STRONGER DOLLAR, LOWER PRICES

The effects of the stronger Canadian dollar is finally making it's way into the bridal industry here in Toronto. We have now received new reduced costs for several wedding dress and bridesmaid dress designers. These designers include, Maggie Sottero, Occasions by Jim Hjelm, Dessy, After Six, and Alfred Sung. Due to the number of styles involved with these designers, it will take us good part of next week or two to update our database. In the meantime, if you are interested in purchasing a dress by one of these designers, just ask us if the price is reduced on that particular style.

With the prices of some of the hottest designers now reduced, it is a great time to order your gown now for those 2008 weddings.

BOXING WEEK SALE

Our boxing week sale starts Thrusday December 27, 2007 until Friday January 4, 2008. This boxing week sale we are offering an additional 20% off on already reduced clearance items. These clerance items include, off-the-rack wedding gowns, off-the-rack bridesmaid dresses, 0ff-the-rack mother dresses, bridal shoes, and accessories. Off the rack wedding gowns start as low as $199.99 with an addtional 20% off during boxing week only. Hurry, call today to book an appointment to try on dresses while the pickings are good! Here's our store contact information.

Essence of Australia Trunk Show

Back by popular demand, we will be having a second Essence of Australia Trunk Show in the new year. This is a new designer that we will be carrying this year. The collection that we will be showing is from their Spring 2008 collection. The trunk show will be on from January 2-7, 2007. And of course, you can save the taxes if you purchase your gown during the Trunk Show. To view their collection, go to http://www.essensedesigns.com/.

Remember, this will be the start of peak bridal season so call ahead to book an appointment to avoid the long wait. You can reach us at 905-566-9632.

Maggie Sottero Trunk Show - Spring 2008 Preview

Bridal & Beyond is proud to present the premier showing of Maggie Sottero's New Spring 2008 collection at our store from December 20 to December 30, 2007. This will be the very first time the latest Maggie Sottero collection will be seen by brides. It will also be the largest collection you will see of the new Maggie Sottero collection. For those of you with June or earlier weddings, this would be the perfect opportunity for you to see the new Spring '08 collection and still order it in time. Maggie Sottero's regular delivery right now is mid to late April (rush delivery is available) so don't wait until January if your wedding is June or earlier. To make it even more enticing, you'll save the GST & PST on any new special order Maggie Sottero wedding gown that is ordered during the Trunk Show. By the way, the new Maggie Sottero dresses are more affordable than ever before with our stronger Canadian dollar.

To ensure you have a fitting room, please call the store at 905-566-9632 to book an appointment. We only have limited appointments available so call today.

Essence of Australia Trunk Show

The next couple of weeks is turning out to be Trunk Show week. We've just arranged to have a dozen or so pieces of Essence of Australia's new spring 2008 collection brought in this Thursday, November 15, 2007. This is a new line for us that we will be carrying in the new year. This line is perfect for the bride who is looking for something elegant yet stylish with a bit of sparkle. But what really impressed us about the line is the fit. We had some of the staff try it on and they actually commented that their dresses fit as well as and maybe even a little better than Maggie Sottero (if that's possible).

So call today and book an appointment to see the line. The Trunk Show is on from November 15 to 27, 2007. And don't forget, for a limited time you can save up to $250 on any special order wedding gown.

BELSOIE & B2 Trunk Show - Spring 2008 Preview

For a limited time, you can see B2's and Belsoie's entire new Spring 2008 Collection during our Belsoie & B2 Trunk Show at the store. This is their entire new Spring 2008 collection. You can check out these new dresses on their web site at www.jasminebridal.com. The Trunk show is on from November 15 to 25, 2008. Almost forgot . . . while we have the trunk show, you will save 10% on any new special orders of Belsoie and B2 dresses.

The next couple of weekends will be very busy so book ahead to make sure we have a room reserved for you.

See you there.

The Most Romantic Proposal

****IMPORTANT UPDATE*****Due to equipment failure, most applications submitted prior to December 4, 2007 has been lost. Please resubmit ASAP as all applications will be posted for viewers to vote by December 17, 2007. We apologize for any inconvenience.


We are starting a brand new contest to win a free wedding gown or $500 instore Gift Certificate. As the title suggests, we are looking for the most romantic marriage proposal. What is the first question that your girl friends ask when you tell them you're engaged . . . how he proposed and did he get on his knee . . . after they check out your ring, of course. Since everyone loves to hear a good romantic proposal, we figure we try and convince brides across the country to share with us their romantic proposal. Participants can choose to share their story in writing with or without pictures or in an uploadable video format. These stories will then be posted on our web site for people to view, judge, and vote. The bride with the most number of votes wins a brand new wedding gown of her choice (up to $800 in value) or $500 in Gift Certificate. It's that easy.

The contest will run from now until January 31. The winner of the contest will be announced on Valentine's Day. Official rules of the contest will be posted in the following week. Nothing complicated. For now, just send us an email to proposal@bridalandbeyond.com with your story, picture (optional) and your contact information.

Good luck!

Canada's Bridal Show

We've been getting a lot of enquires from customers regarding the dresses that were featured at the Canada's Bridal Show last weekend. So we've decided to showcase these dresses here on the site so you can see it again.

Here are the dresses featured at the fashion show.


Donyella by Maggie Sottero Vernice by Maggie Sottero


Irina by Maggie Sottero


Jim Hjelm Occasions 5757


Jim Hjelm Occasions 5764


Here are the other dresses featured at the show booth.

