The Bridal Market Playbook: What 20 Years in the Industry Taught Me About Strategic Growth
Christina Wettstein Shares the Behind-the-Scenes Strategy That Separates Successful Brands from Everyone Else
Podcast Episode 14 | The Edit by Engaged Creative
If you want to understand how the bridal industry really works, you talk to Christina Wettstein.
With 20 years in the industry, from working in bridal salons at 16 to becoming a luxury buyer in Minneapolis, then transitioning to wholesale where she repped some of the industry's biggest names, Christina has seen every side of this business. She's the self-proclaimed mother hen of the bridal industry, and honestly, it fits.
Sophie caught up with Christina during New York Bridal Market to talk about what actually goes into preparing for market, why most designers are releasing too many styles, and the biggest mistake brands make when scaling. This conversation is packed with insights you won't find anywhere else.
Why Retail Experience Makes Better Wholesale Strategy
Christina's career path is a masterclass in building foundational knowledge. She started behind the scenes in a bridal salon, then worked with brides directly, managed alterations, and eventually became a buyer at a luxury bridal salon.
“I think you kind of need that front... you need to know how to talk to a customer and what they want and the emotion behind the purchase”, Christina explains.
This retail foundation gave her something most wholesale reps don't have: a deep understanding of what makes a dress actually sell. Not what looks good on Instagram. Not what wins awards. What moves off the sales floor.
When she transitioned to wholesale, first with Monique Lhuillier, then Katie May, Untamed Petals, and eventually opening her own sales agency, she brought that buyer's perspective with her. She could look at a dress and immediately assess: Can this be altered? Is the price point realistic? What's the perceived value versus the true value?
The Wedding Marketing Takeaway: If you're building a wedding business, spend time understanding every part of the customer journey. The deeper your operational knowledge, the better your strategic decisions become.
The Biggest Mistake Brands Make at Bridal Market
When I asked Christina what brands get wrong when preparing for market, her answer was immediate: they hope for walk-ins instead of creating a real strategy.
“Never go to a market and just hope that walk-ins are going to happen because that's not successful for anyone”, she says. T”hose walk-in appointments really weren't your client anyways.”
Instead, successful brands create a target list, execute outreach, and set realistic conversion goals. Here's Christina's framework:
Call 200 stores
Goal: 50 appointments
Hope: 30 convert to actual accounts
But before you even make that first call, you need to answer one critical question: What's your production capacity?
“I've worked for people who scaled up too quickly and then there simply was no way to deliver what was promised”, Christina warns.
The Wedding Marketing Takeaway: Strategy beats hope every time. Know your capacity, create a realistic sales plan, and execute it. Walk-ins are nice, but they're not a business model.
How Many Styles Should Actually Be in Your Collection?
This is where Christina and I were completely aligned. When a collection has 20+ styles, it's overwhelming. Everything starts to look the same. You lose the thread of what makes the brand special.
“A nice collection is a nice 12 piece collection”, Christina says. “Out of those 12, if eight or nine styles are tracking, that's success.”
Here's why tight collections work better:
Easier for buyers to remember: When you have 30 styles, nothing stands out. With 12, each dress has space to breathe.
Clearer brand identity: A curated collection tells a story. A bloated one just shows you couldn't edit.
Better inventory management: Fewer SKUs = less complexity in production and fulfillment.
Higher conversion rates: Stores are more likely to buy 8 out of 12 than 15 out of 30.
Christina also pointed out that collection size should match your market. Europeans buying in spring market often need bigger collections because they're shopping for different regions. But for North American buyers? Keep it tight.
The Wedding Marketing Takeaway: Less is more. A tight, curated collection of 12 strong styles will outperform a bloated 25-piece line every time. Edit ruthlessly.
The Content Release Dilemma: When Should You Launch Social Campaigns?
This is the million-dollar question every designer faces: Do you launch your campaign before dresses hit stores or after?
Christina's take is nuanced. She's seen the chaos that happens when brands release stunning campaign imagery but can't deliver samples fast enough to meet demand. Brides DM stores saying they want to try on a dress today. Stores panic because the samples won't arrive for weeks.
