The Wedding Planners

To stay in the game, wedding entrepreneurs get creative

 

Tanna and Bryson Dang, owners of The Wedding Café in Manoa, opened their store in January 2005 with money they received from their wedding the previous month.

More than $80 billion is spent on weddings each year in the United States, according to the Association of Wedding Professionals. In Hawaii – where the marriage rate is the second highest in the nation and where more than 20,000 weddings occur each year – weddings generate a competitive industry. To stay in the game, small businesses constantly come up with unique services and ideas. Take, for example, entrepreneurs Tanna and Bryson Dang of The Wedding Café, and Gladys Agsalud of Casablanca Bridal and Formal.

Earlier this year, Tanna was watching a rerun of the TV show Friends (the episode in which character Monica fights with another woman at a wedding-gown sale) when she had an idea: A Crazy Gown Sale, featuring brand-new, sample wedding dresses priced between $99 and $399.

Tanna and her husband, Bryson, co-owner of The Wedding Café in Manoa, personally knew the owners of bridal stores in Honolulu. So Tanna pitched her idea to retailers and sent e-mail invites to brides, announcing the sale for a Sunday morning in April.

On the day of the event, more than 300 white gowns filled The Wedding Café. The couple transformed the kitchen area into a makeshift dressing room, while dozens of brides searched for gowns in the 1,000-square-foot store. “We had to stand on chairs because we couldn’t even find a place to stand,” Bryson recalls. The sale was a hit.

Tanna and Bryson are relatively new business owners. The newlyweds purchased and opened The Wedding Café in January 2005 with money they had received from their wedding the month prior. In addition to serving light meals and snacks, the café primarily serves as a wedding resource for couples. Promotional materials line the café’s tables and walls with contacts for more than 80 photographers, makeup artists, cake decorators and other wedding-related services. Each vendor pays $4,000 annually to display his or her information.

“We’re an extension of their sales team,” Tanna says. The vendors also participate in weekly wedding-planning workshops at the café. The most popular workshops are “Manoa Nights,” featuring a harp, flute and violin trio, and “Cake & Wine Sampling,” which will be held at The Bayer Estate in October.

For $4,000 a year, wedding vendors display their promotional materials at The Wedding Café and participate in weekly workshops. The café is a one-stop shop for engaged couples.

Customer service is important to Tanna and Bryson, who like to quiz each other on soon-to-be-wed couples. “That’s a huge challenge, getting to really know our customers and remembering what they like,” says Bryson, a former employee of Bank of Hawaii.

What’s especially unique about The Wedding Café is that a new crop of clients patronize the store every six months, never to be seen again. They rarely return to the café after they marry, except to eat lunch and share wedding photos with the Dangs. To stay in touch with her customers, Tanna recently launched a series fashion and lifestyle events for newlyweds.

Marriage Rates Rise Hawaii’s marriage rate has grown steadily in the past few years, ranking No. 2 in the nation, right after Nevada. In 1990, Hawaii had 16.4 marriages per 1,000 people. In 2004, there were 22.5 marriages per 1,000 people.

The business owners rarely run out of new ideas. Earlier this year, Bryson introduced original T-shirts with the words “yes dear” on the front. The shirts are popular gag gifts for grooms. On the first Sunday of each month, the café hosts a reservations-only event called “Mint,” with an afternoon-tea menu inspired by Tanna’s sister, Tessa. And this past summer, the cafe launched the fall 2007 edition of White, a slick magazine with profiles of some of Hawaii’s top wedding vendors. Tanna, a former writer for a bridal magazine, also is penning a wedding book scheduled for release next year.

“If our ideas work, then great. If they don’t, then we won’t do them again,” Tanna says. Adds Bryson: “When we get feedback [about our ideas], we really listen to what people talk about.”

That’s the idea behind Agsalud’s company, Casablanca Bridal and Formals. The store has been in business for more than a decade and generates close to $1 million annually. Buzz-worthy service and listening to customers’ suggestions are keys to success in the wedding industry, Agsalud says. “You have to really like selling dresses,” she says. “Brides can be very difficult. Some don’t know what they want, and others are very particular.”

Casablanca is the exclusive representative for Pronovias, a Spanish bridal-wear manufacturer and the largest in the world. Agsalud also designs and markets gowns under her own label, Alba, named after a female relative. It’s a side project that not many people are aware of.

Casablanca Bridal And Formals opened this month in a three-story building, featuring crystal chandeliers and cathedral-style windows. The store has a niche for high-end bridal wear.

About three years ago, Agsalud was driving on Beretania Street when she spotted a “For Sale” sign on a corner lot. She immediately parked across the street, got out of her car and stood on the curb, picturing a cathedral-like, white building on the property. For a year, Agsalud had been scouting locations on which to build a new bridal-gown store. Her existing store in Mapunapuna wasn’t in an ideal location.

After surveying the lot, Agsalud knew she had to own the 5,000-square-foot Beretania property. “There were so many offers to buy the land, and we were only offering $600,000,” she recalls. “I told my realtor to tell the owners that we would build a nice building and that people coming into this neighborhood would be mostly women, non-threatening to the community. I think that was key.”

The owners accepted her offer in February 2005, and she found a contractor to build the store for less than $1 million. The new store will operate in a three-story building with spiral staircases, ceiling-to-floor mirrors and crystal chandeliers. “Years back when I was a bride, if I had bought a gown and stood in front of a giant mirror under a chandelier, I would have felt very special,” Agsalud says. “That’s how I want all of my clients to feel.”

When Agsalud opened her original store more than a decade ago on Kalakaua Avenue, she primarily catered to the Japanese wedding industry, a lucrative business in the 1980s and 1990s. “I carried Christian Dior gowns and sold up to five in one day,” she recalls. Japanese brides, who spend an average of $70,000 per wedding, according to the Census of Japan 2005, did not mind dropping $3,000 on a designer gown. Even back then.

Agsalud eventually left Waikiki and moved into the Mapunapuna location, where she offered gowns ranging from $200 to more than $4,000. There, Agsalud built a strong base of local customers, assisting with more than 500 weddings annually. “There’s a market for high-end bridal wear,” she says. She once outfitted a wedding with 16 bridesmaids.

Gladys Agsalud, owner of Casablanca Bridal and Formals, prepares to open her new store on the corner of Farrington and Beretania streets in Honolulu. Her stores previously were located in Mapunapuna and Waikiki.

When the new, three-story Casablanca bridal salon opens this month on Beretania Street, it will be the only one of its kind in Hawaii. What’s also unusual about the store is its luxury, residential quarters on the second and third floors. The residence includes a full-size kitchen, bedrooms and a master bathroom with Jacuzzi. The rooftop has a patio with sweeping views of the city – ideal for wedding photography. Agsalud was not ready to say what she plans to do with the residential unit, only that she hopes to work again with the Japanese wedding industry.

As long as Hawaii’s marriage rate continues to be the second highest in the nation, weddings will remain one of the most competitive businesses in the Islands. “[Creativity] is what keeps the buzz going,” Bryson says. “That’s what excites the wedding industry.”

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