How a $20 second-hand ballgown scored a best-dressed win

It's not often these days you have the opportunity to get completely glammed up, black tie-style, so an invite to a Gala ball is guaranteed to excite the Disney princess within.

However, I don't know many people who have ballgowns hanging in their closet, waiting to make their debut.

Recently, I was invited to attend the Lifeline Sapphire gala ball in Sydney for the second year in a row.

Lifeline does important, life-saving work, and their charity events are a huge aspect of keeping their volunteers trained to do so – plus, it's always a lot of fun.

As soon as my invitation arrived, I jumped onto dress rental sites, filtered my event dates, dress size and obviously checked the 'sequins' box in the optional filters.

I found myself in a pickle, however, after booking two different dresses from a hire site last minute, only to find one was too big and one was too small. It's one of the only downsides of the convenience of dress rental sites.

The week leading up to the event, I was bed-ridden with a flu and didn't have the time or energy – let alone motivation – to go shopping, and settled on the fact I would be going 'cocktail style' to a gala ball. Sigh.

That was until I dropped into the pharmacy to collect hauls of medication and spotted a Vinnies next door and decided to have a browse.

There on the rack, I found not one but THREE options and tried them all on, settling on a champagne-coloured satin gown with a low ruched back. It was perhaps an ex-bridesmaid gown, but I loved it nonetheless and it made my sickly self look stunning.

The tag on the dress said $30, which was already a bargain, but after spotting a number of pen marks and other stains I wasn't sure id be able to remove, the assistant gave it to me for a tiny $20.

The dress, to this day, is one of my most complimented outfits, both on social media and in real life. I even had one man on the train tell me how beautiful it was, and another in the elevator of the venue.

You don't always have to spend big bucks to look a million bucks, and at such an important event, who really cares what you wear as long as money is being donated and awareness is being spread?

Remember: op shopping is smart shopping.