A bride wore a $24 wedding dress that she bought at Goodwill years before she was even engaged

• Maranda Vandergriff got married on November 1, 2020, in a wedding dress she bought at Goodwill.
• The dress cost $24, and she bought it years before she was even engaged.

Maranda Vandergriff has been thrifting her whole life, but she didn't expect that a random gown she purchased from Goodwill would become her dream wedding dress years later.

In June, the 27-year-old creative director shared a TikTok video of the thrifted dress she wore for her November 2020 wedding. The video has over 202,000 views as of Thursday.

Vandergriff told Insider that she and her family have been participating as volunteer models in the Goodwill Vintage Fashion Show in Knoxville, Tennessee, for over a decade now. In 2014, she tried on a '70s-style wedding dress designed with a scalloped trim and a lace applique neckline, but she didn't end up wearing it on the runway. After the fashion show, the dress was put on sale for $30. As a model, she was entitled to a 20% off discount, so she purchased the wedding dress for $24.

"Since I've been thrifting my whole life, I know that when you find something special in the thrift store, you either get it or you may never see it again," Vandergriff said. "I bought it even though I was not planning to get married at any point in time. It was just an option that I had for the future."

In 2019, Vandergriff got engaged to the same boyfriend she had been dating when she bought the wedding dress at Goodwill. She told Insider that after having it in her closet for five years, she realized it was her dream dress.

"I've been collecting vintage clothing for years now, so it just felt perfect to wear this vintage dress that I thrifted in my wedding," she added.

When it came time to alter the dress, Vandergriff turned to her mom and maternal grandmother for help. She used lace fabric her mom had purchased during a 2020 UK trip to create the new sleeves on the dress. Vandergriff also repurposed small beads from her mother's handmade wedding dress to stitch up a couple of pieces of the open scalloped edge on the sleeves.

"It was such a special experience to alter my wedding dress with the help of my mom and grandmother," she said. "My mom made her wedding dress, and my grandmother taught me how to sew, so it felt like we were bringing things full circle and honoring my parents' wedding simultaneously."

"Including multiple generations of my family in the process was special," Vandergriff added. "It made wearing that dress on my wedding day that much more of a beautiful experience. It was an honor to have my whole family involved from start to finish."

It took the bride, her mom, and maternal grandmother about six weeks to alter the dress. Vandergriff said her paternal grandmother died shortly before the wedding, and didn't get to see the final version of the dress. To honor her, she had one of her paternal grandmother's scarves tied around her wedding bouquet. Vandergriff also celebrated her family by borrowing her wedding shoes from her sister.

When Vandergriff saw the final version of her wedding dress, she said she couldn't have been happier. She told Insider that in 2019, she had sketched what she wanted her wedding look to be, and everything ended up matching the sketch perfectly.

"The wedding dress was almost identical to my original vision. I was thrilled to be able to bring that vision to life," she said.