A wedding day is an extremely important day in the life of every girl. She has been dreaming about him since her youth, imagining him in her fantasies, thinking through every nuance. Most attention is paid to the outfit. She must be wearing the most beautiful and chic wedding dress. Lush or fitted, short or long, white or in your favorite color - these are everyone’s preferences. Whatever style of dress is chosen, it must make her irresistible, hide the flaws of her figure, and highlight all her advantages.
All chic wedding dresses are divided into 4 main types of cut:
- Silhouette “A”, also called “Princess”.
- Ballgown style cut.
- Mermaid silhouette.
- Empire model.
Let's look at each of the styles in more detail.
Chic dress "Princess"
The model builds the bride's figure thanks to a skirt that flares out at the bottom and a corset with a high waistline (high). Vertical seams visually thin the waist. When sewing an outfit, light and heavy fabrics are used. The former give the outfit lightness, airiness, tenderness and naturalness. The second is relief.
The length of the dress can be: floor-length, just below the knee, mini or medium length. Princess wedding dresses look charming with a tight cut with a square neckline or in the form of an original triangle. As for finishing, there is complete freedom of imagination. They are trimmed with rhinestones, sparkles, beads, sequins or simple embroidery.
It is very important for such an outfit to choose the right accessories - spectacular high-top shoes, lace boots. It is better to choose a small veil. Chic “Princess” wedding dresses look amazing in tandem with lace gloves, a stylish handbag and a tiara in the bride’s hairstyle.
Financial plan for a wedding salon
The costs of the investment period are 1604 thousand rubles. These include:
- renovation of the premises and creation of interior design - 180 thousand rubles;
- purchase of equipment – 265 thousand rubles;
- starting product content – 1,104 thousand rubles;
- working trip to a specialized exhibition of dresses in Moscow, including accommodation and air travel – 45 thousand rubles;
- website creation – 10 thousand rubles.
Basic period costs include:
- purchase of dresses and accessories – 518.5 thousand rubles;
- Payroll – 119.7 thousand rubles + 2% of sales;
- rent for 50 sq. m. - 45 thousand rubles;
- advertising – 15 thousand rubles;
- accounting (outsourcing) – 7 thousand rubles;
- SEO website promotion – 6 thousand rubles;
- utilities – 3 thousand rubles;
- electricity – 1.5 thousand rubles.
The main financial indicators of the project, such as cash flow, revenue, profit and costs are presented in the Appendices (see Financial Results Report). Calculations are made based on the average number of buyers per month of 30 people.
Ballroom wedding dresses
The elegance of this style is given by a fitted corset and a full skirt. Corsets are most often decorated with beautiful embroidery, beads, beads and so on. The skirt is sewn from airy fabrics. It is important that you can combine materials in any way you like, but crinoline is most often used in sewing skirts for this style.
Chic wedding dresses of the “Sheath” model are the best choice for girls with ideal shapes and an impeccable figure. All the advantages of a girl’s figure are clearly visible, which makes the bride even more feminine, tender and charming. Such an outfit does not have pomp, but originality can be given, for example, by an unusual cut of the sleeves, neckline and back, additional accessories, lack of straps and sleeves. If the girl is short, then such a dress will visually make her taller.
Wedding salon opening plan
Geographically, the wedding salon is located in Surgut with a population of 340 thousand people, in the central region of the city. The location chosen for the opening was a room on the 1st floor of a multi-story building, in close proximity to the city registry office and the “wedding zone,” that is, existing wedding salons. The choice of this location is determined by the client’s psychology. When choosing a wedding dress, the bride strives to visit as many salons as possible, so she first of all visits the so-called “wedding districts” rather than single points.
The area of the building is 52 sq. m. meters with a trade and exhibition hall area of 40 sq. m., which is the best option based on average industry standards. To renovate the premises (finishing and painting work, arrangement of a shop window, installation of a sign, etc.) you will need 180 thousand rubles. A designer was hired to create the interior of the trade and exhibition hall with a romantic flair (the cost of the work is 40 thousand rubles). The planned period of repair and finishing is 1.5 months.
The cost of equipping a wedding salon will be 265 thousand rubles. A complete list of equipment is given in Table 2.
Table 2. Equipment costs
The tasks of ensuring the functioning of the wedding salon are assigned to the business owner and manager. The salon staff includes 3 salespeople working in shifts. (see Table 3). Working hours: 11.00-19.00, seven days a week. Accounting functions have been transferred to a specialized accounting firm (outsourcing).