“These brides are so aggressive. They send a DM saying, 'Let me try it on today.' That's the situation from the highest of stores to the most opening price point stores”, Christina explains.
Her solution? A hybrid approach:
Release half the collection early (the styles with fastest production times)
Hold back the rest until samples land in stores
Have duplicate samples ready to send quickly when demand spikes
The best-case scenario? If you can cut and deliver certain styles in four weeks, feature those heavily in your content. Give brides something they can actually try on.
The Wedding Marketing Takeaway: Don't create demand you can't fulfill. Coordinate your content release with your production capabilities, or you'll frustrate both stores and brides.
Strategic Buying: Why Stores Need to Stop Chasing Trends
One of my favorite parts of this conversation was when Christina talked about strategic buying. In her view, too many stores are trying to be everything to everyone—and it's killing their brand identity.
“I don't need to have all these brands. Hone in on what does well for you”, she says.
She used New York City as an example. There are tons of bridal salons, but the successful ones know exactly who they are:
Mark Ingram Atelier has a specific aesthetic and price point
Kleinfeld serves a different bride
There's crossover, but each knows their lane
Christina called out The Bridal Refinery in Florida as a perfect example. They carry only four brands, but those four are so well-curated that the store has a crystal-clear identity.
The pandemic and social media explosion led to stores panic-buying, trying to stock every trending dress they saw on Instagram. But now, as the industry stabilizes, Christina sees a shift back toward intentional curation.
The Wedding Marketing Takeaway: Know your lane. Define your mission and vision clearly, then buy only what aligns. A tight, curated selection builds brand loyalty faster than trying to stock every trend.
What Makes a Brand Stay Relevant for 20+ Years?
We talked about Rue De Seine (because of course we did, they came up in my conversation with Anna from A&Be too). Christina called them one of the best at maintaining brand integrity while adapting to trends.
“Rue De Seine is probably one of the best there's ever been at maintaining their integrity. But successful designers can go up and down and ebb and flow. What they're great at might not always be on trend, but if they can be somewhat relatable, there's always a bride for them”, Christina explains.
The key? Everyone from the CEO to the stylist to the bride needs to understand the brand's mission. If you have to say your vision 50 times before it lands, it's not your real vision, it's marketing jargon.
The Wedding Marketing Takeaway: Brand clarity isn't optional. Your point of view should be so clear that everyone, from your team to your customers can articulate it. Consistency over time builds trust.
The Return of Runway Shows (And Why They Matter)
Christina noticed something exciting at this market: runway shows are back.
“This season was an ode to a more traditional buying time. Going to those runway shows was so inspiring. They're not just there to make brides excited, but to get real joy and excitement from the stores and buyers to trickle that down to the stylists selling the product”, she says.
She remembers buying Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta, and Vera Wang. Going to those showrooms and runway shows was transformative, it wasn't just about seeing dresses, it was about absorbing the brand's vision.
In an industry that's been increasingly digital-first, the return to in-person experiences feels intentional. There's something about seeing a dress move on a runway, understanding its construction, and feeling the fabric that Instagram will never replicate.
The Wedding Marketing Takeaway: Experience matters. Whether it's a runway show, a showroom visit, or a personalized appointment, creating moments that inspire connection will always outperform purely transactional interactions.
Final Thoughts: Strategy Over Chaos
After 20 years in this industry, Christina has seen it all. The explosive growth of social media. The panic buying. The brands that scaled too fast and collapsed under their own success. The designers who chased trends and lost their identity.
But she's also seen the ones who made it, the brands that stayed disciplined, the stores that knew their customers, the designers who trusted their vision even when it wasn't trendy.
Her advice for the next generation of wedding businesses? Use social media to your advantage, but don't let it drive your strategy. Create a plan. Understand your capacity. Stay in your lane. And most importantly: know your customer so well that you can anticipate what they need before they ask.
Listen to the Full Episode
Want to hear more from Christina about preparing for bridal market, navigating buyer relationships, and her predictions for where the industry is headed? Listen to Episode 14 of The Edit by Engaged Creative wherever you get your podcasts.
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Ready to elevate your wedding business marketing? We're always here to chat about strategy, branding, and what's working in today's market. Drop us a line, we'd love to hear what trends you're seeing in your corner of the industry.
