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WE’RE OPEN!

Wow! Time flies! We hustled and bustled to get the store ready for our December 20th opening and now here we are with nearly two weeks under our belts! It has been incredible!

The store underwent some rapid changes in the week leading up to our opening. My husband, Dan, completed several display cases for us as well as constructed pedestals for brides to view their beautiful gowns upon. We added our Little Black Dress wall in and a shoe display space. We’ve still got a list a mile long of “To-Do” items but we’ll keep plugging away at them. First, we focus on our customers!

Our opening day was wildly successful! We welcomed a family of 4 generations of beautiful women into the shop at 9:45 am so they could be introduced to a beautiful wedding gown and mothers-of dress. From there we met dozens of amazing brides and prom-goers. In the blink of an eye, it was 4pm. Totally amazing!We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from our family, friends, and community. The Kearney Hub had a wonderful article on us!

We knew we’d meet amazing people however the last few weeks have been incredibly emotional. Jenna and I have been so moved by the lives our customers lead. This experience is more than just a shopping transaction. It’s a connection, a relationship. We consider it a privilege to meet so many amazing people. With each customer we learn bits and pieces about the story of their life and we can’t help but be touched (and motivated) by the accomplishments, obstacles, and goals our shoppers, mainly women, have achieved or overcome. Truly, truly incredible women!

While our doors are open, we want to be sure we make it “officially official.” On January 29th at 4pm we will host our ribbon cutting with the Kearney Area Chamber of Commerce and will celebrate through the entire weekend. We hope you all can join us! The following week, February 6th – 9th, we will be hosting our very first trunk show with one of our incredible prom lines, Faviana. As an official retailer of Faviana, we will partner with them to host an added incredible selection of prom gowns available for purchase. It will be a fun experience for everyone!

We have so much more to accomplish to make sure Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear is running at 110%. We have already learned a lot in our short time open. One focus remains unchanged….our shoppers, our amazing guests. We will welcome everyone with a warm greeting and a great big smile, just as we would welcome someone into our home. We hope you enjoy your time with us. We certainly enjoy our time with you. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year!

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Pretty In Pink.

3Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear continues to transform every day! Paint is complete (Tyson Heaton did an incredible job!) and our cash wrap is just waiting for its counter. Our “carpenter by marriage” (my husband, Dan) constructed the cash wrap. He’s a professional firefighter and has spent his days off working at the shop. We are so fortunate to have such a hard working man on our team! City Glass just finished hanging mirrors….lots and lots of mirrors! Lighting is complete too! Our fun furniture continues to arrive daily and we’re loving rearranging this creative space.

The front display walls have been quite the adventure! We chose to do something different for the windows. (This comes as a result of years and years in retail.) Using magnetic chalkboard paint, we’ve created a flexible display space where we can communicate to our guests and passersby in a unique manner. Rather than using banners or posters, we’ll be working with an artist to create our windows and most importantly, highlight our beautiful fashions. Of course, our dresses and tuxedos will be on display as well….very soon!

We are still working on some creative ways to display our sashes and veils. Any ideas? Send them our way. So far, we’ve been scouring Pinterest……love 1it! Our dad saved some of our great-grandmother’s items from her store and we’re excited to use them in our shop too. We’ll be updating a beautiful jewelry display case and a nightstand where we might store sample bras and corsets. Side note: Our family hosts a long line a business owners so it felt really natural to become business owners too. Our dad owns Wegner Sales & Service. Our grandfather owned a John Deere Implements shop and our great-grandma Vera owned Vera’s Style Shoppe for 50 years. We remember perusing the amazing display cases and trying on all her costume jewelry. We’re excited to have a little reminder of Grandma Vera with us!

On Black Friday, we had our very first bridal appointment. While we’re not open yet and we don’t have all our dresses in, we still had the wonderful opportunity to work with a bride whose mother was in town for Thanksgiving. It was a great experience to get started meeting our shoppers…our guests in this beautiful place! This week we had the pleasure of working with two beautiful prom gals. Stay tuned for images! These Kearney Catholic beauties will be modeling our Prom 2015 styles for us! We are working with our guests before we’re technically open for business. It is so exciting to get a glimpse of the reaction our guests are having when they enter the shop. So, we’re waiting on more dresses but if you’d like to come in, give us a call: (308) 708-0678.

