The new smart as a button, shiny as a new pin, box fresh Miss Bush website is due to launch today. Winderkind Leah Spicer of Golden Apple Designs has had the brief to design & engineer the site not only as a shop window for Miss Bush but as a statement of our philosophy, values & aesthetics.
I wanted to write a blog post to alert the wider world that this was happening ( I started this yesterday .) I had been procrastinating, pondering & pootling around the house in a less than glamorous bathrobe. I sat down to write and then when nothing sprang to mind I wondered if I could gain a small victory over the recycling jobsworths and stuff more into my food waste recycling than strictly allowed. (Update – successful.) I half heartedly attempted an attack on my home office to find my P60 & various bits of bank information for my tax return, realised the job involved a massive disciplined tidy up & abandoned it. I was shiftlessly waiting for the final proof of the website. I wanted to promote it but had nothing to say.
An idle glance at Twitter brought Liene Stevens back on my radar. The woman is a gift…
Part of my brief to Leah was that I wanted our website to put some brides off. A horrific, anti-business, anti-sales PR disaster surely?
Image by Catherine Mead
Miss Bush is in an exclusive group of bridal retailers that have been trading a long time. The shop has just passed its 26th birthday. Unwittingly it has become a destination retailer, we have dressed thousands of brides and I have come to have, quite by accident, enormous, encyclopaedic amounts of information about bridal wear.
Lately I have become more informed about social media & the millennial Bride thanks to Emma Woodhouse, aka The Wedding Reporter; venues & receptions thanks to Laura Caudery of Fetcham Park; flowers thanks to Gayle Evans of Bloomingayles; photography down to all & sundry but special mentions to Eddie Judd & Juliet McKee; hair from the severe bossing by Sharon Roberts & make up & its evil nemesis ‘bad-wedding-make-up’ by Carolanne Berry. Add to this meeting cake Queens & wedding planning Kings, stylists, bloggers, typographers, & scribes and my brain is fit to bursting with information & ideas. Throw into the mix my old school contacts at Brides & You & Your Wedding that pre date the internet (ffs!) and my peers & competitors from Luxe Bride & the RBA . Swimming in this nuptial bouillabaisse makes me something of a big fish in wedding world. Chuck in a couple of awards for good measure & surely every bride should be beating a path to our door?
Here’s the bit where Liene arrives…
This amount of knowledge & experience gives me a unique perspective on wedding dresses & styling a bride. I have seen trends come & go along with designer labels aplenty. None of this matters to the bride-to-be only what perspective I can bring to her that will make her want to work with Miss Bush
People can’t hire you for your perspective if you aren’t first showing them what your perspective is. If you’re constantly quoting other blogs, magazines, Pinterest, industry peers or leaders, and never offering your original take, then you are only lumping yourself in with everyone else. This is proactive self-sabotage.
To get the clients you really want, the ones who really “get” you, you first have to be willing to embrace the fact that some people won’t relate to your perspective at all, that some people will never “get” you.
Image by Gary Lashmar of Miss Bush bride Emma
So I am hoping for the website to be beautiful but not sterile. Feminine but not girly. Independent to the core, expert & exacting. I don’t want something for everyone – I want a depth of choice for brides that share our taste & aesthetics. I want you to know Miss Bush is great value for money but we sell luxury products that aren’t cheap. Miss Bush respects the traditions of weddings without being too conservative; loves fashion but knows it has its limits in your wedding wardrobe. The hottest new brands must live up to our old fashioned standards of quality, service & value for money. I want you to know you will get an straight opinion, with humour. There is sometimes swearing when I forget we are not mates & I should be on my best behaviour.
Image by Juliet McKee
I am very prepared that not all brides will ‘get us’. I was prepared this week to know part of the trade don’t get me.
I want brides to acknowledge that their time is precious as is ours. Research your shops, look at our real life brides – do you identify with them? Do you get them? Will we get you?
The aim of the new website? A fresh, personal & independent perspective on bridal wear. In a few short hours we can see if that objective is achieved.
(Yikes – no pressure!)
Emma xxx
Emma Meek, Managing Director, Miss Bush Bridalwear
Miss Bush Bridalwear is Surrey’s leading designer bridal boutique
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