Brides Are Turning to Etsy Witches—Should You?

I’ve bought spells from witches before. I won’t tell this story as if I haven’t, so let me get that out of the way. Purchased at my favorite witchy store in the East Village, my spells came in the form of little vials of colored oils and look like roll-on perfumes. One’s for health, one’s for clarity, and one’s for heart healing. What? I grew up on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Practical Magic. Plus, have you seen the world out there? Can you blame me for indulging in a little mysticism?

But even with tendencies such as mine, I had little idea about the online witch-for-hire industry until content creator Jaz Smith’s wedding went viral on TikTok over Memorial Day weekend. It blew up the internet for a multitude of reasons, one being that it was held at the Rhode Island mansion where Taylor Swift filmed her “Blank Space” music video; another being that seemingly every other influencer on Earth was in attendance. Incredibly, she live-posted throughout her own wedding day, a true feat. But the detail that stuck out to me was the playful admission that she had hired an “Etsy witch” to cast a spell for good weather on her wedding day, which did, in fact, come to fruition.

Jaz, I soon learned, is far from alone. You’d be surprised by how many brides seek out magical intercession. And, it turns out, Jaz’s witch is just one of many who peddle their services on Etsy, including anything from Zoom tarot readings to true love enchantments to, yes, weather spells.

In the comments section of Jaz’s video, I found numerous users sharing their own testimonials for spells they bought online from other practitioners. “Marysmagicshop literally work [sic] every time no joke,” wrote one user. “YUHH MARY ON TOP,” replied another, one of many who seconded the recommendation.

Ally Dossick, a 33-year-old occupational therapist from Philadelphia, hired the same witch as Jaz for her own wedding just one week after the influencer’s. After seeing the viral clips, Dossick placed the order for a custom spell requesting no rain in Allentown, New Jersey, on Saturday, May 31. It cost her $12. “Like, why not?” she tells me. “It worked for [Jaz]. It can’t hurt, especially when it’s not expensive.” In response, she got a message saying, “I’ve successfully completed your order. Please allow 3-4 weeks for the full manifestation.” With a purple crystal ball emoji, naturally. Dossick could only allow two days for full manifestation, but the spell still worked—mostly. That Saturday, it rained a bit, but only at “good times” like during the ceremony, which was planned for indoors. It cleared up in time for the wedding party to take photos outside. All things considered, she was pleased. When I asked what her friends and family thought about the spell, she tells me that they were just confused. “They were like, ‘What’s an Etsy witch?’” Fair enough.

On the very same day, 199 miles away in New Lebanon, New York, Caroline Mullen, a 30-year-old writer based in Jersey City, also got married, except the spell she bought from a different Etsy witch didn’t work. (Jaz’s witch became so inundated in the aftermath that she removed all her listings.) “It was really bad,” Mullen says. “It was torrentially downpouring. Parts of the venue were flooding. The power went out the night before, and they had to turn on the generator.” To her credit, the newlywed isn’t mad about the $15 spent on the spell. “It was a shot in the dark. I just appreciate her energy towards it. Not everything works.”

And anyway, it might not have been the hired witch’s doing. “My mother-in-law had her church friends praying for good weather, and I kept joking that them and the Etsy witch were counteracting each other and creating a cyclone. I think next time I’ll pick one or the other.”

Unlike Dossick, Mullen had the idea long before Jaz posted. “A friend of a friend had used an Etsy witch for a revenge spell a couple months ago, and [my friend group] thought it was the most amazing thing in the world,” she explains. “So, I had been waiting for a reason to use one, and this was the perfect time.”

When I ask about what happened with the friend who bought the revenge spell, Mullen says she isn’t sure how the story ended. Such ambivalence is a theme here; results are almost irrelevant. The wish will or won’t come true, but it’s more about the effort, the intention. A handing over of worry and concern, an acknowledgment that something is out your control. That alone, it seems, can be magic.

