Your wedding dress is the most important piece of fashion that you will ever purchase. You want to make sure that it is high-quality, that it reflects your style, and that it makes a statement.

However, while your wedding dress is so important to you, sadly, there are people out there who prey on your desires. All too often, “designers” claim that they are a top name wedding dress designer, but the gowns that they supply are knockoffs. How does this impact a bride? It leaves them with a dress that is little more than garbage, could be made of cheap materials and is poorly constructed. Unfortunately, if you purchase one of these counterfeit dresses, you could end up with a tattered gown that is falling apart on your wedding day!

So, how can you avoid being duped by a counterfeit gown? Here are five tips that will help you spot a fraud; and if you notice any of these signs, put the dress down and run, don’t walk, away.

Bad Reviews

Before you purchase a dress, make sure you check out reviews of the supplier. You can easily do this by typing in the name of the store or the website you are considering purchasing your dress from into a search engine. Take a look at the reviews that you find. If you find anything that sounds suspicious, or you see other brides who have purchased a gown from that designer or supplier, do yourself a favor and avoid purchasing that dress!

Look for Inconsistencies

If you are buying a dress from an online supplier, take a close look at the website. Notice the spellings and the word usage. If you see misspellings or grammatical errors, that’s a pretty good sign that the designer is trying to dupe you. Quality online shops will have quality websites. Their website is their storefront, and they should take great pride in it. If there are errors on the site, then there are more than likely going to be errors in the dress.

Look for Re-Stocking Fees

You should never, never, NEVER have to pay a restocking fee for a wedding dress. If you are unhappy with the gown, you should be able to return it for a refund, no questions asked. You should never have to pay to have the dress “re-stocked.” If the store or site requires a re-stocking fee, that’s a good indication that they are making money off of returns, not off of dresses.

Common Photos

If you notice that the dresses you are seeing on a website are the same dresses you have seen on other websites, that’s a good sign that the supplier is a fraud. The site could simply be copying and pasting photos of wedding dresses from other suppliers, which means that the dress you will get probably won’t be the dress you see featured in the photos.

Deals that Seem Too Good To Be True

Of course, you want to get a great deal on a wedding dress; however, if the deal seems too good to be true, then it probably is. If the price on a “designer” gown is so low that it seems unreal, it more than likely is unreal. Purchasing a dress from this “designer” could spell serious trouble on your wedding day.

You want to look your absolute best on your wedding day, which means that you want to purchase a dress that is high-quality and that looks like the one you try on, or the one featured in the photos you see on a website. If you notice any of the above-mentioned signs, there’s a good chance that you are going to be duped.