FAIRHOPE, Alabama – Is there any garment that says “optimism” more than a wedding dress?
Standing barefoot on a marble pedestal at Bliss Bridal in this southern Alabama gulf coast town, Kimberly Waldrop tried on one dress after another as her mother and grandmother watched. The bride-to-be swayed in a wide-skirted dress, then twirled in a long-sleeved, lacy one.
The store was filled with dresses with price tags under $4,000.
“This is what the average working bride would spend on a dress,” says Katie Yellin, owner of Bliss Bridal, which has three locations on the Gulf Coast. “We try to provide the experience you would get in a very high-end, expensive designer boutique, but all of our dresses are affordable.”
Weddings are big business again in the post-pandemic era, with even “working brides” spending thousands of dollars on dresses after a doldrums of casual backyard parties and uncertainty. It’s the kind of economic optimism President Joe Biden is trying to sell to Americans in an election year that for many voters hinges on how they view the economy.
“Brides are coming back with big parties and weddings,” Yellin said.
Her mother, from Alabama, calls her “Kimmy,” and her fiance, Waldrop, from Guatemala, calls her “Kiki.”, The 27-year-old was having her own personal “say yes to the dress” moment, modeling for her family, just like brides do on TLC’s hit TV series.
She had budgeted $2,000 for the dress, and one of Yellin’s assistants had secretly helped Waldrop choose a dress to avoid trying on anything outside her budget. “It was a relief,” Waldrop said.
Waldrop teaches third grade in the Molino, Fla., public schools, and her partner, Johnny Rosales, works as a server at a Mexican restaurant and runs an auto repair business. The couple plan to marry on New Year’s Day at a farm in rural Alabama.
At Bliss Bridal, she stared at herself in the mirror. “I love this,” she said, running her fingers over the lacy bodice.
Her mother, Rhonda Barrow, interjected: “Is this your favorite?”
Each new dress has become a new favorite.
“Are you ready to party? I have a surprise for you later,” Waldrop said with a laugh, as her assistant removed the floaty overskirt to reveal the cocktail dress.
Brides are spending more on wedding dresses
The U.S. economic recovery is strong from some angles and fragile from others. Like the U.S. as a whole, brides and bridal shops face an uncertain and uneven economy.
Bridal shops are small businesses in the U.S., with more than 5,500 independent stores nationwide, according to a market analysis by IBISWorld.
There are some bright spots for the industry: Wedding numbers are returning to pre-pandemic levels, boosting bridalwear sales. In the five years to 2023, “rising per capita disposable income and consumer spending will encourage more brides and grooms to spend on expensive wedding accessories,” according to the report.
But revenue from bridal shops has stagnated over the past five years due to lower wedding rates and fewer weddings during the pandemic. It’s expected to reach $26 billion in 2023, up 0.4% from a year ago.
As David’s Bridal, the country’s only national chain, emerges from a painful bankruptcy, its turnaround plan is to mimic the kind of personalized “Say Yes to the Dress” experience that Yellin offers in its stores.
Waldrop said she and Rosales have been saving money and hope to pay for their wedding themselves, but are turning to crafts and arts and crafts to make it happen.
“Prices are a lot higher than they used to be,” she said.
When she found out that wedding invitations were twice as expensive as she expected, she made them herself using online tools. She also wanted a memorable seating chart, but that was out of her budget, so she looked into making one on TikTok.
“Anything we can make, we can make,” she said.
At Bliss Bridal, dresses have price tags on them. “It helps to know that the dress is within your budget,” Waldrop said. Other stores don’t tell brides the price until they like the design, she said. To avoid that stress, she drove nearly two hours to shop at Bliss Bridal.
Inflation is having an effect, and brides are spending more on their dresses: According to the annual The Knot Real Weddings survey, American brides will spend an average of $2,000 on a dress in 2023, up from $1,631 in 2018.
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At Yellin’s store, brides look for sleek white dresses like those worn by British royalty, or gowns embroidered with beads or 3D floral patterns like the Netflix star’s take on the British royal family. Yellin has been approached to carry dresses from high-end designers, but she always turns them down.
“The dresses are amazing, but I love being able to provide a bride with an experience that she may not have felt she deserved or was capable of achieving,” she said. “Nothing makes me happier than a mom looking at me and saying, ‘Thank you, I never thought I’d be able to buy this for her.'”
Proposal on the mountaintop
Barrow said Waldrop is the type of teacher who would explain fractions at a pizza party or make root beer floats to help kids understand solids and liquids. She is the youngest of Barrow’s three daughters and her “baby girl.”
“She’s definitely a Disney princess,” Barrow said.
Four years ago, Waldrop and Rosales met at the Mexican restaurant where he worked. She and her sister frequented the restaurant regularly, and Rosales always sat with them. She thought he was hitting on her, until one day he asked her if she had a boyfriend; she didn’t. He had messaged her on Facebook, but she didn’t reply.
Two months later, she wrote back with the simple words, “Hi,” and they haven’t stopped talking since.
Last March, Waldrop was in a terrible car accident. The nurse called her mother, and Barrow called Rosales, who arrived at the hospital before the ambulance.
She was left with a 12-inch scar on her left arm, but she recovered and planned to take the couple’s annual trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in December.
Only this time, for reasons Waldrop could not understand, she insisted on having her whole family join them.
On a cold, rainy day during their week-long trip, Ms. Rosales convinced Ms. Waldrop to join her on a ski lift to Anakeesta Mountain, despite her objections that the weather meant they should stay home. Her family was waiting for her at the top.
“There was a heart sculpture with Christmas lights on it,” Waldrop says, “and I could see the mountains. The rain stopped and the clouds disappeared. You’ve seen that scene in the movies, right? We took a big family photo. I walked away, turned around and my son was in my little lap.”
Top secret choice, just under budget
After an hour and a half of trying on dresses, Ms. Waldrop video-called her sister from a marble pedestal and debated the merits of each dress with her mother and grandmother.
The unexpected gown stood out from the rest.
“I didn’t love the dress,” Waldrop said of her winning dress, which she won’t reveal until she walks down the aisle, “but I saw the pictures and I thought I looked great.”
Once she made her decision, Waldrop put half down as a down payment and planned to pay the rest upon pickup, fulfilling another of her wedding wishes.
Yerin observed the women from the side.
“From a shy girl to a girl dancing on stage. That transformation is what we live for,” she said.
