SYDNEY BRIDES,
HERE WE COME!
It's time again to head to Sydney for a Trunk show to showcase my gowns to Sydney brides. I try to do this every 6 months, or when I see demand in the market for my wedding dresses. This time I decided to film the experience as it can be quite an adventure. I ended up packing 30 wedding dresses in my car as well as racks, hangers, fabric samples and mannequins. You can see the full video below.
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Moving an entire showroom is not a small task. It took quite a bit of planning to make sure I hadn't missed anything, as well as bring back up documents, order forms etc... just in case I couldn't access them from my computer. And as organised as I was, I didn't plan for the excessive rain that hit us the whole duration we were in Sydney. I was lucky I had my boyfriend drive me up in his ute, as I wouldn't have fit anything in my small sedan. But his open tray in the back meant that when the rain hit, we had to come up with a plan to protect everything in the tray. Thank god the dresses weren't in the tray. As I am quite protective over my wedding dresses, I wanted them in the cabin with me, so I somehow managed to 'tetris' 30 wedding dresses in the back seat.
We ended up covering everything else in garage bags to prevent the water from destroying our luggage, racks and fabric samples. Anyone travelling behind us would have thought we were on our way to the tip, not to set up a high end bridal showroom.
Words - Naomi Peris
Photography - Justin Cornock
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The set up was quite seamless, though it did occur to me that hotels have quite nonfunctional furniture. Take the coffee table for example. It was a beautiful glass and iron frame coffee table that was over 1 metre squared. It filled the entire space and was so heavy it made it nearly impossible to move.
I can understand that hotel furniture is probably not meant to be movable, however I would have thought that a large glass coffee table maybe not the safest item to choose, considering how many guests would come back after a boozy night only to stumble and land in the middle of a scattered glass coffee table.
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It was quite interesting to meet brides from Sydney. And even though Canberra is only 3 hours away in drive time, I found that the type and style of bride were worlds apart. The most interesting part was that they didn't understand my business, as they didn't read the pre consultation
information or check out my website. This was not their fault, but it was just that they were the type of people that didn't read information. Most brides didn't know they could design their own wedding dress. And once they realised this, they had no idea what elements they wanted on their wedding dress because the options were endless. Having so many options meant that they just didn't know what to choose.
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The fact is that my business doesn't suit every bride. It only suits brides that know exactly what they want. As there are so many fabrics and design options, designing the right wedding dress for a bride means that there first needs to be some direction. A style type, a neckline, a silhouette or a fabric. This allows me to then build a gown on some elements. And even though we offer a body type assessment where I design wedding dresses according to the brides shape, a lot of options are selective and are more based on personal style.
After my appointments I was left wondering if the Sydney market was right for me. Whether it was just an education process or whether Sydney was just not ready for custom made wedding dresses?
In saying this, I still receive inquiries from Sydney brides, and do quite a lot of dresses for Sydney brides that are willing to travel to Canberra. But I can say that the majority of Sydney brides that I have met just didn't understand that they could design their own wedding dress for the same price as a dress off the rack.
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This has left me realising that Sydney is a brand new market, where most people don't understand my business. Even though I have grown my business in Canberra for 10 years, this meant nothing for the Sydney customer. After this experience I re-designed my website and started an education process for new Sydney brides.
Naomi x
