As you know, bridal boutiques are at the heart of everything we do here at Bridal Buyer. Every piece of content we create is curated to reflect what matters most to our readers - from the latest trends in bridal fashion to expert advice on running a successful boutique, we focus on providing tailored insights and inspiration that empower boutique owners to thrive. As we wrap up an incredible 2024, we hear from five of our loyal retailers to hear of their accomplishments and highlights from the past year.

TDR Bridal

Winning the Bridal Buyer Awards, (Best Bridal Retailer and Inclusivity & Diversity) has to be our highlight of 2024! Both were totally unexpected, and we were totally overwhelmed, given the competition and so many other amazing retailers out there right now. These awards mean the world to us because they celebrate what we stand for: making every bride feel seen, valued, and beautiful.

Chameleon

2024 has been a sensational year for us at Chameleon, marked by the incredible milestone of 40 years in business! In today’s competitive market, reaching this achievement is truly remarkable. Since I took over the reigns of the business 8 years ago, we’ve expanded significantly opening our 3rd fitting room at Chameleon, launching a separate dedicated Mother of the Bride boutique, and opening a brand new and now thriving Outlet branch. We celebrated our 40th birthday in October with an intimate in-store gathering of trusted local bridal suppliers, past and present staff and a few special brides.

Scarlet Poppy Bridal

2024 saw Scarlet Poppy reach its 30th year. The cherry on top was being announced as finalists for Bridal Buyer ‘Team of the Year’ and I couldn’t have been prouder of us. Scarlet Poppy remains in its original cottage boutique location, and whilst we continue to evolve our business with the times, at our heart we retain our central ethos of exemplary customer service, in-depth product and supplier knowledge, technical know-how and a full in-house service which our brides recognise and appreciate us for. The highlights of our year were truly unforgettable. We had the privilege of hosting the incredible bridal coach Abi Neill, whose expertise and insights brought a fresh perspective to our boutique. The stunning new collections from Maggie Sottero, Allure & Morilee at Bridal Week Harrogate left us in awe of what’s to come. But most precious of all were the countless brides who trusted us with their special moments - each bringing their unique story and dreams to our boutique.

Grace Bridal Studio

Reflecting on 2024, my standout moment was signing the lease for Grace Bridal Studio at 7 High Street, Wigton, and transforming a four-story property into a luxurious bridal haven. Renovating the space was a challenge but also a labour of love. Due to the high renovation costs, taking on multiple bridal designers wasn’t feasible. However, this inspired me to focus on curating a breath-taking collection.

Queen Bee Bridal

We opened a bridesmaids boutique which we were delighted won Highly Commended in the Special Touch category of the recent TWIA’s, invested in a new CRM system, took on new designers and welcomed our first employee, superstar stylist Anna. We were also absolutely over the moon to have won the Best Retailer (under 4 years) in the TWIA’s for our region (bring on the National Finals party in January, whoop!), AND had our biggest ever sales month since we launched three and a half years ago….an incredible third more dresses sold than our previous biggest sales month!

You are Precious

This year, we celebrated winning ‘Team of the Year’ at the prestigious Bridal Buyer Awards which was a total honour. Our companies have gone from strength to strength, we’ve switched up our Sisters of Grace studio to becoming one of the leading ‘Off The Peg’ Designer Bridal Outlets, we were honoured to be a panellist for the inclusivity lounge session an the Harrogate Bridal Shows, and we’ve hit a milestone record number of brides saying Yes to their dream dress across both our sister stores.

Caroline Bailey Bridal

This would have to be introducing the next generation of the family into the business - my daughter Jemma. Having run the business solely for the last 7 years, it was time to bring Jemma onboard and although she has always been on buying trips with me before, I am now proud to have her working alongside me in the boutique and have a real family-run business that we can take into the future together.

Silk and Maple

2024...what a whirlwind. The highlight of our year has to be opening the doors at Sora - our sister shop that focuses on bridesmaids & their experience. It was another huge shop renovation for us (having forgotten the trauma of renovation number 1, we were quickly brought back to reality), so hosting our opening party was unforgettably special! We’ve grown so much in the last year - physically with regards to the new premises, as well as, ’women’ power in store and the incredible team we are building! We’ve also hit a milestone of the number of ’Silk & Maple Brides’ - so that was celebrated with an Aperol Spritz (...or two!).

The Bridal Mill

We were absolutely ecstatic to reach our 10-year anniversary and share it with all of our future brides, we have been lucky enough to have been able to expand and grow each year and thankfully, we have been able to end the year on our best year yet. We were able to achieve Platinum Stockist for the second year with Sophia Tolli and reach Number one Stockist for 2024. We could not be prouder of our team for their dedication, hard work and continued passion for helping brides to find their dream dress.

 

Got any exciting news for us? Email our Editor, Anna-Marie DeSouza, at annamarie.desouza@oceanmedia.co.uk.