Designers and Designer Weekends- a wee bit of background!

Designer weekends are quite a new concept in bridal and they have become very 'big' in the last three/four years.

In our shops we stock a good range of designers including Romantica, Justin Alexander, Mori Lee and Sophia Tolli. We select our designers/manufacturers based on many considerations.....not just because we like their dresses!! We try to look for established suppliers and companies who have a good trading history and a solid financial background. Today more than ever this is paramount; we want companies we trust, companies who have good customer service, companies who can supply what they say they will supply and importantly deliver their products on time.

We also try our hardest to establish good relationships with our suppliers and for many of our suppliers we are one of their top Scottish accounts. Good relationships with suppliers are invaluable.

We currently have accounts with around 20 suppliers. As much as we would like to have every dress from every company this is not possible. We would never have enough space to fit the dresses in the shops and I would never have enough money to buy them all to put in the shops and I seriously would NOT fancy ironing them all either lol.

Designer weekends give us the chance to have 'whole' or 'selections' of collections in the shop and they also allow us to show you dresses that we have not chosen to stock in the store. This can be a great time to purchase your dress (over the years many a client has loved being able to buy something that wasn't going to be a stock item in the shop and to have the chance to have something different). When we do a preview weekend for a designer it also helps them to see which of their dresses have sold. We too also look at what sells at designer weekends and sometimes we have to adjust our buying in accordance. Stephy and I have had real surprises at designer weekends with what has sold and we love that! It always reminds us and we say this to you....you never know looking at a dress on a hanger what it is going to look like until it's on!

The only negative about designer weekends is the dress sizes as the samples are usually a 10 however one supplier now is looking into changing this...so we will wait and see.

We are booking our designer wekends for 2015 as I write and in Edinburgh we have a Lilian West Weekend at the end of November (appointments required)so that's exciting....but unfortunately means I will be ironing again!

Gwenne x