It's been another busy month in the shop since my last blog, ok I know it's almost two months but I'm still getting over the excitement of meeting Mary Portas!!
September is when all of the wedding world descends on Harrogate to do all our main buying for the following season. It's a great chance to catch up with old friends and make new ones. There really are some fantastic new styles around for next year and we're really excited to be adding the Linea Raffaelli range of wedding dresses to the occasion wear that we already stock. They should be here in December, a nice early Xmas present!
After the whirlwind that is Harrogate we had a stand at The National Wedding Show at Earls Court. I have to say that although the show is so busy 16,000 people in 4 days, I really enjoy it and when at the end of the day you've had no food or drink (worse still no wee!) you do have a great satisfaction at seeing so many happy brides bagging a bargain and we've had some really lovely reviews from brides that bought their dresses at the London show.
At the show we met a bride who probably had the worst dilemma for any bride. I could see a girl and her mum looking through the dresses and they were looking at a particular style. I asked if she wanted to try the dress on and she then told me her story. She is getting married next year in May and has ordered a beautiful lace Essense dress for the wedding. Her fiance is being an usher at a friends wedding three weeks before, and yes, you've guessed it, the bride has the same dress!!!! That has to be a brides worst nightmare so she had the awful task of trying to find another dress or wear the dress that the groom and lots of mutual friends would have seen only three weeks before. In the end she bought a beautiful Suzanne Neville dress and the girls who were working for 'wedding ideas' magazine helped her to decide. I felt so sorry for her because she was in such a difficult position, what else could she do?
Back in the shop its still been really busy and the menswear is going from strength to strength. Last week we had a bridal party in, where the groom is a sea captain and he is wearing his dress uniform, he brought it in to try on so we could check that the rest of the bridal party could choose something that would tie in. He looked so handsome in his uniform with gold buttons and gold braid stitched all on the cuffs and the white hat. I commented on how smart he looked and said "Wow! A real sea captain." His fiance piped up "More like captain birds eye!".
Our lovely Rachel who was one of our Saturday girls while she was at college doing her design degree has just landed herself a job with the Strictly Come Dancing team and this week she made jewellery and head pieces, we are all so proud of her and can't wait for our wedding shop group invite to go and see the show, all those sequins, we'd be in our element!
Nicola Garton
www.theweddingshop.co.uk
