20% discount for Berketex brides left with no dress
Many brides have been left distraught this week following the shock collapse of the UK bridal chain Berketex Bride after 50 years on the high street. These brides will have lost their deposit and now have little time or budget to find a new wedding dress.
I exhibited opposite Berketex at the National Wedding Show, Olympia this Autumn and they put on a good show with a large stand and lots of offers to encourage brides to commit. But they are not the first company to leave large numbers of brides without wedding dresses. Last year, I made a wedding dress for a bride who was left without a dress when Shana Melville went out of business. I saw first hand the disappointment and devastation along with the financial implications.
Brides understandably become emotional when planning their big day and often interpret the loss of their dress as a bad omen. It is very hard to regain the excitement the second time around especially as now you won’t know who to trust. When a bride commits and pays a deposit it is because they have found their dream wedding dress. It is also very hard for the parents who won’t know how to handle the emotional and financial implications – it is not something most people will have experienced before.
One piece of advice I would give is to pay with a credit card because you will get your money back from your credit card provider if your wedding dress supplier goes into liquidation. But this does take around three months so you may have to find the money for a replacement dress unless of course your wedding is a long way off. If you are going to take out wedding insurance check if it covers this eventuality because sadly it is not uncommon at the moment. But be aware insurance does not cover the repercussions of being left to find a replacement wedding dress at the last minute.
Last year, the daughter of one of my lovely mother of the bride clients found herself in the same situation. With only three months to go to her wedding day, the designer who was making her daughter’s wedding dress had gone out of business. Mother and daughter were distraught – choosing the dress and going to fittings together is a big part of the build up. To suddenly find that the designer or bridal store you trusted to supply your dream dress has let you down is hard. On top of that most boutiques and designers need six to nine months notice for a wedding dress!
All my wedding dresses are made in-house in my Wimbledon studio so I can be flexible and I was able to offer help to this mother and daughter. However this is not the worse case I have come across. When Cecelia came to me she had just six weeks to go to her wedding day. But with a lot of juggling and late nights – but no compromise on the quality of the dress – my team made her the dress she wanted and when she walked down the aisle she had a fantastic response…
If you are a bride affected by the collapse of Berketex I am happy to offer you a 20% discount off a couture wedding dress. I also have some lovely samples if you need a wedding dress last minute. I am here to turn tears into smiles – please email me at [email protected]
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