The salon's current expenses are based on rent payments (45 thousand rubles), employee salaries (together with deductions - 119.7 thousand rubles), and utility bills. Variable expenses include updating collections (on average 500 thousand rubles per month), advertising costs (15 thousand rubles), SEO website promotion (6 thousand rubles). The key factor influencing variable costs is seasonality. The decline in sales occurs from October, the “low season” lasts until April.
Empire style
Chic wedding dresses with a high waistline and a free flowing long skirt. This style is called "Empire". Suitable for all body types. The sleeve can be sewn to any length; by the way, the shape of the skirt depends on this: loose-fitting or fitted. Material – flowing types of fabrics combined with a denser texture. By the way, these chic wedding dresses look very good on pregnant brides, hiding their bellies. Rich embroidery, lace inserts, ornaments and light airy fabrics emphasize the beauty and sophistication of the bride.
Assessing the effectiveness of a wedding salon
The project to open a wedding salon is characterized by a high level of markups on goods (from 100% to 300%) and the willingness of clients to spend large amounts of money on purchases, which significantly reduces the level of risks and ensures good profitability upon reaching planned sales volumes.
The payback period of the project is 21 months, the discounted payback period is 31 months. The main indicators calculated for a three-year period are given in Table. 4. According to them, the net profit of the wedding salon will be 1628 thousand rubles.
Table 4. Project performance indicators
Lush outfit for the bride
The fashion for chic wedding dresses, as well as for ordinary dresses, changes, is supplemented, and improved. But fluffy dress styles remain invariably fashionable. A wedding is the day when every girl wants to feel like a queen. Her main dream in life is a beautiful and most luxurious wedding dress in the world.
And here a magnificent dress for the bride comes in handy. A fitted corset on top and a rather full skirt on the bottom are the clothes of queens and princesses. Apparently, this is why most newlyweds choose this style for the most important day of their lives. This is evidenced by the constant demand for these dresses and the relevance of their tailoring.
Sew, live, love: how to make money on wedding dresses
The production of wedding dresses under the Milamira brand began when Irina Baranova, the founder of the company, learned how to sew from YouTube videos. After that, she entered the US and Canadian markets with her dresses, and today sells them in more than ten countries around the world - through the popular Etsy marketplace and in retail stores in Vienna, London and Hong Kong. Founder and designer Irina Baranova told the Biz360.ru portal about how to interest brides from different parts of the world in Russian dresses.
Dossier
Irina Baranova
, 29 years old, designer, founder of the brand of wedding dresses. Education: St. Petersburg University of Technology and Design (specialty in spatial environment design). During her final year of study, she began working as a manager in a bridal salon, then opened her own salon, where she sold dresses imported from abroad. In 2014, she launched her own brand of wedding dresses, investing about 80 thousand rubles in the project. More than half of the sales of Milamira dresses come from the USA.
How it all began
Irina Baranova, who was planning to become a spatial environment designer, got into the wedding business by accident. When she was writing her diploma, her friends who owned a wedding salon offered the girl to work for them as a sales consultant. Irina thought this would be a good part-time job. Moreover, there were few visitors in the salon - with such a busy workload there would have been just enough time to work on a diploma.
After some time, the owner of the salon “loaded” Irina with additional responsibilities. For example, she was tasked with leading the VKontakte group, communicating with suppliers and thinking about promotion. By the time the time came to defend her diploma, Irina was already a full-fledged manager of a wedding salon. Then she realized that she liked doing this - and wanted to continue to develop in this direction.
After some time, Irina thought that in “her” salon they could do something more modern - both in terms of imported dress models and in their sales. But the store owners were not eager to change. With a light heart, the girl admits, she went “to nowhere.” As it turned out later, this was the road to my own business.
After her dismissal, Irina decided to bring ready-made dresses for sale in St. Petersburg. In 2010, she found manufacturers in Kyiv, agreed with them on the first purchase and went to buy the goods. The first batch consisted of only five dresses, as Irina was afraid that they would not sell. We had invested our own money in the party, so we didn’t want to take big risks.
The first dresses, to the pleasant surprise of the entrepreneur, were sold quite quickly - within a month. “It was like that joke. In one place I buy apples for 3 rubles, wash them and sell them in another place for 5 rubles,” says Irina Baranova about her first entrepreneurial experience.
This successful experiment prompted Irina to make further purchases. She rented space for The One salon, investing sales proceeds and borrowed funds into the new project. The salon still exists; it is now located in the Petrogradsky district, having settled here after three moves.
The main suppliers of dresses until 2014 were foreign manufacturers, including Spanish and Belgian designers, with whom Irina negotiated cooperation directly.
