starting a bridal shop

palyitsafe

hi, this is my first time using boards.ie, so i hope u can help! as wonderful as the current economic climate is i am going to try to open up my own bridal boutique!i would appreciate any information anyone can give me, especially brides who have had good/bad experiences when buying their dresses, so i could get an idea what to do/what not to do.i have located some new designers that i reckon i could retail starting at €600 upwards.i know some of my friends that have got married have paid €1600+ i want to aim at both markets.so does anyone have any advice for me?i really would appreciate any feedback on sales pitches,decor, pinning the dresses, prices they would pay,basically any help or info would be greatly appreciated!

bluebell1

Hope this is of some help to you. I am currenlty looking for a wedding dress. I am a size 16/18 in 'normal ' clothes. If a wedding dress says size 16, its really a 12. I have found 1 dress that has fitted me, you need a really thick skin when shopping! my advice would be buy everything in a size 16-20, i think its easier to pin a dress to a slimmer girl than try to hold a dress closed on a larger girl ( like me!!).

The cost varies hugely across shops for the same dress, have found a variation of 400euro betweeen 2 shops for the dress that i want.

The bride should get your undivided attention when she is in the shop, was in one store recently and the assistant helping me was nearly breaking her neck to see what the other bride to be was trying on!:mad:

about the cost, my own opinion on this is that i am personally keeping the cost to under 1000 euro or a lot less if i can. my thinking is that i want to enjoy the day in my dress and not be having freak attacks about getting it dirty or spilling something on it.

finally make sure that the dressing room can accomodate up to 3 people and a big dress, one shop i loved had a separte room for trying on your dress from which two curtains opened in the centre into the rest of the shop, it was a love wow factor!

Hope there is something useful here for you, sorry if it appears like a rant:)

palyitsafe

hi bluebell1 thanks so much for your infomation, its really helpful.I have a few years in customer service myself & i feel i am a cheery approachable person so i am definitely aiming to completely focus on the bride when it comes to choosing her dress.i like the idea of the dressing room,i was thinking of a dressing room for brides exclusively that would open into the shop centre but i wasnt sure if the bride would like any other customers looking at her? one other thing i would be interested to know is when u first walk into the shop do u like someone to come straight up & help or prefer to browse then get help when required.i have been to a few bridal shops,personally i like my own space then the option to ask for help when required,however some shops i went into they just completely ignored you because u were just browsing.

Sesame

I disagree with above poster about buying everything in size 16 to 20.
I'm an 8 and I'd look ridiculous trying on that size. There's no way I'd be able to guess if the dress suited me or not.
Ask the suppliers to recommend the sizes to stock, they'd know best.
I tried on mostly size 12's with a few pins to hold it up and got a good idea but it still doesn't give you the best picture of the end product. Once they stuffed a big sponge down my back to fill it out. That was weird and didn't really let me imagine what the back of the dress should look like.
I agree about curtains. Also having appointments and even a locked door requiring buzzer entry. It keeps it more exclusive. Nothing worse than browsers having a nosey look at you.
Also while it's important that the staff are pleasant, this can go too far. I had one girl tell me everything on me was fabulous so I didn't really get any constructive criticism and didn't tend to believe her towards the end.
One other thing, I have a feeling that weddings are going to increase in the next 3 or 4 years. The birth rate peaked in 1980 and these babies are now of marrying age! I hope your business is a sucess!

KazDub

I got married a few years ago and ran into some real pieces of work when buying my dress. Some of the owners really thought that they were something special and it showed in their bad attitude.

For starters, put prices on all of your dresses. In my own experience, I didn't have a set-in-stone budget, but I had an idea of what I could afford. One south Dublin city shop didn't have a single price on any dress. When I asked about this I was told to pick a few dresses and that the girl would write down the prices for me. I wasn't going to waste precious time playing stupid games with them, so I promptly left without trying on a single dress.

Unless you're going to sell yourself as a designer / exclusive only shop, have a wide range of prices and don't think you have to only stock dresses from the 'big' names. Some of the loveliest dresses I tried on were made in Turkey, buy an unknown designer that the owner had developed contacts with. I'd never heard of him before, or after, but they were unique, beautiful and didn't cost the earth.

Appointments are a handy thing to use, but I got sick of popping my head into a shop only to have it snapped off by the staff because I didn't have an appointment. Sometimes people will come in on spec in the hope that they can be seen. If that's not suitable at the time I think it's nice for someone to come over and at least offer to look in an appointment book for them and see if a suitable time can be arranged.

