Photo Credit: Broken Arrows Photography IG: @brokenarrowsphotography
Brandi Nehmer didn’t grow up dreaming about owning a bridal store. Rather the 46-year-old entrepreneur, who loves sports and the outdoors, originally went to college to become a PE teacher.
But life has a funny way of working out, and today, two decades later, Brandi indeed owns an award-winning bridal store.
Brandi’s Bridal Galleria, Etc., located in the tiny tourist town of New Glarus, was voted “Wisconsin’s Best” for 19 years by Wisconsin Bride Magazine readers. However, in many ways, it isn’t your traditional bridal store. In addition to being extremely open with customers about what information they share, they encourage brides to touch and handle merchandise, carry some dresses that push the envelope for their market and strive to create a casual, warm environment.
“We want to welcome people into our home and not our store,” Brandi says. “We want our customers to feel like they’re in charge of everything and be comfortable and at ease here.”
Unexpected Beginnings
A tri-sport athlete, Brandi grew up playing basketball, volleyball and softball in high school.
While she’d always loved fashion, she enrolled at Illinois State University intending to become a PE teacher. However, after switching her major a few times, she discovered Fashion Merchandising and Design.
“It was just the perfect path for me then,” she says.
After graduation, Brandi moved to New York City and interned with Kenneth Cole before heading to San Francisco and working for Macy’s West corporate offices. While confident she was in the right field, Brandi wanted to get back to the Midwest. From there, she kind of just fell into bridal.
“I realized there was a need for it, that we needed to bring fashion-forward goods to Wisconsin and northern Illinois, and they needed to be offered at a fair price to everybody,” she says.
As well, Brandi wanted to open a store that she enjoyed going to everyday. Bridal seemed like the perfect fit.
“Getting into something in a totally different realm was a surprise to everybody but I think that’s also why I enjoy it,” she says. “I honestly just love getting to make people happy every day, and that’s what keeps it going. I really never imagined it would get as big as it is now.”
The Early Days
In 2004, when Brandi’s first opened, the upstart store was located in the well-known building of a former fabric store called the “Swiss Miss.”
“Bride after bride would come in and their moms would be like, ‘I came here for the fabric to make my wedding dress!’” she says. “So it was kind of a neat little history piece that started with us because everybody knew about the Swiss Miss, that old building on the highway.”
In addition to name recognition, the Swiss Miss contained quite a bit of space: 5,000 square feet, three-quarters of which Brandi’s devoted to a showroom and five dressing rooms, with the remainer housing alterations and a backroom. The aesthetic was very open and colorful, and initial merchandise included 3-4 bridal lines, bridesmaids and prom.
Mothers’ business “wasn’t really a thing back then.”
“It’s more people just went to the mall and bought dresses at a store like JCPenney,” Brandi says. “Things have evolved since then and so have we.”
In 2012, that evolution became physical, as Brandi’s had grown so much, and added so much stock, that it needed more space.
They bought two pieces of land on the highway in New Glarus, knocking down the car wash and laundry mat contained on them, and built a 10,000-square-foot boutique. While the entire store is contained on one floor, including 12 dressing rooms (six for bridal and six for bridesmaids/mothers) it does have office space above complete with a kitchen.
While the spacious building is better suited for their needs, its construction was hardly smooth sailing. New Glarus is a very tourist-based town known for its Swiss cultural background. As such, the exterior of any new building must follow the town’s Swiss architecture plan (largely, low-pitched roofs and expansive overhangs).
“We had many hoops to jump through because our building is so large and that was going to be extremely expensive, not to mention we were fighting the battle of ‘well our customers aren’t coming here for tourism so when they see this Swiss building it’s going to look weird,’” she says.
Fortunately, after some hassle, a compromise was reached: Brandi’s has a bit of Swiss architecture on its exterior, but its interior doesn’t have to. And in the end, the name recognition of New Glarus makes it worth it.
