Bride wears $53 vintage wedding dress she found in a bargain sale

A thrifty bride has wowed her wedding guests with a stunning vintage lace dress she bought from a car boot sale for just £30 ($AU53).

Inspired by old-school Hollywood glamour, vintage clothing lover Charlotte Dymock-Newton dreamed of wearing a dress worn by the likes of Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

So while the HR business partner was rifling through rails at The Vintage Classic Car Boot Sale in London last September, her eyes lit up when she spotted a white lace dress hanging up at one stall.

Undeterred by its many large yellow and brown stains, tatty-looking bow and tiny tears on the lace, Charlotte slipped it on and was stunned to find the full-length 1950s gown fit her like a glove.

Originally priced at £50 ($89), bargain lover Charlotte, 38, drove down the asking price and carried her dream ‘Cinderella’ dress home for £30 – less than the price shoppers usually pay for a high street frock.

“I had an idea in my head of what I was looking for. I wanted a dress like Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Charlotte, from Chiswick, said.

“I usually buy clothes from charity shops, eBay and Etsy. I also sew a lot of my own clothes and expected I would make my wedding dress.

“When I went to this car boot sale in King’s Cross I knew the wedding was coming up and I saw the dress on a hanger.

The bespoke gown is believed to be from the late 1950s due to its style, construction and features, including the pointed cuffs.

Mother of the bride Janet Cucksey, 69, undertook the daunting six-week task of transforming the stained, dog-eared gown into a dress worthy of sashaying down the aisle in.

“I’m the opposite of a bridezilla. I’m used to having to take garments apart entirely so knowing what needed to be done didn’t faze me at all, instead I felt a flutter of excitement," Charlotte, who married partner of five years Will Newton earlier this month, said.

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“My mum was terribly nervous, but my thinking was that worst-case scenario it was £30 gone and I had plenty of time to arrange something else.

“Having bought the dress in September, it took my mum months to work up the courage to wash it. However, she finally bit the bullet in April with advice from family friend Susan Smith, who is a textile conservationist.”

The first stage involved taking the dress apart, removing the satin bow and marking where to re-attach it.

The three separate layers – lace, taffeta and linen underskirt – were then washed using an £8 shampoo imported from the US which is ordinarily used to gently clean antique quilts.

“My mum soaked the dress in the bath and nervously checked on it hourly for the first day," Charlotte said.

“The dress spent most of the week in the bath with a further three changes to the water. In the meantime, she and my step-father were relegated to their en-suite for washing.”

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The couple exchanged vows at a Midsummer Nights’ Dream themed wedding in South Wales, surrounded by 80 friends and family, on July 14.

The wedding was completely self-catered, thanks to help from Janet’s friends who rustled up food for the entire wedding for $2135 – just $27 a head.

“The whole day was just magical, I’m delighted with how the dress turned out," Charlotte said.

“I wore a little antique flower crown tiara too which was another car boot sale find from a few years ago, that also cost $53, and I finished it off with a pair of Miss L Fire shoes which I already had.

“Everything about the day came together perfectly, it was just magical.”

User experience designer Will, who wore a $1245 grey wedding suit and a Thomas Pink shirt, said he was bowled over by how stunning Charlotte looked on their big day.

“I knew the dress would be vintage, gorgeous and unique but I didn’t know it would be that gorgeous," the 41-year-old said.

“I’d heard it mentioned that it was from a car boot sale before our wedding day. You don’t normally put the two things together but I wasn’t worried, as she’s forever bringing in mouldy things from vintage shops and transforming them into amazing creations.

“When I saw her walk down the aisle I felt like the luckiest man in the world.”