Today we’d like to introduce you to Lilian Hung.
Lilian, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Before starting Lyra Vega Bridal. I worked as an event planner for about a decade. My time in the hospitality industry stretched even past that, and frankly – I never envisioned myself as an entrepreneur. But life sometimes gifts us with opportunities that change everything. For me, that moment came during my own wedding planning.
Lyra Vega Bridal originated as the result of my wedding gown shopping frustrations. During my search, everything I saw was either too expensive or didn’t make me feel beautiful. I couldn’t justify spending thousands of dollars to look good for eight hours, even if it was my wedding day. I dreaded the prospect of “settling” on a dress I didn’t love. It didn’t help that the process of gown shopping was a total nightmare: visiting boutiques was exhausting and time-consuming; pushy sales associates were sometimes outright rude; opaque pricing meant I was always stepping into stores feeling uncertain. After trying on more than forty dresses, I thought to myself: there’s got to be a better way to do this.
I knew from my experiences working with brides that I wasn’t alone in my struggle. In a world with literally everything at my fingertips, why was it still so hard to find a dress for my wedding day? High quality, affordable dresses: they had to be out there – I was convinced of it. I started doing some research, and it led me up and down the wedding gown supply chain. I connected with industry professionals, distributors, designers, and manufacturers of all shapes and sizes. Through them, I found validation in the idea that the wedding dress shopping experience desperately needed an update. In particular, convenience and affordability were major pain points.
Today, Lyra Vega Bridal works directly with expert dressmakers to create beautiful gowns with quality materials – with an emphasis on not breaking the bank. As an e-boutique, there’s no additional overhead passed on to our clients as a result of working with middlemen or having a brick and mortar store. This allows us to offer wedding gowns at prices impossible for other boutiques, and we don’t have to sacrifice quality or service to do it. Instead of emphasizing the designer label, our focus at Lyra Vega is on the dress itself, and we’ve made it our goal to provide our brides with a stress-free purchasing experience.
Having been in the wedding industry for so long, I’m acutely aware of the pressures modern brides face. They’re bombarded from all sides by marketers pitching them the “Pinterest perfect wedding”, with the not-so-subtle goal of convincing brides to spend more than they’d prefer. In Lyra Vega Bridal, I’m proud to have created an alternative to this approach. I hope to empower women to do what feels right for them on their big day. We don’t have to blindly follow tradition!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As comfortable as we are with online shopping as a society, buying your wedding dress online is still a big leap of faith for most people. As a new company, we struggled with our initial sales because people just didn’t trust us with such an important purchase, particularly since they couldn’t see the actual product in person.
Since then, we’ve implemented a number of different strategies to help bridge the trust gap. We provide as many high-quality photos as we can of our gowns on different women to provide points of reference; we’ve added videos to our shop so customers can see how a gown moves when it’s worn; and we’ve added a style consultation service, where customers can video conference with our stylists, who will help answer any questions they might have about our dresses, or anything else.
As with any e-commerce operation, not being able to touch or try-on our products before purchasing is a barrier for some customers. We are constantly exploring new ways to build our brand and give brides the confidence to shop with us.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Lyra Vega Bridal – what should we know?
Lyra Vega Bridal is an online wedding gown boutique founded on the belief that brides can look beautiful on their wedding day without breaking the bank. We’re dedicated to providing a seamless and stress-free experience for modern, practical brides, and we offer beautiful, custom-measured gowns – delivered to your door for under $1000.
We’re most proud of:
+ Offering quality and beautiful gowns at an affordable price
+ Complete pricing transparency (no hidden costs, free shipping always)
+ 8 week turnaround time between order and delivery (versus the industry standard of 4-5 months)
+ Minimizing, if not avoiding, alteration costs for brides by custom making each gown to their unique measurements
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I want to encourage women to have fun during this special time of their lives: to not take things so seriously during their wedding planning, and to just be present and enjoy the process. At the end of the day, your wedding is just one day in the long journey of marriage. At Lyra Vega Bridal, we approach our day-to-day work with this in mind. In the office, at photoshoots, there’s always plenty of laughter and fun, even when we’re tackling tough projects. I believe this positive energy carries through work and comes through in our gowns, our brand, and ultimately, to our brides.
It’s also important to me that we are people first, and a business, second. We try to treat everyone we encounter with kindness and love. This means: engaging our customers as friends rather than transactions; showing appreciation and giving shoutouts to our partners and collaborators; keeping our models and vendors fed during shoots, etc. These might seem like small things, but they’re an essential part of the foundation this business has been built on. I’m a firm believer in the quote: “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” If people walk away from their encounter with Lyra Vega Bridal feeling fabulous, I know I’ve done my job.
Pricing:
- All gowns under $1000
- Free shipping & handling, always
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lyravegabridal.com
- Email: hello@lyravegabridal.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyravegabridal/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lyravegabridal
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/lyravegabridal/
Image Credit:
Ria Mackenzie Photography
Mermaid Pictures and Printing
Courtney Chau Photography
Allie Miller Photography
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