Wedding On A Budget? Try The Pittsburgh Wedding Flea Market

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Weddings are wonderful occasions, but every family knows they can be mighty expensive, especially for a one-time event.

Enter Jodi Colella and her business partner Bethaney Lentz with a pretty cool idea -- a flea market where brides-to-be can purchase all kinds of wedding items for cheap from recently married couples.

"What's great is these brides will buy things and then, in turn, sell it after their wedding, so it's a very green idea as well," Colella told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Wednesday.

Colella calls it the Pittsburgh Wedding Flea Market.

"Both the bride-to-be and the newlywed, they just love it," she says.

Promoted on Facebook, the concept has taken off, and this Sunday the fourth flea market opens at the Court Time Sports Complex in Elizabeth at 11 a.m.

Each event has outdrawn the last one.

"In the November event in the Pittsburgh Mills, over the course of two days, we had over 1,400 show," Colella said.

Two thousand are expected this Sunday.

No professional vendors are allowed. Instead, for $25 a former bride can purchase a table to lay out her wares, and for $3 each a future bride and her family and friends can check it out, get ideas, and buy.

"They are selling everything from wedding dresses, signage from their wedding and reception, center pieces, artificial flowers," says Colella. "The big thing is rustic right now. They have a lot of wooden slabs, crates, needle vintage pieces. It's just amazing what I've seen."

This Sunday, 120 tables have displays, and Colella says come early.

"The way these women display their stuff, it is beautiful. So they know what they're doing. It's great. We've had girls sell out in an hour, two hours," she says.