From the Comfort of Their Living Rooms
There’s a wedding store in Jacquie Cushman’s condo.
Tidy stacks of invitation sample books dot the guest room floor. Party favors hang from the walls. And a glass-topped jewelry case stationed near the doorway holds accessories--rhinestone shoe clips, Austrian crystal chokers, antique cameos.
This is Promises West in Playa del Rey, one in a growing number of home-based bridal shops that claim savings of up to 40% on everything from gowns to champagne glasses, much of it the same merchandise found in retail shops. In the bargain, customers sacrifice the pampered ambience of an upscale shop, and a few of its amenities.
“Using a home-bridal business over a big salon is the difference between staying at a bed-and-breakfast and a commercial hotel,” says Alan Fields, co-author of “Bridal Gown Guide” (Windsor Peak Press, 1997). “It all depends on what kind of service you like.”
Cushman’s clients, usually referred by friends or relatives, make an appointment to spend anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours on the sofa in her spare room poring over catalogs and sample merchandise. While some will spend as little as $20 on a pair of earrings, one couple recently dropped $8,000 on a bridal gown, bridesmaid dresses, engraved invitations, toasting goblets and more.
This being a high-stress business, spats happen.
One bride locked herself in Cushman’s bathroom when her fiance pooh-poohed the guest book she just had to have. Another couple perusing invitations almost called the whole thing off after she, apparently for the first time, rejected the idea of taking his last name.
These scenes explain why Cushman and other home-bridal proprietors require payment in full before placing an order.
Cushman hasn’t been married so long that she can’t remember the melodrama of staging what often amounts to a theatrical production, complete with costumes, music and rehearsals. In fact, her husband bought her as a wedding gift the very home-based business she had used to buy her invitations and bridesmaid dresses. A few years later, her mother opened Promises East in upstate New York.
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Perhaps their toughest sell is the gowns. Above all else, it has to be perfect.
But both Cushman and her mom, Gail Canter, are representatives for Discount Bridal Service, a 13-year-old Baltimore mail-order firm with access to more than 250 dress lines. (The average salon offers about a dozen.) Its sales have steadily grown in the last three years, by a total of about 15%, a company official says.
With limited overhead, its 600 sales reps can offer many of the same labels found in retail shops at 20% to 40% discounts. For example, a beaded silk-taffeta Moncheri that sells for $1,000 at retail can be had for about $700 via Discount Bridal.
On the downside, brides don’t always get to see the dress on before committing hundreds or thousands of dollars. Some women come in with magazine clippings, hoping to match it to the order list. Others jot down size and style information after trying on dresses in a salon.
Designers hate this, of course, and so do retailers, Fields notes. But he gives Discount Bridal high marks in the consumer guide he co-wrote with wife Denise. Their price research found legitimate bargains, and the turnaround time on orders is the same as in salons. Alterations, however, are not part of mail-order bargain; brides must arrange for their own fittings.
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Another Discount Bridal rep, Sandy Keller, has helped plan hundred of weddings through her home-based business in Torrance. When she started Dandy Lines four years ago, she sold mostly invitations and party favors. Now, her living room coffee table is heaped with photo albums and guest books. The entertainment center houses headpieces, ornate unity candles and 30 styles of shoes. She sells some cash-and-carry items, but others, including shoes, dresses and invitations, must be ordered.
In September, Keller saved Judy Kim $300 on 350 invitations and $200 on five bridesmaids dresses. Impressed with the prices, Kim also purchased her shoes, some jewelry, a cake knife, headpiece and guest book from Dandy Lines.
Most brides comparison-shop, and that can actually work against a home-based operation. Carolyn Gray, owner of a floral and catering business called Special Occasions in Torrance, believes she has lost a client or two because she charges so much less--often 50% less--than her larger competitors.
“Brides get so used to hearing high prices,” says Gray, a 20-year veteran of the wedding business who works out of her sun room with partner Beverly Bench. “If the price is low, some of them think it’s too good to be true.”
* FOR MORE INFO: Check your telephone directory under “Bridal” for listings of local home-based wedding shops. To get the name of a Discount Bridal representative near you, call (800) 874-8794.
