High Street Brides
Written by chameleonfridays on July 11th, 2008
Monsoon: Wiston Wedding Dress
As the sound of belts tightening across the country, signals cut backs to the retail industry. Brides-to-be are benefiting from a clever twist on the traditional wedding industry. Whereas Berketex Bride previously ruled the budget end of the industry, now brides have ‘designer’ high street ranges at their fingertips.
Even better is the quality of the dresses, with silk, lace and chiffon all being readily available on the high street. Brides no longer have to compromise when on a budget by having a higher man-made material content. It’s now possible to save money and not have to wear nylon taffeta.
Here are the current high street choices;
- Marks and Spencers kicked off their launch with executive Stuart Rose stating: “We dress hundreds of thousands of girls every day, so why not for their wedding day, too? This is a good, affordable offer for our customers.” The collection includes five wedding dresses to suit a range of budgets, tiaras and veils, outfits for the groom and bridesmaid’s dresses. Prices for the dresses start at £59.99 and M&S also have a dedicated bridal lingerie range to further ensure more spending in their store.
- H&M recently launched their designer dress collection from the Dutch duo Viktor and Rolf. The dresses priced at £219.99 were so popular with fashion concious shoppers that the available stock appeared on Ebay for double the price within 24 hours.
- George at Asda launched with Angela Spindler, George’s global managing director saying: “You’ve heard of fairytale weddings well we think that most wedding dresses are being sold with a fairytale price tag. With the introduction of our new bridal collection all that is set to change.”For the truly budget conscious, Asda claim they can dress both the bride and groom for £200. Dresses start at £60, with the addition of bridesmaids and pageboy outfits to complete the collection.
- BHS launched at the end of 2007. They have a range of both dresses and separates, with bodices starting at £30. This range was given furthur coverage as it was championed for the wedding show episode of The Apprentice this year, by runner up Claire Young.
- Monsoon have launched their range at the top of the high street market with dresses from £135. What the extra money will buy you is vintage styling and luxurious fabrics. Their range comes complete with bridesmaids dresses and utilizes its Accessorize department by proving a full range of accessories.
- Debenhams use their top designers, like Julien Macdonald, Jasper Conran and Pearce II Fionda , to design dresses with a starting price of £65. They also have a dedicated wedding service which enables their clients to get everything they need in store, from the dress through to the wedding gift list.
- Gap have yet to launch, but their selection of bridal dresses are rumored to be by British designer Roland Mouret.
Fashion designer Jeff Banks however, doesn’t share the same enthusiasm, when he was quoted saying (when viewing the Asda collection), “Brides spend years planning their weddings these days and the dress is the central part.” This may be true, the question all brides need to ask is just how much they want the cost of the dress to feature on the big day. See also Wedding Dress Savings.
