Not your mom's vintage wedding dress.
Unless your mom is Victoria Beckham.
Our vintage wedding dresses
Vionnette specializes in the highest quality vintage wedding dresses from couture bridal designers like Vera Wang, Amsale, Catherine Rayner, Monique Lhuillier, Carolina Herrera, Christian Dior, and Oscar de la Renta. We have more vintage Vera Wang wedding dresses than anyone in the world — approximately 50-60 vintage Vera Wang gowns at any given time.
We also carry vintage party/bridal event dresses from bridal and fashion designers like Lanvin, Loris Azzaro, and Valentino.
Our boutique is located in Atlanta, Georgia.
Our Values
1. Quality matters
The quality of wedding dresses dipped in the 1970s, when polyester fabrics flooded the market, and has deteriorated further in the past two decades. Today, most wedding dresses – even many high-end ones – were produced offshore under questionable labor conditions using poor-quality, plastic-derived fabrics. The vast majority of today’s brides do not have access to the quality of materials and construction that existed in couture wedding dresses from the ‘90s and earlier.
Unearthing couture vintage dresses gives us a chance to help preserve couture garment construction and embellishment techniques. For instance, in the ‘90s, many of Vera Wang’s gowns were beaded completely by hand by highly skilled embroiderers in France, which is virtually unheard of today. Wearing a vintage dress like this ensures that the great skill and creativity that went into creating it will not be wasted or taken for granted. It honors the person who designed and crafted it, as well as the historic embroidery technique used to embellish it.
2. Your wedding dress matters
A wedding dress has a unique importance in a person’s life. There is no other garment that people throughout history have gone to such great lengths to wear, or that inspires as much creativity and artistry. The quality and style of your wedding dress should reflect its importance, as well as your unique style. Your bridal style should feel true to you, not a social media algorithm.
3. History matters
In the past, a wedding dress (or parts of the dress) may have been worn again and again, either by the original owner or by others – a practice that reflected the garment’s beauty, the skill and time that went into creating it, the quality of the materials used, and of course the financial resources consumed by its creation. (Queen Victoria famously wore the detachable lace panels from her wedding dress for her entire life, including for her Diamond Jubilee portrait 53 years after her wedding.)
While it doesn’t suit modern styles of dress to re-wear pieces of a wedding dress for decades, we can still increase the lifespan of a garment by giving it a chance to finally be worn, or participating in the historic practice of repeated wearing of the garment.
4. People matter
Above all, we value the humanity of everyone who has played a role in bringing our dresses to life, including (and especially) our brides. We are real people, our dresses were made by real people, and many of our dresses were once worn by real people. We are interested in more than just fashion – we value the humans, the skills, and the love stories behind our pieces. This is why we have gorgeous, high-quality dresses by little-known and/or retired bridal designers, not just the big names in fashion. We are committed to bringing you the most exquisite vintage wedding dresses, which means we have many couture gowns by designers who are still undiscovered by today’s brides. These are the gems in the vintage market.
This value also underpins our commitment to giving back to our community and the global community. We donate a portion of all of our proceeds to charitable causes, and are proud to be a VOW For Girls Pro Partner.
These four values are the soul of our business.
My "why"
Vionnette is a tribute to my grandmother, Alice, who was a bridal seamstress when I was growing up. Alice was an unsentimental, funny woman who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, loved great clothes and Pride & Prejudice, and always had an extremely well-stocked liquor cabinet. I loved her deeply, and I was lucky to be raised with her and spend so much time watching Masterpiece Theater with her.
I feel like I can honor Alice’s memory by sharing the best of vintage bridal with other people who value craftsmanship, appreciate artistry, feel connected to history, and, to shamelessly paraphrase Yves Saint Laurent, see bridal fashion as art. That described Alice, and if it describes you, too, I’d love to help you find the perfect vintage piece for your wedding.
- Monet (founder of Vionnette)
Just here for the vintage fashion?
Explore our blog
You could scroll TikTok and watch even more try-on videos of wedding dresses that look basically the same -- or you could read about Princess Diana's wedding umbrella or see how much Vera Wang spent on interior design for her first retail store.
Learn more about bridal fashion history, bridal textiles, and bridal couture over on our blog, The Unbiased Cut.
Why vintage?
We love vintage wedding dresses, but we know they aren't the best choice for everyone. A couture vintage gown is right for you if you:
01
Want a unique wedding dress that highlights your personal style
Contemporary gowns are always a reflection of seasonal trends, not necessarily the wearer. (Designers have to sell dresses, after all.) But the bridal looks that stand out – and stand the test of time – are those that best showcase the individual style of the person wearing them. When we think of Grace Kelly, Carolyn Bessette, Audrey Hepburn, or Victoria Beckham, it’s impossible not to imagine them in their wedding dresses – because their wedding dresses were the essence of timelessness and personal expression.
Buying a vintage wedding dress means that you can choose from more than a century of fashions, so your bridal look can reflect you, not Pinterest.
02
Value quality and craftsmanship highly
We believe that the quality of your wedding dress should reflect its importance in your life. Exceedingly few modern wedding dresses can rival the quality of a couture vintage wedding dress – at any price. (We are prepared to die on this hill.)
03
Are a hopeless romantic...or history lover
Maybe you love the idea of wearing a dress that occupies a certain place in fashion history, or that was part of another couple's love story. Or maybe you want to feel connected to history, and play a role in helping to preserve historic garment & embellishment techniques. These are all lovely reasons for choosing a couture vintage wedding dress.