Crisis as a driver of change
Until the fall of 2014, things were going well at Irina Baranova’s wedding salon The One. As demand grew, purchases also had to increase. But in the fall of 2014, in one month, due to the rise in exchange rates, purchasing prices in rubles doubled. And at the same time, sales began to fall - many brides from the Northern capital could not afford expensive imported wedding dresses. The salon also had an outstanding loan, which was taken out for development.
“The forecasts were pessimistic. I even thought about closing the salon. But I didn’t want to do this, because it seemed that life would end there. I honestly didn’t understand what to do next. Starting from scratch in a new profession was risky. And I began to think about how to save the situation,” says Irina.
She came up with the idea of starting to sew herself. This would allow us to reduce the cost of purchasing dresses and be more responsive to customer requests.
There was only one “but” on the way to realizing this idea. Irina Baranova did not know how to sew at all. She did not have the necessary education; she had never done sewing, even as an amateur. Her friend, with whom she went to Kyiv to buy ready-made dresses, heard Irina’s idea and honestly said that it seemed like a big gamble to him.
But Irina could no longer be stopped. She herself believed that she would succeed, she just needed to be patient.
First stitches
Irina bought a sewing machine for 5 thousand rubles, bought material from a regular fabric store - and began to learn to sew. She watched YouTube videos on cutting and sewing. To better understand how a wedding dress is created, I carefully ripped apart several models that had not been sold in her bridal salon for a long time. If she didn’t understand how to process a particular detail of a dress, she asked a search query and found answers.
About a month later, Irina Baranova already had something similar to a wedding dress - a well-made, neat bodice, a beautiful skirt. It took about another month to give this dress a marketable appearance - to embroider it and decorate it with various details. After the first sewn dress, Irina Baranova took courses in design and sewing.
The initial investment in the future Milamira project amounted to 80 thousand rubles. They were spent on purchasing a sewing machine, fabric and accessories.
Soon another self-taught person, my friend Anya, joined in sewing dresses. The girls tinkered with each product for weeks. The speed of their work compared to professional seamstresses was very low. It takes them about two days to create a dress.
“Even now, more than two years later, I am not ashamed of our first dresses, even though they were quite simple models. In terms of quality, they were no worse than those sold in my salon. Over the years of work, I had seen enough of European and American dresses and could not imagine how to sew differently,” admits Irina Baranova.
She says that at the end of 2014 she sincerely believed that she and Anya would be able to launch a mini-production. Then she dreamed of small sales volumes that would meet the needs of her own wedding salon.
The new project was called “Milamira”. This word does not mean anything specific, but it sounds equally good for both Russians and foreigners. “We were looking for a combination that would be beautiful in writing and evoke some associations with Slavic culture, however, not too obvious,” Irina reveals the naming secret.
Reaching a foreign audience
Irina hung the first dresses of her own production in her salon, but no one was in a hurry to buy them. About a month later, the entrepreneur decided “out of curiosity” to post their photos on Etsy.com. This is a marketplace for handmade goods, where you can only sell items of your own production.
For the first time, she posted photos of 15 of her dresses there, not even counting on a large sales volume. At first, no one was in a hurry to place orders from the newcomer Etsy.com. At that moment it was very important for Irina to get the first buyer and the first positive feedback from him. This would be a signal to others that this store is okay to work with.
The first customer was from Canada. She became the person who believed in an unknown Russian brand. But the first order also brought unexpected difficulties. The client expected to receive a dress of one color, but from St. Petersburg, not understanding her, they sent a different color. Irina Baranova had to send the second dress at her own expense. As a result, instead of profit, the first sale brought her a loss of about 7,000 rubles.
“We, of course, had no plan to go into the red. But it turned out the way it turned out. We understood that it was important for us to complete the first order as well as possible. Therefore, they were even prepared to take losses. This girl from Canada left such a good and sincere review that other customers believed in us,” states the founder of the Milamira brand.
The first positive review provoked a surge of consumer interest. The price from the Russian manufacturer was more than two times lower than that of foreigners. Thus, a Milamira wedding dress costs an average of 600-700 dollars, while from American companies it costs several thousand dollars. Therefore, the high demand from foreign customers was quite understandable.
When Irina and her partner Anya received an order for 20 dresses within a week, they realized that they could not cope with such a volume of work on their own. And in the fall of 2015, a year after the actual launch of our own production, we hired the first professional seamstress.
How sales work
Today, about 60-70% of sales of the Milamira brand come from the USA. There, brides love to shop online. They usually do this long before the ceremony itself.
Also, customers from other countries who most often purchase Milamira brand dresses live in Canada, Australia and Europe. They order all dresses through the Etsy.com marketplace. The Milamira brand has acquired its own website, but not an online store. It is more convenient for Irina Baranova to sell on a third-party platform.
