortune: $300 bucks or so, for a full on, knock-em-dead gown. It ripped in several places during the reception… too much dancing! The second time around, I just bought an off-the-rack simple white gown: $70. Still in great shape. :P

Having never bought a “to fit” wedding gown….do you think most wedding gowns are too small and form fitting just for appearance’s sake and can’t hold up to normal every-day stresses?....?

Oh. My own Question….but I’m out of questions> :(