Today we’d like to introduce you to Ivy Peng.
Ivy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I Do Wedding was founded in 2015, the year after I was married to my lovely husband Stanley Huang. We had gone through the stressful planning process of creating our dream wedding and through that it inspired me to open up my own one-stop shop bridal boutique. Our boutique is well known for its in house custom design dresses and our wedding service packages. So when I say one-stop shop, I mean you can literally create a full wedding package with us for all your wedding needs. Some of the services include, Wedding photography, hair & makeup, wedding planning, florists, decoration, DJ’s, and more.
What people don’t know about me is that I started in corporate America as a manager of technical operations, sounds fun right? It was a glorified help desk position, however this is what helped me gain the customer service experience I needed to get to where I am today. I am very customer service driven when it comes to my boutique and I make sure that my team is just as driven. Like many women, I love to shop and so I really fell in love with Korean fashion. I always thought about starting my own line of clothing but wasn’t sure what I wanted to focus on. Of course as I began planning my wedding, the frustration of going back in forth to various vendors to fulfill my wedding day needs got tiring and overwhelming. So I wanted to solve this issue. My cousin owns her own bridal boutique out in Australia and I thought to myself, why can’t I do that with the addition of services? So I got in touch with my cousins designers and began my own business right in the heart of the Boston theater district.
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?
So right from the beginning we struggled with getting the shop open because it took us about 6 months just to find a location and get all the contracts and permitting complete. By then we had already just missed out on the heavy wedding season. As a small business starting is hard because one, as the owner I had to run the store, work with the clients one on one, input orders and track everything on my own. Two, it was extremely difficult getting initial foot traffic through the door because we were brand new and didn’t have enough marketing materials out there. Three, I had a beautiful baby girl named Isabella. I had now become a working mom and this made it a little more difficult than expected so, after the first year and a half we hired our first full-time staff Dina. This helped me a lot since she already had experience working in the events space and was very customer service oriented. Then we faced the big issue of creating a process-flow that worked for everyone. We couldn’t use excel sheets anymore or free social media outlets, we had to start adding inventory management system, CRM, and combining our forces with larger marketing groups.
I Do Wedding – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
My business is a one-stop shop bridal boutique. As mentioned previously we offer wedding service packages such as photography, wedding planning, florists, wedding gown rentals, etc. One of the unique things that sets us apart from other bridal boutiques is not only our packages but we provide Custom design dresses as well as rental gowns. Because we do have the luxury of having our own branded dresses we are able to work with our designers to create something completely new. Our style consultants work together with brides to create the perfect dress through sketches and dress consultations. Gown rentals are also super unique to the area, but not completely unheard of around the world, In Asia, Europe and Middle-East they always have the option of renting their bridal gowns. It saves on cost and it’s convenient, I mean you’re only going to wear your dress once right? Also it’s odd that only men are capable of renting out their suits and tuxes around here but women have no outlet to do so.
I am SUPER proud of how much we’ve grown. We have already doubled our numbers today from last year which is huge! I’m so proud of my team as they helped me get to the next level. Their dedication and background experiences have helped organize and focus our businesses goals. Lastly we are still a 5-star rated boutique and we hope to keep this trend.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
So far, the coolest and proudest moment I had was this past March of 2017. We hosted our first ever bridal window showcase, where we had girls model our dresses in our window display. This was a great concept and I had never seen it done in Boston but it was an absolute success. We had a huge crowd outside taking photos and people walking into the boutique as our DJ was spinning his beats. Honestly it was amazing seeing my team of 20 smiling and enjoying their time. It was an emotional day for me as I could see my small business growing and have meaning to so many people.
Pricing:
- I Do Wedding Package A_Photography (4hrs), Hair & Makeup, Gown rental, and accessories_ $2599
- I Do Wedding Package B_Photography (8hrs), Hair & Makeup, Gown rental, and accessories_ $2999
Contact Info:
- Address: 283 Tremont Street. Boston, MA 02116
- Website: www.idowedding.co
- Phone: 857-317-2348
- Email: info@idowedding.co
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