“New Glarus really does help put us on the map because it just has a very good feel,” Brandi says. “It’s a total destination, so we get the people who come because there are so many quaint little shops and breweries, and we do our best to keep them in town to spend money at the local businesses, too.”
The Un-Bridal Store
Today, Brandi’s is a massive success, attracting brides from all over Wisconsin and Illinois. In terms of boutiques, however, it isn’t super traditional.
“It sounds cliché to say but we really do call ourselves the ‘unbridal store’ just because we’re very open with our customers,” Brandi says. “We don’t want to ever hide anything from them, and we don’t want them to feel uneasy here.”
Stylists meet customers at or walk them to the door, as a friend would. They’re trained to continue talking with brides while giving a store tour – which shows off not just their 360 runway and huge selection of mothers’ dresses but also proactively points out where the bathroom is so no one has to feel awkward asking.
The overall vibe is casual – no need to remove your shoes! And, despite the store’s huge square footage and sizeable traffic, Brandi’s works hard to provide a small-town feel with personalized service to every bride.
“We want each person to feel like they’re our single customer,” she says. “We want them to love us and our store so much they want to buy from us before they ever get into the bridal gown rooms to see our wedding dresses.”
(Brandi’s, btw, is appointment only but will take walk-ins if there’s availability).
In the bridal gown rooms, everything is priced openly, nothing is bagged, and customers are encouraged to touch and feel product.
“We want them to feel they can walk over and grab a tiara off the counter if they want to try it on,” Brandi says. “We’ve found that is huge for shoppers now days, and that’s really what kind of makes it unique. We want the customer to feel like they’re in charge of their entire appointment even though our stylist is in charge of keeping that feeling going.”
As well, they’re extremely open with the information they share.
For instance, regarding ship time, brides will often say, “My wedding is in nine months and this other store told me if I don’t order a dress today, I can’t get a dress.”
Not only do all of Brandi’s dresses have approximate delivery dates on them, so customers can see that information right away, but staff is trained to know how long each designer’s dresses take to come in. That way, they can tell that customer: no, if your wedding is nine months out, the dress you love will come to us in four to five months; that’ll still give you four months for alterations.
“And then you see them like, ‘Oh my gosh, well why did the other store say I have to buy it today or I’m not going to get it?’” Brandi says. “We never, ever talk bad about our competition but we do want our customers to know we’re being open and honest with them.”
Another example: a bride calls to check on her dress. The store investigates and discovers shipping is delayed. Regardless of the reason, they’ll let the customer know exactly why.
“We want them to have (the facts) so they feel reassured we know what’s going on and that we’re keeping up on it,” Brandi says. “We want them to feel at ease that they can trust us and understand everything we’re telling them.”
High Closing Rates
At Brandi’s, bridal represents about 65% of sales, bridesmaids 25% and moms 10%. Each niche is successful in its own way.
In terms of bridal, a large plus-size selection, a mix of classic and non-traditional gowns, and a generous platinum rewards program has helped word-of-mouth “spread like wildfire” in recent years, spiking their first-visit closing rate to about 72%.
“We’ve been super, super lucky,” Brandi says. “I think it’s just us being open and honest about everything.”
They don’t offer online sales, preferring instead to focus on giving the best possible service in store.
If a bride asks a stylist her opinion between two gowns, for example, instead of choosing one that stylist is trained to point out the positives in both based on what the bride has previously said. Or, if a bride’s grandmother mentions she had a particular kind of lace on her wedding dress, the stylist should bring it up later in the conversation.
“I think little things like that along our whole experience can help a bride want to say yes here,” Brandi says.
In terms of bridesmaids’ dresses, Brandi’s is one of the only stores in the area that sells them, and their closing rate is extremely high.
“It’s about 90-100 percent because, as we’re setting up the appointment, we ask questions about their bridesmaids party and such, so the customers who come in are very serious and here to buy,” Brandi says.