We are so thankful for the opportunity to open the doors at Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear. What a blessing to be supported by our incredible 5family and friends as we pursue our dreams and to be part of a community so enthusiastic about this new shop. We look forward to meeting all our wonderful guests and providing an incredible experience for your biggest days!

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Say Hello to our Bridal Designers!

Hello Beautifuls! Hello Handsomes!

We’ve shared a few images of the designers we’ll be carrying and now we’re ready to officially introduce you to all of them. We hope you love them as much as we do! But first a little about the process of identifying our lines….

This was an incredible and exciting process! We had our wish list of lines that were unique to Kearney and are thrilled to be able to work with many of them. Some of the must-haves for our lines: style, price and designers. Brides deserve to have an amazing variety of dresses when shopping for their big day. We want to be prepared for everyone!

It was important for us to meet and build relationships with the lines we’ll be working with too. We strongly believe that by building a valuable partnership with the designers, sales reps, and brands we’re carrying we’ll be able to deliver an ideal customer experience at Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear. Call us Nebraska but we believe in doing business face-to-face!

So without further ado….say Hello to our beautiful bridal lines!

Allure Bridals

“Allure Bridals pursues excellence in design and irreproachable craftsmanship to create a gown worthy of a bride’s most treasured moments. We believe brides should feel nothing less than gorgeous on their wedding day. Our designs blend rich fabrics like satin and lace with decadent beading and detailing, in addition to the comfort of our patented Allure construction.

For our Allure Bridals collections, we believe in the details—beading, floral appliqués, dramatic backs, and perfect draping. Every gown features details to set it apart and make the bride shine. Beaded lace, English net and rich satin compose gowns that are nothing but glamorous. Brides deserve to be at their most beautiful, and our aim is not only to design and produce the perfect gown but to provide daily inspiration for our brides-to-be through our media presence.” – Allure Bridals

David Tutera for Mon Cheri

“Leading celebrity wedding and entertaining expert David Tutera partnered with esteemed Mon Cheri designer Martin Thornburg to create the David Tutera for Mon Cheri wedding dress  collection. David works closely with Martin to develop an assortment of fashionable bridal designs ranging from traditional ball gowns to modern dresses, and couture fashions to more informal designs. David Tutera for Mon Cheri offers today’s stylish brides with high quality fabrics, hand-beaded Swarovski crystals, and impeccable fit at an affordable price.” – David Tutera Check out the David Tutera for Mon Cheri 2015 Spring Bridal line at the Chicago market.

Eden Bridals

“Eden Bridals is a California-based bridal gown design & manufacturing company. Since founded in 1988, the company has established a strong name in the bridal industry. Its success has helped the company to branch out product lines to include bridal, bridesmaid, flower girl, and social occasions.

EDEN design team works very hard to incorporate the latest and most current fashion trends and ideas into the collections. We strive to ensure high quality fabrications, refine the small style details and offer our gowns and dresses at the best possible value to all brides. Over the years, we at Eden Bridals have received numerous awards for design, innovations, customer service, and quality.” – Eden Bridals

Essense of Australia

“Combining a superb fit with couture finishing, Essense of Australia brings an attention to detail that sets our wedding dresses apart from those of many other designer labels and makes your wedding truly memorable.

Influenced by the fashion houses of Europe and the fashion center of New York, every Essense of Australia gown is painstakingly imagined and created by our talented and highly experienced Australian design team.

At the heart of each signature Essense gown is luxurious fabric and exquisite beading. The gown line offers a diverse compilation of elegantly crafted designer wedding dresses ranging from glamorous, draped Angel Satin to alluring laces and Satin Chiffon. The use of authentic Swarovski crystals and diamantés adds the perfect touch of shimmering, head-turning sparkle. Plus, with innovative couture finishing options such as a lace or zip-up back, a bride can customize her gown to best reflect her sophistication and unique style.” – Essense of Australia

Sincerity

“In 1997 Sincerity Bridal was designed for the European market and later introduced internationally. From the beginning, Sincerity Bridal took the lead as a “trendsetter” in the industry by creating romantic boned bodices with accents of color and removable trains. Sincerity Bridal has received countless designer awards from the bridal industry. Today, the Sincerity collection is inspired by modern romance with touches of color. Rich draping in a wide array of dreamy fabrics accented with distinct details make Sincerity so unique. An assortment of silhouettes from tea lengths and high lows to mermaids and ball gowns are represented. Our inspiration behind the “Sincerity Bride” revolves around soft romantic personal details that make a bride feel unique on her wedding day.” – Sincerity Bridals

Hope you enjoyed our designer introductions! We’re excited you’ll be able to check it all out soon! Stay tuned to our Facebook for more updates!