S5049 by Maggie Sottero Lavina by Maggie Sottero

Pelle Chiffon by Maggie Sottero


B9084 by B2; B9095 by B2

5762 by Jim Hjelm Occasions

Online Wedding Gown Gallery Updated

Finally! For those of you who have been patiently waiting for us to update our online bridal dress gallery, it’s finally complete. You can now see all the new Fall 2007 wedding gowns online. If you have not used our online dress database yet, it is probably the most comprehensive multi-designer database out there in Canada. You can receive instant price quotes for any dress (even ones we don't carry) made by one of the designers that we carry, sort and filter by price, silhouette, neckline, save it to your personal bridal profile, and more.
Unfortunately, bridesmaid dresses are still not update yet. It will likely be another 2 weeks away . . . sorry. What we will do though is post some of the new bridesmaid dresses on the Blog over the next few days. In the mean time, if there are any styles you want more information on please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you.

Maggie Sottero Trunk Show - Fall 2007 Collection

For those of you who are still looking for your wedding gown, you'll want to try and make it for the Maggie Sottero Trunk Show. Now this will be the very last trunk show of the season that will be held in the GTA. So it's your final chance to see one of the largest collection of Maggie Sottero's Fall 2007 collection in one place. If you have not been to a Trunk Show before, it's essentially a chance for you to see a large collection of the designer's new collection. These dresses are borrowed samples that the retailers showcase, typically for just 4 days or so. The trunk show officially starts on September 6, 2007 but sometimes we may get it earlier. If we do, I'll post it on the blog here. For those of you who just can't wait and would like a preview of what dresses we will be getting on top of our own Fall 2007 collection (see the article below for images), here are the images of the Trunk Show dresses. Keep in mind, Maggie dresses is all about the fit so you really have to try it on to know if it's the one. Almost forgot, it will likely be very busy since there would be no GST & PST during the show. So we recommend you call ahead to book an appointment if you plan to come in on Thursday evening or the weekend. Our store number is 905-566-9632.

New Fall 2007 Maggie Sottero Wedding Dresses

We are still a couple of weeks from updating our dress database . . . sorry. So we thought we post the pictures of some of our new Fall 2007 collection, starting with Maggie Sottero. Her new line has been extremely well received but typical of Maggie Sottero dresses the pictures do not do them justice. You can only appreciate Maggie's renown "fit" if you try it on. Anyway, here they are . . .

Dirty Little Secret

We were just at one of our our bridal vendors the other day discussing the difficulty of getting customers, who order their dresses way in advance, to pick up in a timely manner when he suggested the solution that we delay ordering the dress like many other retailers. Sounds shocking doesn't it? So here's what he's suggesting, a bride orders a dress in let's say June for a wedding in July of next year, the store holds the order until January so the dress can arrive in-store around May to June. So now, it's 4 to 8 weeks before the wedding, the bride is definitely very eager to come in to pickup.

Now this solution may well be OK if everything goes smoothly. The problems comes when something goes wrong. One of the inherent problems with special order dresses is that there are no inventory readily available to replace defective dresses, damage dresses, or misorders. So even if a vendor ships 9.5 dresses out of 10 flawlessly, if you happen to be that lucky .5 bride, well, they'll correct the problem but it will take another 2 to 5 months depending on the vendor, the style, production schedule, etc. So back to the scenarios where you're only a month away from the wedding and something goes wrong. Even if the vendor and the retailer wants to correct the problem, they may not be able to due to lead time requirements. The other potential risk with this approach is that by the time January rolls around, that dress you picked back in June may be discontinued. And the other potential risk is quite simply, too much time has elapsed and the store simply forgets to order it since most of them are not computerlized.

So this is the dirty little secret of many (more than you think) bridal retailers out there. So be careful when someone tells you it takes a year to get your dress or yes they can store the dress for you until your wedding free of charge and don't worry about the balance until then. Chances are, this is what they're doing. It takes approximately 4 to 6 months to order a bridal dress but we always recommend that you double that time so that if something were to go wrong, there's still time to correct it.

Our mandate here at Bridal & Beyond is to process all ready orders within 5 to 10 business days (less for rush orders). We also now offer online tracking of your order so you can check and make sure your order is processed, processed correctly, confirmed by the vendor with an estimated ship date, and see when the dress is received. So when and wherever you order your dress, make sure you understand how they will be processing your order. It can save you a lot of grief down the road.

We Won Again! 3 Years in a Row!

We've been chasing Mississauga News to find out who the winners were for the Brides' Choice Award for some time now. They finally got back to us and gave us the good news. We won again for the 3rd year in a row (click on the table to the right to read it). Since the inception of the award in 2005, Bridal & Beyond has climbed from Gold to Platinum in 2006 and maintained the position in 2007.

Earlier this year we also found out that we won the Consumer Choice Awards for best bridal store in the GTA. Another great honour! These awards are particularly meaninful to us because the results were based on votes from real brides like yourself. We want to extend a great big thanks to all those brides who voted for us. We promise to not only maintain those standards but to improve on them. Thanks Again!

New Jim Hjelm Occasions Bridesmaid Dresses

We just received a shipment of the new Fall 2007 Occasions bridesmaids dresses. These dresses aren't set up in the system yet but here's a sneak

preview.

First Blog

This is Bridal & Beyond's first blog entry. We are very excited to add this new feature and hope you will check back frequently for new postings that can help you plan your wedding planning or save a few bucks. For those of you who were on our site a month or more ago, we hope you like our new look and all the new features that have been added. Even more great new features, tools, articles, products will be added over the next few months so check back frequently.

Now this just would not be a proper first bridal blog posting without a wedding dress pic. So here it is, one of our new Paloma Blanca bridal dresses that we just received for the the Fall 2007 collection. Our dress database will be updated in the next couple of weeks to include our new fall lineup.