Claim: A man listed a wedding gown on eBay via a hilarious offer of sale that included photos of him posing in the dress.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]
For Sale: One Slightly Used Size 12 Wedding Gown. Only worn twice: Once at the wedding and once for these pictures. Make: Victoria Style: 611 Size: 12 Divorce forces sale I found my ex-wife's wedding dress in the attic when I moved. She took the $4000 engagement ring but left the dress. I was actually going to have a dress burning party when the divorce became final, but my sister talked me out of it. She said, "That’s such a gorgeous dress. Some lucky girl would be glad to have it. You should sell it on EBay. At least get something back for it." So, this is what I’m doing. I’m selling it hoping to get enough money for maybe a couple of Mariners tickets and some beer. This dress cost me $1200 that my drunken sot of an ex-father-in-law swore up and down he would pay for but didn’t so I got stuck with the bill. Luckily I only got stuck with his daughter for Just a little side note - As I was putting this ad in EBay, it asked me for a color. Is a wedding dress any other freaking color than white or ivory??!! If it is it wouldn't be a wedding dress, now would it?? I suppose black would work... On Apr-26-04 at 10:38:31 PDT, seller added the following information: Well, the auction is a little over half over and I am just amazed. This thing has taken more hits than that pothead that lives in the next building. Man, oh man, if hits were bucks I’d be getting a suite at Safeco. I also have received TONS of email. I don’t have the time to reply to all of them but I just want to let everyone know that I appreciate the well wishes. Of the email I received: Five or so were invitations to ball games in other states. Two of those were for little league games. Do they have those cushy executive boxes with the free chicken wings at those? One email was from Scotland. It’s a good thing he wrote it because I wouldn’t be able to understand a word he said. Never did get through Braveheart. Most were thanking me for the laugh. You’re entirely welcome. Five years of misery was well worth the hearty guffaw that was my pleasure to give you. Oh, yeah. I also got three marriage proposals. Yes, you read it right - three marriage proposals. I feel like one of those mass murderers on death row. I never understood how the hell they got more chicks than I did. Now I know. They sold crap on eBay. On Apr-26-04 at 23:45:56 PDT, seller added the following information: Holy Moly! The hit counter is starting to look like the odometer in my truck! Not the new shiny black full-size 4-wheel-drive American pick-up that I had to part with, but the somewhat older, multicolored, lumpy, tiny, 2-wheel-drive foreign pick-up that belches smoke. A little something about that vehicle, though: it’s absolutely amazing! When I get inside it to go to the store, I am all depressed. But when I arrive at the store, I’m so freaking loopy from inhaling the fumes, I forget why I went there in the first place. I’m saving buckets of money. Of course, I will probably have to spend it all on the tuberculosis I will acquire, but hey, you can’t have everything. I felt compelled to update this ad once more due to all of your emails. The first thing I have to say is thank you all for your support in my time of need. It was a truly harrowing experience. Some of you men know exactly what I mean. Seeing as this has turned into my little public forum, I just want to address a few of the emails that kind of left me scratching my head. I now have five marriage proposals. You would think my speaking of the ones I already got yesterday would have put a damper on it, but you women sure are persistent. One woman actually said she doesn’t want to marry me, but wouldn’t mind being my Other emails are serious buyers asking about the dress. "How long is the train?" and "Does the gown come with the headdress and veil?" Yes, headdress and veil are included, but the There was this one woman who wrote, "You should have covered your tattoos. People will be able to recognize you, like on America’s Most Wanted." HELLO!!! I’m a guy selling a dress. I’m not wanted for war crimes. Some of your emails made me laugh. Like the bitter woman that wished she had her ex’s testicles to sell on eBay. I’m not too sure there’s a market for that, though. Then there was the guy that gave his wife’s wedding dress to the Salvation Army by mistake, thinking it was a Christmas tree. Guess he didn’t have any Christmas balls that year. This has also been a learning experience for me. I got a lot of messages correcting me about the color of wedding dresses. For Russian Orthodox, they are blue. For Chinese they are red. Mexico has multi-colored ones. All I know is, for my next wedding I will be wearing a hairy, flesh-toned ensemble because I will be buck naked with a toe tag lying on a slab in the morgue because I would have killed myself. A lot of folks were asking me if I wear women’s dresses a lot. I can honestly say that this is the first time I have ever donned female attire. It’s also the first time I’ve been inside something feminine that didn’t nag me to take out the garbage. It seems a few people have taken offense to my inferring a On the flip side of that, I have taken offense to some of the people that told me I’m ugly and a loser. All I have to say is you’d be ugly too if you had a huge white blotch on your face. And as far as being a loser, I think you have it all wrong. I am such the winner. It isn’t every day an average guy can make 50,000 people laugh. Thanks to each and every one of you from the heart of my bottom. |
Origins: The online auction powerhouse eBay has been the setting of many strange
their hoax listings into the marketplace. Consequently, one can't always tell fish from fowl at first glance.
Over the years, our readers have queried us about various eBay auctions because they harbored suspicions about particular listings, either due to the nature of the goods being tendered or because something about the pitch struck them as not quite right (e.g.; an offer of a
Or was it?
Had a gal with "Texas cheerleader hair" really so turned a man against marriage that he swore that "for my next wedding I will be wearing a hairy, flesh-toned ensemble because I will be buck naked with a toe tag lying on a slab in the morgue because I would have killed myself"? Herein rested the listing's appeal: The story was entertaining, but was it real?
The solicitation was on the up and up, at least in regard to the nature of the merchandise being vended — there was such a dress, and the offer of sale was genuine. However, some (if not all) of the gown's backstory was the stuff of fairy tales. The original eBay listing posted by 42-year-old Larry Star wasn't provoking much interest among those shopping for a wedding dress, so he rewrote it to make it amusing — resulting in the posting that has served to make him famous.
The tale of marital woe posted by this Brooklyn native both contained invented details and omitted key bits of information. Though he has a sister, she didn't talk him out of the dress burning party he had his heart set upon by suggesting he list the
gown on eBay and so get something out of it. He also had an
It's not known if the gown in question even belonged to his
And stand out it did. The auction of the fabled wedding gown ended
By the time the auction ended, Star's listing on eBay had been viewed more than
The ultimate fate of the frock may take it in a far different direction than down the aisle on the back of a budget-conscious bride. Its listing (which has now been viewed
Thanks to the dress, Larry Star has twice been a guest on both MSNBC's Countdown and NBC's Today Show, each time wearing the unsold gown. Also thanks to the dress, he has made his debut as a
Though there are many stand-up comedians on the circuit, we know of none that perform their schtick outfitted in wedding regalia. Could this gown do for Star what a sledgehammer and a watermelon did for Gallagher?
Barbara "smash hit" Mikkelson
Additional Information:
Weddingdressguy.com (Larry Star) |
Last updated: 3 July 2007
Sources: