Thursday, April 3, 2008

Yesterday, I finally visited A Bride’s Storey. Nashville brides and planners have raved about A Bride’s Storey, so I thought I would check out this Murfreesboro bridal salon myself.

When I arrived, I saw a cute little mom and bride to be leaving the store with a huge smile - great start!

I entered the store, with my crew of wedding planners with whom I’d eaten lunch, and was pleasantly greeted by Melissa - the new co-owner. We waited as she finished working with her client and she gave me a tour of the salon and her amazing collections.

Before I get into the pictures (which I know you love!), here are a few things that I love about A Bride’s Storey:

1) They can take your measurements for $5 without a purchase. Salons are shying away from taking measurements of non-purchasers, rightfully so - it does take time, time that could be spent with paying clients. But, $5 is no big deal.

2) They work with an outside seamstress who can do your alterations. However, she can come to A Bride’s Storey for your fittings. (If you don’t purchase your dress at A Bride’s Storey, they will still put you in contact with their preferred seamstress.)

3) Your dress will be steamed (before your wedding) and cleaned and preserved (after your wedding) for free. It’s included in your service. Awesome! My dress is 2 years old and cleaning is on my to-do list.

4) When you buy your dress at A Bride’s Storey, you and your party get 10% other purchases in the store - invitations, shoes, mom’s dress, bridesmaid dresses, etc. Plus, Street Tuxedo is just a few doors down AND they honor the 10% discount too. Money in the bank!

5) My first impression of Melissa was great. Now, I havent purchased a dress there but we were off to a good start. You’d be surprised at how many Nashville-area bridal salons I visited that didn’t leave a positive first impression.

She carries 9 lines of bridal gowns plus attire for bridesmaids, flower girls and mothers of the bride/groom. Today, I’ll share one of her lines, San Patrick, which I think is amazing. A Bride’s Storey is one of 2 Nashville bridal salons that carries San Patrick. It is a European collection, I think out of Spain so you will notice lots of lace.

I visited their website to show you some of their breathtaking gowns.

So, that’s the skinny on A Bride’s Storey. Visit the salon to see more of this stunning collection. I promise, it’s even more spectacular in person.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Love Ann Taylor Celebrations or J. Crew Bridal but on a budget? Consider Target’s bridal line. Yes, Target offers wedding wedding.

Latrice of Bridal Opulence blogged about Target’s bridal line a few days ago and my first question was about quality. I mean, I love Target too (note - the Super Target in Smyrna opened Sunday; I went and had a ball!!!!) but wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses? I mean, my maids didn’t need a dress that would last forever but I didn’t want it to come apart at the reception.

So, I asked Latrice who knows fashion (tons of retail experience) and knows Target (worked in an exec role there forever) - what’s up with the Target line. She said it’s really decent for the value.

According to Latrice…

The average wedding gown starts at $89.99 & the most expensive is $159.99 The dresses are very simple yet extremely elegant & with the right accessories it would be a perfect gown. I am all about accessories!!!!

Isaac Mizrahi for Target® Strapless Sheath Dress - Iggloo (White) This dress is only $89.99 & the pink sash makes it sooo adorable.

Isaac Mizrahi for Target® Trapunto Bell Dress - Opal Cream Retails at $159.99

It even comes in the adorable little Mizrahi keepsake box

The great thing about shopping the Mizrahi Bridal Collection is that it includes more than just Bridal gowns. You can also select your bridesmaids dresses & other accessories from this line & not break the bank.

So if you are a bride on a budget, check out Target.com. You can do your bridal registry while you are shopping on-line for your gown! How super convenient is that!!!

By going this route, you could always include a Trash the Dress photo session in the bridal portraits & actually not feel bad about “Trashing your dress”

Not that I don’t trust Latrice’s judgment, but I also stumbled across an article (on another fave site of mine) written on Target dresses and thought it would be helpful to see too.

According to DIY bride of DIYbride.com

I recently had the opportunity to get hands-on with a Target bridal gown (the $90 strapless sheath.

