Lots of brides are expected to want to channel Meghan Markle’s wedding day look – as predicted by our royal wedding experts. But how will they go about it? It’s a regular concern for retailers that brides will turn to the internet and that cheap copycat dresses will spring up on dodgy websites.

Read more: See Meghan Markle’s official wedding dress design

Help your brides to avoid disappointment ahead of their big day with these tips:

Think About Pricing

Scammers are getting increasingly clever with pricing online. It used to be that counterfeit wedding dresses were sold at bargain-basement prices but now the pricing structure is much more realistic, with a smaller discount offered. Explain the RRP to your brides and check any discounts they reference – we know it’s likely they won’t be legit!

Inspect the Websites

If your bride is referencing a website where she’s seen a deal, look at the FAQs and About Us pages – these are where fake companies tend to slip up.

Look at the URL

Ask any brides who are considering making a purchase online to show you the URL of the website they’re looking at. Inspect it closely – if it doesn’t have a ‘’ prefix at the start of the URL, the site is not secure. Some counterfeiters also use URLs that are similar to well-known ones, but with a slight typo – using a lower-case ‘L’, instead of an ‘I’ for example.

Read Reviews

Another way to make a bride think twice about purchasing online is to encourage her to read the reviews. Online marketplaces allow buyers to review sellers after purchasing from them, and most e-commerce websites have reviews on Google, TrustPilot etc. If a seller has negative or no reviews, it’s time to question how trustworthy they are.

Return and Privacy Policies

Ask your brides if they know about the return policy (and how it compares to your own!). Many counterfeiters simply won’t entertain or acknowledge the idea of a refund at all.

For more information on counterfeits, why not read Richard Lill’s views on how to tackle fakes in the bridal industry?