Likewise, their mothers’ category has exploded in recent years. In turn, they’re putting more money into inventory and increasing selection, which further propels word of mouth and their reputation as being a destination for moms.
“We offer appointments during the week for our mom shoppers, which is not something many stores do,” Brandi says. “Moms LOVE having more one-on-one service, and they like to shop during the week because it’s not as busy and they don’t want anyone to see them trying dresses on.”
One Big Family
Brandi credits a huge portion of her store’s success to her team.
“We have a great staff and everybody wants to be here every single day,” she says. “Our customers are going to feel that, and they’re going to want to buy from us. That’s literally what I tell people when we’re doing interviews.”
Getting those interviews, admittedly, can be tough. Brandi’s does social-media posts about job openings and uses Indeed. While they get plenty of applicants, they struggle with candidates not always showing up or being the best match.
“We don’t just hire people to get bodies in here; we really want them to be the perfect person to fit with what we have going on,” Brandi says. “It’s a daunting task and honestly I’ve been understaffed since probably about COVID, but it kind of seems like that’s how the world is right now.”
Training is all hands on, relying heavily on job shadowing. Importantly, brides are never told someone is new or just shadowing. Rather both stylists are introduced with a positive spin: This is Amy and I’m Cindy. You’re getting a two-for-one today!
“We make it really fun,” Brandi says, adding that it’s important to honor the fact everyone trains differently.
“We’ve had stylists go on their own and after a day say, ‘I think I want to do a little more shadowing’ – so we put the brakes on, go back and do that,” she says. “We never want to put somebody out there and have them look stupid because then we know that bride is going to walk out the door.”
There’s a team meeting every morning before the store opens, where they discuss not just the upcoming day but also what people did the previous night or what their families are up to.
“We do keep it personal with everybody,” Brandi says. “I mean, gosh, we spend more time with these people than our own families sometimes. Getting to know our employees and their families is huge to me just because family is so big to me.”
Brandi’s immediate family consists of husband Brant, owner of a liquor and beer distributor for the state of Wisconsin whom she met in Las Vegas at a football game, and two kids: son Kamm, a freshman in high school, and daughter Elle, a senior.
While Brandi is the sole owner of her boutique, family does assist. Her mother, Vicki, has been coming in periodically since the store opened, doing books, giving advice and helping out with whatever needs doing.
“She says it keeps her young and she has been a vital part of growing the business,” Brandi says. “My mom has been just basically like a godsend helper and she’s been awesome to have here.”
Daughter Elle has also been assisting with various things for the past year, including social media, working the floor or whatever stylists need.
“I feel very lucky every day that my mom or daughter comes in that they want to be here to help and they enjoy it,” Brandi says. “It’s pretty awesome.”
Looking Forward
Outside of bridal, Brandi’s life is very busy and active. Her kids are super into sports; she and her husband coach for local schools and the family has Milwaukee Brewers season tickets.
Translation: they attend some kind of sporting event nearly every night.
“We have a huge passion for sports,” she says. “It keeps us all together and it’s just something to do that we all love.”
They also have a cabin about an hour away from their home, where they enjoy hunting, fishing and all things outdoors.
“I definitely wear two different hats every single day,” Brandi says. “I kind of live the best of both worlds.”
Moving forward, however, she has begun to think about her “what’s next” plan given the fact both of her kids will be out of the house in five years.
“Honestly just continuing to grow this store, getting more customers in the door and staying with trends is what we want to do,” she says. “Possibility catapulting into another store or different things down the road isn’t out of the question; it’s all things we’re thinking about all the time.”
Regardless of which path she chooses, however, one constant remains.
“Getting to help brides find their dream dress that they’re going to look back at in pictures hopefully 50 years from now is awesome,” she says. “Every bride is a bride to us, not a dollar sign walking in and out the door. I never want to lose sight of that passion for what we get to do.”