According to Michelle Dabrowski, who describes herself as a sixth-generation omnistic practitioner, specializing in divination, the placebo effect is “very real.” She’ll get positive feedback from clients before she’s even done anything. And in those cases, they realized results on their own. “That’s how we manifest: belief. If you focus on something, you put energy into it—it’s physics—you’re going to change its vibration.”

“Say I find someone on the internet who guarantees that for $5 she’s going to make some horrible things happen,” Dabrowski poses. “Do I think it’s a real spell? No. But do I think there’s some energy that releases from that? I do.” Sometimes, a little directed energy is all it takes.

I found Dabrowski, who’s based in Minneapolis, after searching “spell” on Etsy. I was amazed to find a whole host of vendors and storefronts, some with nearly 10,000 positive reviews. That’s a lot of people exploring witchcraft on the internet! Over the phone, Dabrowski doesn’t hesitate to share her skepticism about these weather spells. “There’s a lot of fakes, and if somebody is telling you for $15 they can change the weather…” she trails off, starting again, “There’s certain energy you can move and certain energy you can’t. Some people just get lucky.”

While she does work with brides, it’s usually for trouble-shooting. To help ease tension between feuding in-laws, she might provide a special sourdough loaf to be shared. Or, for a bride who’s worried about fidelity, Dabrowski might make a gris to be sewn into the wedding gown.

And, by all standards, business is booming. She says she had to leave her job as a Medicaid fraud investigator just one year after launching her Etsy storefront back in 2020. Now, she’s in such high demand that she’s recruited her two daughters (seventh generation, no biggie) and two other practitioners to assist.

Searches for “spell casters” are even up 85 percent compared to this time last year, according to my sources at Yelp. Theia, one of the witches at Mary’s Magic Shop—the one commenters were plugging in Jaz’s comments—says they’ve had a sudden influx of weather spell orders in the last two weeks, which they didn’t know how to explain. (I filled her in.)

These Etsy storefronts also aren’t just for those looking to summon a sunny day or a dose of revenge, or make a quick buck. At my local mystical shop, the in-house witches tell me that, in fact, it’s a useful platform for sourcing rare or exotic herbs, tonics, crystals, or otherwise necessary ingredients.

When I started working on this story, I wasn’t sure where it would lead. What conclusion would I come to? Are these customers being fooled, or did I just learn about the best life hack of all time? The truth is somewhere in between, I think. Actually, I’m glad some mystery remains. “Belief is very important,” Theia says, noting that magic is best served to those who trust it. If someone is skeptical or suspicious, they might not be a good candidate. “We usually advise those people to not get spells, because that kind of negative mindset, that lack of belief, is usually quite detrimental.” So, I think I’ll choose to believe. On Sunday, I’ll be celebrating my best friend’s birthday with a picnic at her favorite park. And if the sun is shining, it’ll be the best $12 I’ve ever spent.

Meg Donohue

Associate Fashion Commerce Editor

Meg (she/her) is the Associate Fashion Commerce Editor at ELLE.com, where she specializes in shopping stories spanning the fashion, home, and lifestyle categories. Over the past three years, she has devoted countless hours to researching brands, testing hundreds (maybe even thousands!) of products, and deep-diving into market and consumer trends. Her favorite job responsibilities consist of co-writing the monthly series Same Same But Different and curating the fashion market for ELLE Escapes. Meg graduated magna cum laude from the Missouri School of Journalism with an emphasis on magazine editing. In 2020, one of her feature stories in the service article category was recognized by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The year prior, the Society of Professional Journalists named voxmagazine.com “Best Affiliated Magazine” in its Mark of Excellence Awards, when she was on staff. Meg’s stories have appeared on Cosmopolitan, Town & Country, Harper’s Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping, among many other outlets. Her personal passions include travel, buffalo sauce, and gardening. You can find her in New York, where she lives, or on Instagram, where she also lives. She will never stop hoping for a One Direction reunion tour.