[ad_1]
In May last year my daughter announced that her boyfriend had proposed, and it was game on for her to become Bridezilla – almost overnight.
Her only topic of conversation was wedding … dresses, church, venue, bridesmaids, flowergirls, spend, spend spend.
Immediately after telling us the good news, and almost in the same breath her new fiance offered to pay for the whole event, which was quite a relief, as to be blunt I was flat broke. But almost as quickly as this remark was made it disappeared, and it became obvious that I would have to foot the bill.
I undertook the task of organizing a wedding on a tiny budget. The date was set to March of the following year, and the pages of the calendar seemed to fly off the wall at a similar rate to Concord in full flight!
For Bridezilla, the dress was the thing, and she dragged me over to Liverpool to have a look at the ultimate one that she had already seen.
After facing the near death experience of being a passenger to her driving, I got shakily out of the car – "I'll drive home" were the only words that I could utter.
We were ushered into the world of weddings, housed in a rather scruffy, multi-story building somewhere in the "Bronx", or so it appeared. Finally we were in the heart of Cloud Nine Weddings, and were expected. The dress that had already been spotted was there in all it's glory. "Is not it fantastic … just look at it … it's sparkly" and so on went the drooling.
Bridezilla was whisked off to the changing room (a curtain drawn across the corner of the room), while I was left to listen, cringeingly, to another Mum being shown the extortionately expensive dresses that she was paying for.
When Bridezilla emerged from the curtain I must admit she looked like a princess, but then again she would have looked just as beautiful in any sparkly dress. "Oh Mum it's my Dreeeeeeaaaam dress! Can I have it?" All previously discussed plans of playing it cool, and thinking about it seemed to have disappeared into the ether.
"We'll have to think about it … how much is it?" I turned to the blood-sucking vampire, aka the shop owner, who flashed her pearly whites, and without even hesitating said "That is one of the entry level gowns, and will be around £ 4,500" – she must have seen the blood drain from my face, and sensing a lost opportunity added "but you could always consider buying this ex demonstration model, and we could possibly make it £ 3,800".
In somewhat of a daze I mumbled something about my husband needing to be involved, and managed to escape their clutches without spending a penny. Quite a feat.
So, now I had the measure of my daughter's tastes, but there was no way even £ 3,800 was in the budget.
Despite Bridezilla's protests that no other dress would do, I managed to pull the "trust" card from the pack, and persuaded her to let me source a dress equally as beautiful, but within my price range.
The challenge was on. I spent weeks on the internet. Spoke to many manufacturers, and finally found one who seemed honest, could provide the quality I needed, and would get me a dress that was acceptable to Bridezilla at a price that was within budget.
Amazingly, it all worked, and on my daughter's wedding day she looked every inch as fantastic as she had in the £ 4,500 gown in the fitting room. Everyone feted her, and she positively glowed.
The morning after the big day, as I was sat having a cup of tea, reminiscing, and enjoying the peace, I saw my newly married daughter (no longer Bridezilla, thank goodness) and new husband driving up. They burst into my living room, with a big bundle of white lace, crystals, tulle and satin, and dumped it on the floor, and that was it. All the planning. The dream dress. The "I've got to have it" was dumped on the floor.
Being rather perturbed at this I undertook some research with friends and relatives who had been through the wedding thing with a daughter, and it seemed that the major of said "dream dresses" end up stuck in an attic, or dumped at the parents, or at the back of the wardrobe.
As an entrepreneur, and a hard-up parent, I put on my thinking cap about the whole wedding dress thing, and worked on a solution.
After a few ideas I believe that I have found an answer to both ends of the dress's life … I have sourced an excellent range of gowns, that are reasonably priced (a good start), but I have also created a market to recycle the gowns, enabling me to offer a buy back price on every gown.
This is one for the parents, and one for the gowns that get stuck in the back of the wardrobe.
After all the furore of the wedding has gone, parents will be able to sell the wedding dress back to me, and spend the cash treating themselves to maybe a sanity weekend away, or maybe just a big party – who knows. What I do know is that I plan to revolutionize the wedding industry. Too long have parents been the victims of over-pricing. I am setting the wedding dresses free!
[ad_2]
Source by Andrea Winders