The PayPal payment system, through which payments for purchases on Etsy.com are made, helps the seller resolve conflict situations with the buyer, which Irina Baranova likes. If the seller or buyer has complaints against each other (quality of goods, timeliness of payments, etc.), they send a statement to PayPal. Representatives of the system, having familiarized themselves with the opinions of the parties, make a decision in favor of one of them.
In almost two years of work, Irina Baranova only once had to resort to the help of a payment system. The parcel with the Milamira dress, sent to America, was lost by the US Postal Service in its country. The parcel was not insured because the customer refused to pay for insurance. The shipment was officially listed as lost, and nominally the seller was not to blame.
The bride left a negative review about the store on Etsy.com, and involved her relatives and friends, who sent Irina unpleasant messages and threats. The entrepreneur turned to PayPal to resolve this unpleasant situation. And there, having familiarized themselves with the details of the purchase, they sided with the Russians. She did not have to compensate the customer for losses.
“If they behave normally with us, then in 90% of cases we will meet the client halfway. Our statistics also prove this: on Etsy.com we have 193 positive reviews and only 2 negative ones,” notes Irina Baranova.
Today, about 25 dresses under the Milamira brand are sold at retail every month. Revenue for 2016 amounted to about 11 million rubles
In Russia, Milamira dresses were sold through its own salon, as well as other wedding salons throughout Russia. In 2016, Irina Baranova thought that it would be nice to enter salons abroad. But I didn’t know how this could be done.
As an option to enter the foreign market, Irina considered participation in international exhibitions of wedding dresses. Calculations showed that the implementation of this idea required too much money. But a couple of weeks after thinking about this idea, Irina received a letter from a salon from Vienna, which offered Milamira cooperation. Now dresses from the Russian brand can be bought in salons in Vienna, London and Hong Kong.
Such different brides
Over the years of the existence of the Milamira project, Irina Baranova could see how different domestic and foreign clients are. The vast majority of Russian women who choose a wedding dress believe that they are doing him a favor by visiting the salon. And they are sure that there should be sellers fussing around them, to whom, at best, they will say “thank you.” They almost never leave positive reviews on the project’s website, because they believe that the very fact of purchase is enough.
Foreign clients, on the contrary, really value other people’s work and the fact that strangers spend their time on them. They are happy to leave positive reviews, in which they thank the Milamira team for the work done and quality service.
“Almost every second foreign bride leaves a positive review about us, our brides – it’s good if at least one out of fifteen. Both of them paid us money. But the difference in attitude is colossal,” states Irina Baranova.
How production works
Milamira dresses are designed by Irina Baranova and another designer who works on the project’s staff. Irina says that she is very immersed in wedding fashion - every year she goes to wedding fashion weeks and major international exhibitions of wedding dresses. She pays close attention to what other designers are doing. Notices trends and interesting details, but does not directly copy anything.
Finding fabric for my dresses in Russia turned out to be a difficult task. “Russia does not produce normal textiles. Except that in Ivanovo they produce calico and chintz. But they are not suitable for wedding dresses,” explains Irina.
Therefore, we have to purchase foreign-made fabrics. Irina Baranova is constantly busy searching for suppliers. She finds them on the website Alibaba.com, sometimes using the stamps on the purchased rolls of fabric, she goes directly to the manufacturers and contacts them. She recently found a company in Dubai that sources fabrics from China, Korea, Indonesia and other parts of the world. It offers good prices and service. Milamira is now cooperating with this supplier.
After ordering fabric, it takes an average of three to four months until it is received. The fabric is loaded into containers that travel by water to St. Petersburg. The path is long, that's why it takes so much time. Irina Baranova has to constantly plan purchases so that there is enough fabric to sew new dresses.
The lace was first ordered from China, but we had to deal with a huge amount of defects. Sometimes it was impossible to choose lace to trim one dress from the entire ordered batch. In response to claims, Chinese partners most often preferred to remain silent, so it was never possible to compensate for losses. Now Irina Baranova buys lace from another entrepreneur from St. Petersburg, who supplies from factories in China. It is always of good quality and at a reasonable price.
There are several warehouses with accessories in St. Petersburg. Thanks to them, there are no problems with its purchase.
Milamira production is located in the Petrogradsky district of St. Petersburg. Recently the workshop moved from a small workshop of 35 square meters to a spacious 150-meter premises. “We are doing this with an eye to the fact that we will continue to develop,” adds Irina.
