Lovely Bridal Shop, Badgely Mischka dress
Lovely Bridal Shop is the perfect respite from the overdone chandelier, bright lights and rows of dresses shrouded in plastic that make up your average mainstream bridal store. It’s also a more approachable option for the stylish, Coco +Kelly reading bride who would rather shimmy on and off her favorite J brands than dress to the nines in order to feel welcome at the more couture bridal houses. Marketing maven Lanie List and operating partner Cassandra Quinn recognized this lack of a homey, quaint bridal boutique and opened the doors of their West Village Brownstone store just six weeks ago. At launch they had already secured 50 initial appointments and have been booked solid ever since. So how did they do it?
Lovely Bridal Shop, 376 Bleecker
Lanie and Cassandra believe that the customer experience is as important as the product, and created a store that people wanted to spend time in, and a brand that brides wanted to be a part of. The store and brand, both in name and in service, clearly focuses on the bride, rather than the typical bridal store in NYC which is often associated with the owner’s name. The in-store experience is much like being in a home, with comfortable couches and chairs, and an entire upstairs with private salons for try-ons.
Lovely Bridal Shop
Building The Brand Through Blogging
Importantly, the owners established a blog when the store concept was in its infancy and built relationships with wedding blogs that shared a similar vision. Content on the blog started out about fashion, wedding photography and wedding blogs, and evolved to also include bits about the process of starting the store – chairs picked up at a Flea Market, etc. Lovely also carries a few lines (Sarah Seven, Elizabeth Dye) that are not found anywhere else in New York, so the buzz generated by those designers and fans helped build expectation among local brides. The week before the store launched, Lovely Bride contributed guest posts and give-aways to top wedding blog 100 Layer Cake, and word of this and similar collaborations with other bloggers led to a Daily Candy hit the day before opening day and another one just five days later.
Cynthia Rowley Bridesmaids
Cynthia Rowley Launch Event
In addition to the Lovely blog, the boutique leverages both Facebook and Twitter and is demonstratively comfortable building relationships organically through social media. When Alan Dessy of Dessy Group contacted Lanie about partnering to promote the new Cynthia Rowley Bridesmaids line, with a launch event that tied in with Foursquare, she was right on board and set up an account. “In retail the most important thing is to drive people to the store,” she said. “Foursquare ties back social networking to a physical location where people can shop.”
Event Details – Make sure to check in to Foursquare to “unlock’ something special when you arrive!
| Date: |
Thursday, June 3, 2010
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| Time: |
6:00pm – 8:00pm
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| Location: |
376 Bleecker Street
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