Caitlin Dewey wrote about the market for a bride’s gown:

• Wedding dresses cost a lot of money in part due to the price of the material and the quality of the workmanship.
• Yet a big part of the price of a dress is the markup – which can be around 200%.
• Sellers can get away with this because of asymmetric information. Since most people (plan to) only get married once, they’re not experienced in purchasing wedding dresses and so don’t know how much a ‘reasonable’ price is.
• The cost of the dress is also used to indicate social status and signal the bride’s commitment to her husband.
• However this means that a company could come in and create a big market for itself by offering a cheap wedding dress.
• H&M has done precisely that by offering a wedding dress for the relative bargain of $99.

Read more over here.

Source: The Washington Post