It’s June, and recession or not, here comes the bride. But this year, her gown may cost $1,000 instead of $2,000, or it may have been bought on the Internet for even less than that.

Two-plus years after the recession set in, both spending for weddings and the number of marriages have dropped, and the bridal gown industry is changing with the times.

“For the first time, this year and last year, we had people asking us for the under-$1,000 bridal gown,” said Heidi Martin, owner of Zita, a high-end shop on in Whitefish Bay, Wisc. Martin doesn’t carry anything in that range, but she’s thinking about doing it, if she can find bride’s dresses below $1,000 that have the quality she wants for Zita.

At the same time that tony establishments are seeing brides lower their expectations — say, from $5,000 for a gown to a more reasonable $2,500 — chain stores are jumping into the mix with lower-cost options.

Casual apparel retailer J. Crew has been selling under-$1,000 wedding gowns online since 2004, and last month it opened its first bridal store in Manhattan. The company also is experimenting with bridal gowns in seven stores around the country, including the J. Crew store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Urban Outfitters, a chain that serves a hip, young demographic, has announced plans to launch a bridal website next year. And Vera Wang, famous for her five-figure designer wedding gowns, has signed on to create a lower-priced line for David’s Bridal, a national bridal-wear chain. David’s has more than 300 stores around the country selling bridal gowns from about $300 to $1,400. Wang’s designs will be in David’s stores in spring 2011, priced up to $1,500.

All of this comes when the overall market value of the U.S. wedding industry has shrunk, from $62.8 billion in 2007 to $42.1 billion last year, according to The Wedding Report Inc.

In Milwaukee County, Wis., 4,407 couples took out marriage licenses last year, down from 4,751 in 2008, a 7.25 percent decrease.

“People still get married, but they’re a bit smarter about it,” said Lisa Carrao, owner of Savvy Bride in Brookfield, Wisc. Carrao opened her bridal shop in 2006 in Stonewood Village, an aging specialty retail center that she is helping to turn into a site for wedding-related businesses. The stores and service providers co-market their products and offer discounts to each other’s customers.

The average wedding budget in the U.S. in 2009, not including the honeymoon, was $28,385, about a 5 percent decrease from 2008, according to The Knot, a wedding website. The average cost for a wedding gown was $1,134.

Many brides-to-be blame the economy.

“It is affecting me,” said Nicole Budzban, a 30-year-old graphic designer who lives in Milwaukee. Budzban is searching for a dress now for her April 30, 2011, ceremony, when she will marry Brent Bullock. “If we weren’t in this economy, I’d probably be spending a little more.”

Budzban has visited nine area bridal shops and has narrowed her quest to three dresses in the $600 to $1,500 price range.

When Budzban goes looking for dresses for a bridal party of seven, plus one junior bridesmaid, she is hoping to find gowns in the range of $145 to $225 for the girls.

Erin Thull opened Miss Ruby in the fall of 2007, shortly before the full force of the recession hit.

“We started out well,” Thull said. But the recession has had an impact. “We’ve definitely seen people spending less, or putting off their weddings.”

There’s also an upside to the frugal mind-set for Miss Ruby and other shops that offer lower-price dresses, as brides look to spend less. Thull has added some new bridal collections with prices that fall under $200, with more casual styles for brides who will marry in non-church settings.

Those lower-price dresses are competing with online bridal retailers, but Thull says her selling point is a larger range of sizes and more styles within a color group.

Anne Brouwer, a partner at Chicago retail consulting firm McMillan/Doolittle, said the recent growth in lower-price bridal retailing makes sense for two reasons. One is the demographics: A big population bubble now is heading into its peak wedding years, she said. The other is a void that has existed in the marketplace for lower-priced bride’s dresses.

“Thirty years ago, most department stores had a bridal department at prices below bridal stores,” Brouwer said. Over the years, most department stores got out of that business. “Now, if you don’t live near a Filene’s Basement (known for huge sales where brides stampede for bargain dresses), you’re very limited in what you can get for a few hundred dollars.”