Story By Nell Luter Floyd
Photos By Megan Bean
A wedding may be large or small, but when the day comes, all eyes focus on the bride and her choice of attire.
That’s true whether the bride selects something long or short, sleek or voluminous, traditional or avant-garde.
Fashions for attendants of all ages play an important role, too, in setting the stage for the Big Day. They can complement a bride’s style, carry out a chosen color scheme or just add a pop of personality.
With that kind of importance resting on a wedding party’s choice of apparel, Mississippi State’s Charles Freeman, an associate professor of fashion design and merchandising, said it takes a certain kind of person to work in the bridal industry.
“It takes a detail oriented, patient, empathetic and understanding person, someone who can keep a calm, cool demeanor while dealing with brides and wedding parties,” Freeman said. “When students say that they want to do bridal, I do my best to discourage them.”
Why?
“The smallest detail can derail a bride. So, you want to be able to communicate, ‘I can do this better than anyone,’” Freeman said of those who work in the wedding industry. “It’s very high stakes.”
Still, the estimated $300 billion global business is alluring for many, including graduates of Mississippi State’s fashion design and merchandising program who now own full-service bridal salons that can outfit all the female members of a wedding party plus the mother of the bride.
As a 2018 graduate, Audrey Jarvis McCarty uses the knowledge and experience she gained at MSU as owner of The Bridal Path, a longtime Jackson establishment she purchased just two days after her college graduation.
“I know I’m where I am supposed to be,” said McCarty, who works alongside her mother, Janie Jarvis, also a graduate of MSU. “I think it was a God thing that everything fell into place. I never thought I’d own a business when I was 22.”
McCarty said she was well versed in the operation of The Bridal Path before she became the owner because she worked there most summer and winter breaks while a student at MSU, as did her sister, Amelia Jarvis, now a senior elementary education major at Mississippi State.
“I had so many cool experiences at Mississippi State, got to know my professors and worked on so many group projects that helped me to learn to interact with people,” she said. “All of those things have helped me succeed.”
McCarty noted that while the pandemic has changed the scale of many weddings, it hasn’t stopped brides from looking for the perfect dress for their big days and possibly generations to come.
Freeman said being passionate about one’s work in the bridal industry isn’t enough for success. As McCarty has demonstrated, it also takes a knowledge of the market, trends in design, fabrics and how to buy apparel that fits a particular market—and it is a large and diverse market.
In 2019, the Magnolia State accounted for 16,355 of the total 2.1 million weddings in the U.S. The average cost of a wedding in Mississippi amounted to $23,800 compared to a $33,900 national average, according to The Knot 2019 Real Weddings Study.
When the media wanted to localize a story about how the coronavirus could slow production of wedding gowns, many of which are sewn or made from materials produced in China, McCarty called fellow MSU alumna and bridal shop owner Kristin Miller Panetta to discuss it.
A 2012 communication graduate who minored in fashion design and merchandising, Panetta opened Ridgeland-based Elle James Bridal in 2016. She said she began planning the store after noticing friends were choosing to travel out of state to boutiques that specialized in wedding gowns and offered one-on-one service.
Panetta said she envisioned a boutique where a bride and her entourage could relax with the complete attention of a stylist who would help her find the perfect dress. And that’s the business model she adopted when she opened Elle James Bridal, which specializes in handpicked, couture wedding gowns.
Panetta said Elle James allows her to be her own boss and incorporate the skills she learned from an internship in New York City with the Veronica Beard brand. She has also paid-it-forward by employing interns from Mississippi State.
Freeman said internships are an important part of the fashion design and merchandising program, giving students hands-on, real-world experience.
Sidney Mitchell, a 2016 fashion design and merchandising graduate, interned at a store in her hometown of Senatobia. While in college, she also worked at a women’s boutique in Starkville and studied abroad in Italy. She knew, however, that she wanted to do more than sell clothes.
She got that opportunity in 2019 when she and her mother, Allyson Mitchell, purchased the Bella Bridesmaids franchise in Memphis from fellow MSU alumna Kelsey Jones, who wanted to pursue other retail opportunities.
Mitchell said Bella Bridesmaids is unique among bridal shops in that it doesn’t carry wedding gowns—only dresses for the attendants. This, she said, creates a low stress environment for the bride who can “sit back and relax while making her vision of her big day come to life.”
“When I found out about it, I knew it was ‘so me,’” she said. “The professors in the fashion design and merchandising program are devoted to what they do and set the bar high,” she continued. “They eat and breathe fashion design and merchandising. They put everything in it. They really care about the program.”
This is a reprint of an article in the Spring 2021 issue of Alumnus magazine.