Currently, seven people are involved in the project, including Irina Baranova. These are several tailors, an embroiderer, and managers who communicate with foreign customers and wedding salons. They explain to foreign private clients how to take measurements correctly, send them fabric samples, etc.
Milamir also has a full-time public relations manager. This is Irina Baranova’s friend, with whom she started her wedding business - she went to Kyiv to buy her first dresses, so he knows everything about the company.
The Milamira brand sends its dresses to famous wedding photographers for their photo shoots. They then send the dresses back, and mentions of the Russian brand appear in magazines, on photographers’ websites, and in thematic blogs.
It is actively used to promote Instagram, where Milamira advertises. The brand also participates in Russian exhibitions and festivals dedicated to the wedding industry.
What's next
Today, about 25 dresses under the Milamira brand are sold at retail every month. Revenue for 2016 amounted to about 11 million rubles. Irina Baranova is confident that this is not the limit and that there is an opportunity to increase production and sales volumes.
In the near future, it is possible that Milamira will abandon sales to individuals and concentrate on wholesale sales. This will save time, which is currently spent on correspondence with brides and smoothing out unpleasant situations that arise.
In 2022, Irina Baranova plans to release her first collection of underwear and outerwear for brides.
How to choose the right outfit for a bride based on hair color and skin type
White color is a tradition. Since ancient times, brides have worn it on their wedding day. However, the modern fashion industry is beginning to make its own adjustments. And more and more often we see the bride not in a traditional white dress, but in different color shades. In order for a bride to be irresistible in a dress of a different color, you need to understand a little about who and what color suits her best.
- For fair-skinned girls with light eyes and hair, peach or golden tones are most suitable.
- Brown-haired women with dark skin should prefer the color “champagne”.
- And if the bride has fair skin and dark hair, of course, a white dress or the lightest shades of gray.
How to choose a dress according to your figure
Any girl's figure is beautiful and attractive. But on your wedding day you want to look especially attractive and seductive. Therefore, the cut and model of the dress play a special role. The most magnificent, chic wedding dresses are not suitable for every girl.
- If the bride is short and petite, it is best for her to wear a dress with a high waistline (shoulders can be exposed) or a short model; shoes must be high-cut.
- If the bride is curvy, it is advisable to choose a classic cut without excesses in small details.
- Thin brides, on the contrary, should use lace, frills, bows, and so on in their outfit. This will visually increase the girl’s silhouette in the right place.
- For those to whom nature has given the ideal figure, any wedding dress will suit you, and the “Mermaid” model will make her as attractive and seductive as possible.
Risks and guarantees of the wedding business
The project to open a wedding salon is a traditional and well-developed type of business. The chosen region of development contributes to the wedding business: the indicators for the number of marriages per thousand people in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug are among the highest. One of the main risks of a wedding salon is the seasonality factor. Due to the length of the cold season, there is a great danger of wasting the income received during the peak sales in the main months. To minimize the negative consequences for the elasticity of demand and increase profitability, it is proposed to carry out a set of measures to intensify marketing activities, introduce large discounts on previous collections of dresses (up to 30-50%), and focus on sales of evening dresses and additional services. The main risks are reflected in Table. 5.
Table 5. Assessment of project risks and measures to prevent their occurrence or their consequences
Dresses with trains - are they comfortable or chic?
Some brides prefer a dress with a train, so this theme is worth emphasizing a little. Is it convenient? In fact, there is nothing uncomfortable in this model; on the contrary, it is the chic wedding dress with a train that gives the bride more elegance.
Many people are scared by this attribute of the outfit, since they need to constantly watch it: both while moving and while dancing. In fact, everything is much simpler. Modern models are sewn in such a way that the train can be assembled at any time, and when necessary, unravel it again. In some models it can be removed altogether. Therefore, after the official ceremony and photo shoot, it can be removed if it creates inconvenience.
Choosing a wedding dress is always a difficult and troublesome task. We hope that this material has become useful to those brides who doubt this issue.
Organizational plan for a wedding salon
The project launch period from the procedures for registering an individual entrepreneur to the actual opening is 3 months. The head of the salon is the owner of the business, who is not required to be constantly present in the salon, providing management remotely. His responsibilities include strategic business planning, searching for new suppliers and partners. Direct daily management of the salon is carried out by the administrator. Sales is led by a senior sales manager.
He reports to two sales consultants. All employees, including the manager, also report directly to the project owner. To motivate staff, salespeople receive an additional 2% of sales in addition to their salary. The criteria for selecting personnel are sociability, politeness, good appearance, poise.
There are no serious requirements for personnel qualifications. The training is carried out by the head and manager of the salon and does not require much time.