A very well known dress designer, in a large area South off the M50 was without a doubt the rudest person I had the misfortune to deal with. She has her own shop which she also works in. Rude, rude, rude. I apparently was taking far too long picking out the dresses I wanted to try on. She stormed around the shop as my mother and bridesmaid tried to help pick a selection. Eventuall she just got fed up, picked up our dresses, fecked them into the changing room and told me to go try them on. I was so fed up with her tutting and sighing that I just tried them on, said I didn't like them and left. As I was leaving she was convincing a very short, stout girl that a huge, red, merangue of a dress was 'stunning' on her. No disrespect to the poor girl, but you'd have to be very tall and slim to have got away with the dress. But of course it was one of the designer's own and expensive. Sickening.

As you can probably fathom, there are some awful bridal shop owners out there. They will forever be named and shamed by me to my friends and family, but the really nice, helpful ones will also have their praises sung from a height.
Best of luck with your venture.

titta76

Hope you go ahead with the idea, my only suggestion will be to get in touch with somebody that can do the alterations I you can really trust. If you sell the wrong gown to the wrong person you are done, and in the other way around.... best of luck

ilovecars

i got married in may,all the shops in limerick and surrounding areas had lovely staff, even the posh shops, i'm not a bit posh.. i was a size 20 but i was sure to tell the assistant that i'd be down 5 stone for the wedding[ha] i wanted a real fairytale princess style dress, i'm 5 foot, they all tried putting me off the idea,...nicely, the dresses were all 14's so they clipped them to my bra to pretend they fitted,i think the dresses should be bigger to accomodate the bigger brides and pulled in to fit a smaller girl.. try get some fairytale dresses as their is none around, for a finish when i went for my fitting few weeks before the wedding i had lost nearly 6 stone and she killed me cos she had to chop away half the dress.. but good luck and keep us up to date..

ilovecars

ban the men, as i have been to shops where the husbands to be were pickin the wife's dress.. and me half dressed, and limit the amount of people who come with the bride, maybe have a water machine, as it's a long day for everyone involved..

laurak265

I am a bridesmaid for my friend gettin married this yr. Went to a few shops with her and i have a few suggestions.

Some of the shops had so many big puffy fussy dresses with huge trains. Very hard to find simple elegant A line dresses. Try having a nice mix of both. In some shops there were huge windows facing onto the street where people walking by could stop and gawk! Have sheer fabic behind your display to avoid this. Good lighting is essentail esp for looking at the colour of bridesmaid dresses. Large fitting areas and plenty of mirrors are essential. Also have a box to stand on if the dress is too long, gives you a good idea of what it looks like. My friend tried on the tiaras and veil also to get the complete picture so have a nice selection of those. One shop allowed people in to browse and the dresses were filthy from over handling and dragging on the ground. Dont' over stuff rails, it makes it hard to see the detail or style of the dresses. Maybe insist on using white gloves to handle the dresses to avoid make-up paw marks lol.

Hope this helps and best of luck with your venture.

smelltheglove

First of all you need to decide on location, this will help you with what type of dresses considering your closest competition. You should have a good range and a good knowledge of possible alterations. My dress was the first one I tried on but I did not like the skirt and the shop owner didnt think anything could be done so I went and bought a dress elsewhere just to come back and buy that dress and bring it off to be altered by someone else.

You need a good knowledge as many brides will want to make a stamp on their own dress. Also the classical style dress with a bit of red is very very popular. I know you think, I've seen that dress before, I've seen it at 3 weddings in 2 years but that is the reason you should stock it, it is very very popular.

The style of the dress should determine the size you bring it in, a slinky dress could be a 10, a girl more than a 12 is less likely to wear one hence they would not necessarily try it on, corset type dresses maybe a 12 and low waistlines a 14 as these are very complimentary to larger brides. I was a 16 and at one shop there were no dresses in my size. Another had loads of the style I was after.

How you are is a huge deal, I had a 2 month old baby yet in one bridal shop they were rudely talking to me about what I could wear if I lost some weight, I left as as far as I was concerned it was too soon for me to be talking about going on a diet and I had never intended to do so anyway.

In the business sense you always want to sell as low as possible but you have to consider insurance rent electricity and so much more in your profit margin of each dress, i.e. if you sell 1 dress a week and it costs you 300 a week to run the place you want to be making 500 profit to at least have some money, in the 300 you have to include the cost of the samples as well as the rent and insurance. You also need to think of extras to up the sales, hair accessories even underwear. Where are you going to be based?

palyitsafe

everybody thank u so much for your information!keep it coming please!its great to get such feedback.i cannot believe some of the horror stories from bridal shops,some people are so rude,i am definitely not going down that road.going bridal dress shopping is such a huge deal & i cant believe how disrespectful some staff can be.if all goes well i want to have a large dressing room with good lighting & surrounding mirrors specifically for bridal fittings then smaller rooms for other fittings.i have sourced a range of bridal designers that are not already stocked in the county.these designers range from discount to a more expensive line.i will definitely have the prices on the dresses as that just puts me of when there is no prices on something.