Bride spends less than $10 on wedding dress: 'I still felt like a princess on my day'

Weddings are costly affairs and a wedding dress can often punch a huge hole in your budget. Rachel Connealy, a bride from Florida, is going viral on the internet for buying not one but two dresses for less than $10! She shared a video of her wedding dress on TikTok. "I still felt like a princess on my day," said Connealy, reported Good Morning America. "I guess my own version of what a princess looks like." Connealy, who goes by @rachelconnealy on TikTok wrote, "You never know what you’ll find at the thrift 2 weeks before your wedding." In another video, she posted another dress and captioned it, "I thrifted this silk dress right after we got engaged and still wore it for the ceremony ❤️ #weddingdress." Both videos garnered more than 2 million views. 

The 26-year-old bride went to thrift stores to find her wedding dress and ended up buying two—one for $3 and another for $5. With her wedding dresses costing just $8, she had more room to do other things, such as buying dresses for all her bridesmaids. Many on TikTok said her dress looked very similar to Meghan Markle's Givenchy dress worn in 2019 for her wedding to Prince Harry. Connealy is urging other brides to look in thrift stores and to also look in thrift lingerie sections.

"You go to the wedding dress section of a thrift store and there are these beautiful white silks and vintage lace...and get creative with it," she said. Connealy also looked at it from a practical point of view. She said there was no point in wearing an expensive dress for a single day. "For me, I would much rather have an experience than having this dress in a box that I can show my kids in 20 years that they're like, 'That's so out of style,'" she added.

People loved her dress and compared her to Meghan Markle. "Genuinely stunning. Like something out of a magazine," one person wrote. "The thrifting gods really have favorites huh," joked one. "Amazing finds, IDK how you did it but they are both so unique & beautiful!!" wrote another user. "My wedding dress was $50 from goodwill," wrote another. "You remind me of gorgeous Meghan Markle here! congratulations 🥰🥰🥰," commented another.

As we reported recently, a couple managed to pull off a wedding for under $500 and the bride found a dress for $47. "Our goal was to just be as minimal as possible," said Kiara and Joel Brokenbrough. "And to spend the least amount of money as possible."  Kiara found a great-looking dress on digital fashion retailer Shein's website and it cost just $47. She knew she was only going to wear it once and didn't want to splurge. "I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a dress because I had the mindset I'm gonna wear this one time for a few hours," she said. Her loved ones helped in cutting wedding costs as many of them gifted items for the wedding, such as flowers and a runner. They also saved on location by choosing a free location near one of California's freeways. Guests paid for their own food and drinks at the reception, which also helped keep costs down. The couple went through all the traditional wedding formalities. "You have a wedding, with witnesses there to witness you, vowing to your spouse, vowing to God that you guys are going to stay together for life," said Kiara. "And then you celebrate with food, drinks, and dance. And that's exactly what we did."