The Bridal Bar - A Special Events Resource CenterHarmony Walton was once a contributing editor for Inside Weddings and used to write about vendors and new trends. People began asking her for referrals for their weddings, and thus, the Bridal Bar was born. I referred a very dear friend of mine to a photographer I had written up, and the event didn't end amicably. Of course she came back to me and said, "Don't you work with this photographer?" And I said yeah, we featured him. But come to think of it, I don't really know too much about him and his background. It's such an important day that I realized that I cannot give my referral to people for their wedding without fully knowing their background. Harmony does a lot of research before selecting her vendors. And a lot of vendors find their way to the Bridal Bar independently. The Bridal Bar checks extensive references, goes through the better business bureau. They speak to their brides and the vendors potential companies have worked with, and they go through their portfolios. In each category, they limit the number of vendors so as not to overwhelm the bride. No two coordinators are the same price or style. The Bridal Bar covers Southern California, and is starting to expand more into Northern California. However, a lot of the vendors do travel--Bridal Bar does a lot of destination weddings. One of their clients actually went to a bed and breakfast in Austria. Our clients love the boutique atmosphere. Every vendor as a client is very well taken care of--knows our names and faces. The brides get special attention, too. One to two hours, and we follow up with them. We've even been invited to some weddings of our clients. How we've succeeded thus far is being very boutique. The majority of brides come to the Bridal Bar a couple of weeks after they've gotten engaged, starting from scratch--they need a location, a coordinator. They don't know where to begin. However, you can come in at any point, whether it's full service or just a few minor details. We assist the bride; we do not plan. We will not be there on your wedding day. We strongly recommend that every bride hire a coordinator. We sit down, serve them a glass of champagne, and we get to know their style and budget. After the bride has left, we mail them a scaled down list of vendors that fit their needs, based upon the information they provided us. You also do party planning? We assist in party planning. It doesn't necessarily have to be weddings. Of course after the wedding usually comes the baby. We've done a lot of baby showers and bridal showers. If the bride is working with us on her wedding, a lot of times her mother or best friend will call us about an aesthetic similar to the wedding. We've done several corporate events, premieres, etc. How many brides at one time are you assisting? Some brides don't even have to contact us because they just go to our website and use the service online. We get a lot of phone calls where people don't have the time to come in, or they want to be hands-off and just dump the planning on someone else. But in-store we probably have about 100 brides a month. The way I tally that is the number of gift bags that go out each month. When brides come in, they leave with a gift bag with five complimentary bridal magazines, spa certificates, truffle samples, etc. It varies. What do you envision for Bridal Bar in the future? My dream is to have a bridal bar that is there to help brides in all the major markets: Dallas, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, but still be a boutique store in each city. One day in the future you might see a Baby Bar that can help with your registry and your lactation classes. It's a new venture on a woman's life that you have to be educated on and they're starting from scratch. Highest Highs: It's 2 years into its inception, and we're starting to get a lot of really phenomenal vendors that only in my wildest dreams want to be a part. And they are contacting us and asking to be affiliated with us. Right along with that, my brother is getting married next month so it's sort of a Bridal Bar 'mish-mosh' of a wedding. I get to help with that--seeing his fiance', and helping her with the planning process. Seeing the family dynamic behind the bride and groom is really neat. Being that it has been two years now, brides are coming back to us with their baby pictures, and we get to see everything full circle. That's a great feeling. Lowest Low: The really great bridal companies that are starting up are not of the caliber we're looking for, we won't bring a vendor onboard that we don't think fits the niche of our market. It's really difficult to tell a new business owner that they need to build their portfolio, experience, and to come back to us in a year or two. It's not a good feeling. Because I was at that place--you're starting up as a new concept, and you don't know if people are going to love it or hate it. To have a door closed on you is tough. That's the worst part of my job. What advice would you give somebody trying to start his/her own business? I would do a lot of things differently myself. I definitely went about it opposite the way the books tell you to do it. I would have saved myself a lot of heartache had I gone the more traditional route to creating and building a business. But the biggest key in starting your own business is to just believe in yourself and just go for it feet first. I'm 26 years old, and I started my business not long after college. Everybody thought I was crazy. Luckily, I had a supportive family, but I had to fib about my age to some of the older vendors in town while I was trying to get then to listen to me. I really felt I could do it at a young age because I didn't have the husband and kids to support. I had no fear and no regrets. If I failed, so what, I could always start over. What's key is doing it at the right time in your life, whether you're young or old. And go into it giving it everything you've got. If it doesn't work, that's not the end. Whether you're doing it in 10 years or not, be proud of what you did while you did it. Know that what risks you are taking are calculated and brave. And if you're brave, you're not going to fail. Interview by Pamela Heath, written by Kaylene Peoples. Watch the video: |
