These Knock-Off Wedding Gowns Are a Carnival of Horrors

Can’t afford a couture gown for your wedding? That’s fine! No one’s judging! Buy a dress from Modcloth and call it a day. Because these knock-off gowns? Not good. Not good at all.

Posted by grief-stricken brides to the internet, these dresses, which promised to look like swanky high fashion gowns you see in magazines but actually resemble deflated birthday cakes and community theatre costumes as sewn by your arthritic mother, are a cautionary tale for what can happen when you try to skimp on your big day. No one’s saying you have to go for an expensive wedding gown (The Metro estimates the cost of some couture dresses at over $40,000), but if you want to look like you spent a fuckton of money on your dress, don’t buy a cheap knockoff.

According to the Facebook group “Brides Beware,” online retailers that swear you’ll get the dress of your dreams may not even have the dress in the right color or style. And that’s the least of your worries. Some shady online boutiques just steal the photos of real designers and then just send you whatever they have laying around, like this lovely green number:

Or these dresses, which all look like they’re in some stage of decay or disease: