Good Neighbor Podcast: Pittsburgh

E8: Sustainable Bridal: Consignment for Conscious Brides

• Leila Carter & Hannah Balash • Episode 8

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What makes Hannah Balash with Bridal Maven a good neighbor?  

Wedding gowns deserve more than one moment walking down the aisle. That's the philosophy driving Bridal Maven, Pittsburgh's answer to sustainable wedding fashion.

Hannah Balash, a veteran bridal stylist with over a decade of experience, founded Bridal Maven after questioning why gorgeous wedding dresses should only be worn for eight hours before being boxed away forever. Located in Dormont beside the historic Hollywood Theater, this unique bridal shop offers contemporary designer gowns at reduced prices through a thoughtful consignment model.

"The creation of a wedding gown is resource intensive," Hannah explains, highlighting the environmental benefits of choosing secondhand bridal wear. Unlike traditional boutiques where brides order dresses months in advance with uncertainty about the final product, Bridal Maven provides an immediate "what you see is what you get" experience. All 350+ dresses in their inventory are professionally dry cleaned, ready to go home, and representative of current styles from the past three years.

The shop attracts diverse customers – practical brides who recognize a wedding is just one day and prefer not to overspend, dedicated resale enthusiasts who already embrace sustainable fashion, and value-seekers with specific style requirements. Hannah's approach makes the experience accessible by listing dresses by street sizes rather than traditional bridal sizing (which she describes as "really silly" and outdated).

Hannah's journey from opera singer to bridal entrepreneur demonstrates how creativity and people skills translate across industries. Her passion for helping women find their perfect dress shines through in her dedication to creating a welcoming environment where brides feel supported, not pressured.

Discover how you can save money, reduce environmental impact, and still look stunning on your wedding day by visiting BridalMavenPGH.com or following @bridalmavenpgh on Instagram. Your dream dress might already be waiting for you – and the planet will thank you.

To learn more about Bridal Maven go to: 

https://www.bridalmavenpgh.com/

Bridal Maven

(724)716-8177


Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Lila Carter.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a bridal consignment shop? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, hannah Bollish, with Bridal Maven. Hannah, how's it going? It's good. How are you? I'm well, I'm well. Thank you so much. We're excited to learn all about you and your business. Tell us about your company.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, great, thank you. Bridal Maven is a bridal consignment shop. We're in Dormont on Potomac Avenue, right next to the historic Hollywood Theater. Bridal consignment is a little bit different than your everyday bridal shop. Our business model is slightly different. So we are secondhand and off the rack, which means that many of the gowns have been worn previously and then dry cleaned, and then you can take them home again for a reduced price compared to the original price. There's no waiting, there's no ordering time. There's no. Will it look the same as the one I tried on in the store? What you see is what you get. There's no anxiety with it. You just know exactly what you're buying. And you also get to shop sustainably, which in bridal is difficult.

Speaker 3:

The fabrics are labor intensive, resource intensive. The creation of a wedding gown is resource intensive. So for something so gorgeous to get only one chance to shine is sort of silly, in our opinion, and we think these wedding gowns have a lot more life left in them than just one walk down the aisle. Plus, we find a lot of our brides, you know, they get married. Our consignors I should say our consignors get married and then they, you know, have a wonderful time in their wedding dress and then they have it in a box that they move around their house for a while. That's a big, unwieldy boxy box and they're thinking, what am I going to do with this thing? And they love their dress and they just want to give it another chance, to have another, have another great day with another person.

Speaker 3:

So that's what a bridal consignment is, and so it's a great way to both get a little bit of your money back from the investment that you make on your wedding dress, which is usually pretty substantial for a garment. It's one of the more expensive garments a woman buys for her wedding day and just in general it's more money than most people spend. You know it's a big outfit purchase and so you can get a little bit of that back when you sell it again, and then you also help somebody else save some money and then. So it's just kind of like a win-win-win all around and it's environmentally friendly. So we love that. A lot of our shoppers come to us because they're looking for a way to reduce their environmental impact on their wedding day, and they also enjoy the affordability and the variety.

Speaker 3:

We get a huge range of styles. That's really fun for me because we never know what we're going to get consigned because consignors approach us. We have some guidelines, but we're pretty flexible, so that's sort of the gist of it.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome and what great insight. With the reducing the environmental impact, I feel like a lot of people might not think about that point and that's such a great point Beautifully said there. So how did you get into this business initially?

Speaker 3:

Sure, yeah, I've been a bridal stylist for 12, 13, 12 years, something like that, a long time, over a decade At this point I'm sure my client list is in the thousands at this point. But I've sort of fell into it because I graduated and moved to New York City and realized that, like being a musician is expensive and you need a job to live in New York City. It's not really like a huge light bulb for most people, but I needed a job and, funnily enough, the manager at this bridal shop that had just expanded they doubled in size, they moved to a much larger place. They needed to hire a lot of people. The manager was from the Pittsburgh area and she was like are you from? Oh, you're from Pittsburgh, go Steelers. And I was like sure, go Steelers. And I got the job. My training is classical music. I'm an opera singer in my background, but you know what, honestly, theater, kids and performers translate well to sales and I like people and so those kind of those sort of skills translated well into this career and I just sort of fell in love with it.

Speaker 3:

I was getting married myself, I was around beautiful gowns, I got to be creative, helping people figure out what they want, solve problems for them, and then those kind of put all my skills together and I moved to Pittsburgh in 2018 and I worked for another shop or two and then, during COVID, I had just had my youngest daughter in February of 2020. And you know, obviously recall, covid hit a month later, so I was in, not working with my newborn at home, and the longer I wasn't going back to work cause I was trying to protect her, the more this idea that I'd had back when I worked at a regular consignment store in college, like sort of all combined with my current experience Because here I was selling these dresses that cost $1,500 to $2,500 to $3,000 and up, and then they get worn one time and it just didn't make sense to me that I knew these beautiful gowns you wear that for eight hours. I mean there are. Sometimes you go jump in a lake afterwards for fun or something, and those ones maybe aren't the best candidates for resale, but a lot of times you're indoors, you know like they're in great shape, in better condition, sometimes in sample gowns in the store, because everybody's very careful of you on your wedding day and it just didn't make sense to me.

Speaker 3:

So I thought and there wasn't anything like it currently in Pittsburgh, when I was looking around like is there a way to resale? Like where do these brides go with their dress that they don't want to keep it? There's some online options, but I know from my experience as a stylist that trying on a dress in person is essential to the bridal experience number one, but also to really understanding what you like. You can look at an item online and see a picture and see it on a model and think that you love the details, but until you touch it and feel it and feel how it feels on your body, see how the level of sparkle looks in person, see what kind of like well, there's a lot of sensory things about a wedding dress and then there's a lot of things that are just gut feelings that you only know when you're in the gown.

Speaker 2:

Right Sorry.

Speaker 3:

I was going to say the in-person element I think is really important. So my thought was to combine the two the resale element with the in-person. Try on, because a lot of the online options are you buy it, you pay 800 bucks, and if you don't like it, well then you have to resell it and help somebody else buys it, you know. So we have the option of okay, we have, we have a physical space.

Speaker 2:

There's a bridal shopping experience that doesn't feel different from the experience that you get at any bridal shop, you know, except we think we're friendly, you know we're super friendly and nice and we really, you know, helpful, right, and I just nailed it with the point about, you know, having that physical location and that brick and mortar where women can come and try on the dress, because a lot of consignment stores are virtual or online experiences, so combining the two is really special. What are some myths or misconceptions in your industry?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think a lot of people well, not a lot of people, but I think people can think, oh, consignment, is that like a thrift store? I'm like it's not a thrift store. It's not a thrift store experience. It's not like going into Goodwill. I know there's some influencers and um, tick, tockers and stuff. They go to Goodwill and they find there's one that she found, this very high end designer gown for 20. I'm like I am very skeptical that that was true.

Speaker 3:

But usually the gowns you find in Goodwill are more 1980s, 1990s, which, if that's your thing, you like to restore vintage styles. That's awesome for you. This is not that these are contemporary styles. We take gowns from the last three years or so, so the styles and vibes are current and the gowns have been dry cleaned. So it's not like you're. Yeah, it's just not like a thrift store experience where you're and it's not garage sale prices either. So these are still luxury goods, luxury resale, because they're still, you know, originally $1,800 or $2,500. And so that's not like you know. I think sometimes we get some not so much the brides but their guests who are like oh, I got my dress for $100. Shouldn't these dresses all be $100 because they're used and that's not the case. They don't lose that much value. So I would say that's probably the biggest misconception.

Speaker 2:

So, as you're thinking about marketing to these women who are interested in this kind of a business model, who are your target customers and how do you attract them?

Speaker 3:

Sure, our target brides? We have a few. There's the bride who is practical and understands that her wedding day is a great day, but it's just one day and she doesn't want to spend a lot of money. Just one day and she doesn't want to spend a lot of money. Um, while we can never compete on price with like some of these like online, like knockoff sites we're not. These are actual designer gowns, you know that are for resale. So, um, but we are still relatively very affordable relative to other bridal gown shops. Uh, so we have people who shop with us because their budget is a thousand dollars or less and they may or may not be there for the resale element, but they're okay with it. Then we also have the bride, who is probably, like, the most ideal client for us is somebody who loves resale and shops resale for everything. Already, we get a lot of brides in who are like oh yeah, I love going to consignment shops. I like secondhand shops. I'm always thrifting. I love this because they love the idea of reusability and that sustainability element of getting something that's unique and beautiful and then making it perfect for them. So those probably like, are two, like most rides. And then there are some who are who. I love these gals too who, like, are looking for specific things. They know what they want, they have a vision and they do not want to pay full price. So they email me. Hey, I see you have this dress in. Can I come in and try it? You know they come in for the, for the dress.

Speaker 3:

We try to put all of our wedding gowns online, which also makes us different than other stores in the area. We have over 350 dresses on our website that you can browse by shape, by price, by size and just kind of see everything, so you know what to expect coming in. And we list by, like, regular street size. So, cause, bridal sizing I don't know if you're aware is just really silly. Don't take it personal, it's. It's like the sizing charts are from 1945 or something. So, um, we try to list by what, as close as possible to what regular sizes are. Um, the tag size may be different. So we try to make it easy for our customers to like preview what they have, find a couple favorites and then they're prepared for their appointment when they come in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I feel like that's probably very resonant for a lot of listeners Whenever you go and you try on these gowns, just feeling like, maybe even a bit defeated by the way that traditional sizing methods are kind of portrayed and the fact that you kind of like offer a more realistic approach is really thoughtful. So, as far as you know, getting in front of these customers, have you ever thought about doing your own podcast, maybe something informational for brides?

Speaker 3:

Yes, that's funny, we have my. I have a wonderful assistant manager, Sarah, who's been with me for three years, and we've been kicking that idea around. We have a couple of topics you know like brainstormed that. We're hoping to get that started soon actually. So thank you for asking, so stay tuned. I guess we don't have a name for it, but I'll take pitches.

Speaker 2:

Very good. So outside of work, what do you do for fun?

Speaker 3:

Lately. So I have been doing some operettas with the Pittsburgh Savoyards, which is a company dedicated to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, late 19th century English operetta writers. So we just did HMS Pinafore at the Carnegie Theater in Carnegie and I'm 38, but I got to play. My chorus character that I made up for myself was Aunt Petunia, who was 75 and very cranky. She had to be on the boat so I got to put on old lady makeup and dance around and it was a good time be on the boat, so I got to put on old lady makeup and dance around and it was a good time, sounds fun, so, hannah please tell our listeners one thing that they should remember about Bridal Maven.

Speaker 2:

Just one thing, something our listeners can sit with.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I would say, if you are at all like not sure of this whole bridal shopping experience, we are a great store to come to because we have a wealth of knowledge, you know a lot of experience, we have beautiful gowns at affordable prices and you're helping save the earth in the meantime. So it's a great place to come shop and we'll take care of you.

Speaker 2:

It's powerful, and how can our listeners learn more about Bridal Maven?

Speaker 3:

Definitely so. I would say our website. I've put a lot of hours into putting as much information on the website as possible because I know how people love to research on the website is possible, because I know how people love to research. So you can find us at bridalmavenpghcom. That's bridalmavenpghcom. We're also on Instagram, at bridalmavenpgh, and Facebook I think we're just at bridalmaven. So social media we're definitely on Instagram all the time, heavy in the DMs. I'm happy to chat with anybody.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. Well, Hannah, I really appreciate your time today and having you as a guest on our show. We wish you and your business the best moving forward. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPPittsburghcom. That's GNPPittsburghcom. That's GNPPittsburghcom. Or call 412-561-9956.