~ Megan & Jenna

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Flooring, Flooring, Everywhere!

Hello Beautifuls! Hello Handsomes!

Last week we accomplished a lot at Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear. As you may have guessed by the title of this post, we completed our beautiful flooring. Our inspiration came from a milk paint colored wood flooring and we were thrilled when our partners at Carpet Pros found an amazing match!

Tom, the owner of Carpet Pros, assured us we’d be able to learn how to lay this flooring and he was a great teacher. After a quick demonstration we plugged right along (or should I say we glued right along?) to transform a once dark and dusty floor into a beautiful space. Quick shout out – a few of Tom’s team helped us out for two days to make sure we stayed on time. They were incredible. Quite a talented crew! Also, my husband, Dan, spent two solid days (his days off) crouched over the flooring ensuring everything lined up. He’s so amazing!

We would not have been done so quickly if we didn’t have such an incredible support system. Jenna and I learned quite a bit too. Prior to this project, we had only ever laid kitchen flooring. Holy smokes, we learned a lot in a short amount of time and the sweat equity is awesome!

On Friday, Greg the Carpenter started in on all the trim and hanging doors. Yay! He is making swift progress on the space so we’re excited to see the continued transformation of the shop. This week, our childhood friend, Tyson Heaton and his company, Coat All Painting, will begin to transform these orange and purple walls into something light and fresh!

~ Megan & Jenna

Here’s a quick look at the flooring and our color inspirations!

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More Progress!

What a wild couple of weeks it’s been! Drywall is complete and we’ve moved on to flooring. This is an interesting portion. After removing the world’s strongest glue (I don’t know if that’s true but it seemed like it) there was a lot of repair work to do. Fortunately, we’ve been able to work with Tom Fuller and Carpet Pros. They’ve done a great job smoothing the space out and helping us find a fantastic flooring option that is just beautiful! We’ve also started cleaning the duct work. Oh my!

We’ve been working with our construction partners, NP Construction, deciding on base boards, crown molding, doors, mirrors, and so on. A thousand details that will all add up to create a beautiful space for our shoppers to have a memorable experience.

We’ve been so fortunate to build amazing relationships with great local businesses as we complete this process. They have been so incredible in helping us achieve our vision for the shopping experience. Speaking of shopping experience, we’re excited to share a little more about our vision the store layout.

When shoppers enter the store they’ll immediately notice a light and airy feel to the space. Light floors and light wall colors with some pops of color! We’ve chosen to create a flexible space! Our display windows will have a magnetic chalkboard paint so instead of banners or signs, we’ll be able to share our message via chalkboard art, behind our beautiful dress displays, of course! On the back side of our window walls, shoppers will notice another flexible display space featuring shoes by Something Blue and jewelry and handbags by Embellish from David Tutera. Woohooo! We will have mobile display cases that will allow us to have a flexible showroom floor. And we’re working on a custom cash wrap too. Details, details!

Here’s a glimpse at some of the projects we’re working on….you’ll notice we’ve got lots of great little (and big) helpers!

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Hello Beautiful!

Hello Beautiful! Hello Handsome!

Drum roll, please! Introducing Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear! Opening in December 2014, the shop will be located in the Vista Pointe Shopping Center at 5012 3rd Avenue, Suite 150 in Kearney.

Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear has been a lifelong dream of owner, Megan Wegner-Goeke and her sister, Jenna Wegner-Lukasiewicz. Fueled by their passion for providing shoppers with an incredible customer experience, Megan and Jenna will apply their extensive professional background in customer experience marketing, retail leadership, hospitality, and fashion to ensure shoppers are introduced to the dress (or tuxedo) of their dreams for any occasion.

Megan and Jenna grew up in Kearney, Nebraska and are thrilled to have the opportunity to serve the community they love! Of course, their success is a result of the amazing support of their family and friends.

Stay tuned to this blog for weekly unveilings of new images and stories from Nebraska’s newest bridal and formal wear shop, Hello Beautiful Bridal & Formal Wear.

 

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