The verdict: It was surprisingly well-done for the price. I’d say the gown quality is comparable to a mid-range maid’s gown you’d get at someplace like David’s. The fabric was decent, neither luxe or polyesther-y. The seams were even and there were no flaws that I could detect in the workmanship — except at the bottom hem that wasn’t stitched well. That wasn’t a big deal for the bride because the gown has to be altered anyway. The lining was sufficient and done well.

The bride said the gown was a bit on the small size and to go up one size to get over her chest (and she’s not overly busty). She was pleased with Target.com’s return policy but had to wait a week or so until the new size was back in stock.

Overall, I give it thumbs up and would recommend it to brides on a micro-budget or who are otherwise not interested in shelling out big bucks for a gown.

Ashley’s wrap:

So, all-in-all, Target seems to get two thumbs up. Can you wear the wedding dress over and over? No and who plans to:). And when it comes to bridesmaid dress, who really does anyway? Off to goodwill is where all of my bridesmaid dresses go. Plus, Target carries tuxedos and flower girl attire. Where else can you buy your wedding attire and your cute honeymoon bikinis all in one e-cart? Only Target!

Oh, and I really like these cute party/bridesmaid dresses. In fact, I am thinking about buying this cute little green one just because…

Thursday, February 28, 2008

I love bridal fashion shows because they help you find great wedding attire but also help you discover great bridal salons and stylists in the Nashville-area. Since I missed the Perfect Wedding Guide fashion show, I couldn’t wait for A Magical Affair (the fashion show producers) to share their pics and more.

In addition to the great wedding dresses, read all about the neat ideas for these wedding planners incorporated into the show and see which might work for your wedding day.

Guest Post: A Magical Affair is a Nashville wedding planning team.

We coordinated the fashion show for the Perfect Wedding Guide show. It was our first fashion show and we had lots of ideas and inspirations and so our inspiration board really helped:

(Ashley’s note - Work with your wedding planner to create an inspiration board for your wedding so you can visual each component.)

We had some pretty basic ideas that we knew we’d like to incorporate: feathers, lanterns that lined an aisle of rose petals, white parasols-and
we really wanted to do something fun with glow sticks. We also had the Wonderful Graffiti quote “Sometimes in the Middle of an Ordinary Life, Love Gives us a Fairy Tale”. That quote was our main source of inspiration, because we wanted the show to reflect the concept of a fairy tale, from its most basic premise (think Cinderella) to a modern fairytale (with feathers & glowsticks.)

We started with some fantastic dresses. We had gowns from A Bride’s Storey, The White Room, and Selah Style & Events and some equally great tuxedos from Street Tuxedo and Bitners Formal Wear.

We wanted three separate and distinct styles to match our dresses. The first was the “traditional” fairytale. In this beautiful photo by Mark Couturier, our model is wearing a gorgeous dress from A Bride’s Storey that is accented by a clutch of sweet white gerbera daisies.

Our second fairytale was the “modern” fairytale- with sleek dresses in longer lines and in more stylish fabrics. The vendor? Selah Style and Events. These dresses were fantastic (and went great with our pretty little umbrellas) Check out this image from Donald Yeager photography of two lovely models looking a little less than modern with their umbrella- but still a very nice picture, we think, that captured a dreamy sort of fairytale look.

This beautiful image above shows off a gorgeous and dramatic back to this beautiful wedding gown. The graceful tieback folds fall in delicate ripples down the back of the gown, and produced quite a few “aahs” at the model’s turn. We can’t say we blamed them.

The dresses weren’t the only works of art on display. We also had some gorgeous bouquets provided for the show by Fresh! by Carry Ann, hands down, one of our favorite florists in Middle Tennessee. If she’s not awing us with her beautiful event floral displays, it’s bouquets like these that take our breath away.

Our last group of brides showed off beautiful gowns from The White Room in Lebanon with flowers by Angela Sadler.

In all, we felt the show reflected some of the most stunning bridal styles that our local bridal salons are featuring.

Last but not least, we designed a custom program for the show.

Want to see more flowers and dresses? The fashion show was photographed by the always amazing Mark Couturier. He has a beautiful gallery of images that are hosted on his website by following this link.