Fashion Weddings

Joy in Joie

August 28, 2015
Joie StoreFront

When it comes to wedding fashion, guys have it so easy. The hardest decision they have to make is which suit do they want to wear, and which shirt and tie do they want to pair with it. At the opposite end of the spectrum, when it comes to women’s wedding fashion there is such a variety of dresses out there that choosing which one to wear can be a nightmare. Originally, I was planning on wearing this dress to A’s rehearsal dinner, but after hearing that she was planning on wearing a Lilly Pulitzer number, I thought I would be over-dressed in comparison. So even though I had the whole summer to find an alternate dress, I didn’t start actively searching till the week before the wedding. After extensive online browsing of Nordstrom, Lord and Taylor, and Nordstrom Rack, I found the gorgeous Joie Isere dress pictured below for $113. The only downside was that nothing could be done to expedite the shipping, and if it was shipping UPS ground from California, there was no chance in Hades that I’d receive it in time. After some more searching I found the dress listed on Ebay, NWOT for $50.  At full retail value, the dress sells for $388. Even though I love a bargain, finding an approximately $400 dress at a tenth of the price, especially when it was without tags, made me wonder if there was secretly something wrong with it. Could there be a large  stain or was some part of the dress snagged?  There were no original pictures of the dress, just the one’s from the manufacturer’s website, and I was afraid that if I waited for additional pictures somebody else would steal the dress out from under me. So I bought it.

Joie Isere

Joie Isere Back

From the moment I clicked buy now, till the second I had the dress in my hands I stressed out about it. Why would a dress be new, but without tags? Remembering some of my own outlet shopping experiences, whenever I would purchase anything from the BCBG Maxazaria outlet they would remove the tags at checkout as everything was final sale. The one and only time they forgot, my Mom jokingly said they I should go re-buy the same item again and list the one with tags on Ebay. I didn’t end up doing that, but maybe my Joie dress was listed NWOT because they removed the tags at checkout, just like at BCBG. Online searching didn’t turn up any Joie outlet stores near where the Ebay seller was based, but I did end up stumbling upon the Holy Grail of all shopping experiences – Nordstrom’s Last Chance. You’re probably aware that Nordstrom has one of the most generous return policies for any department store, and I definitely take advantage of their free shipping and free returns. Nordstrom’s Last Chance, located in Phoenix, AZ, is a one-of-a-kind store where all returned items from Nordstrom go. You can find Louboutin’s at 80% off, Fendi bags deeply discounted, but sometimes stained, and my Joie dress for a steal. They say that employees mark or tag all of the items so that they can’t later be returned, and true to form, when my Joie dress did arrive there was a felt marker slash through the tag. So other than the fact that I ended up wearing the dress I had originally planned to the rehearsal dinner (A wore this Kate Spade dress), I now have a beautifully detailed summer dress that I snagged for a tenth of the original price. #bargain

Joie Isere Embroidery Detail

What was your top bargain find? 

joie de vivre


Eliza J Illusion Dress || Joie Isere Dress (& here) || Kate Spade Flirty Back Dress

Cover Photo: @joie_clothing (Instagram)

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