Ashley Young took a viral moment all the way to “Shark Tank.” Young co-founded Bridal Babes with her husband, Charles Young, to provide bridesmaid dresses in a wide range of sizes. The brand, which has over 128K Instagram followers, has now become a popular option for the loved ones of people in love.
Young discussed the company’s evolution.
What exactly is Bridal Babes?
Bridal Babes is the first bridal tech company for women with curves. We really service all women of all different shades, shapes and sizes. Primarily for bridesmaid dresses, but we also have looks for the bride, for her bridal shower, rehearsal dinner and all of that.
We started out because this was an issue I found when I was planning our wedding back in 2016. I wanted my bridesmaids to be able to show off their curves. I had curvy bridesmaids, plus we [had] plus-size bridesmaids, and a lot of them, we just couldn’t find the dresses for. I was scouring the internet, literally searching all over for dresses where my girls could all have the same dress and be across the size range of small through 5 XL. So I finally landed on a dress. Of course, it was not a traditional bridesmaid dress store, but I landed on a dress, my girls put those dresses on and they instantly lit up. They were posting it, and our wedding went viral. Viral for 2016 standards, OK? Not now, but our wedding went viral because people had never seen bridesmaids in curve-hugging attractive dresses, and probably had never seen them that excited to be in their dresses.
What did the development of this business look like from 2016 up until the “Shark Tank” appearance?
In 2016, we laid the groundwork and did all the research, and worked on our website until the official launch in 2019. What we did strategically was we didn’t just launch our brand and say, “Our store is ready to go,” we built a community. Our Instagram was not just “product, product, product,” we were highlighting love stories. … When the pandemic happened, everybody was still wanting to get married. When people knew they could turn to us to still get their dress in a timely manner is when we outgrew our basement. We moved to our first studio location and eventually to our warehouse where we are now.
Around the time of our warehouse move was when we heard from “Shark Tank.” We were accepted to start the audition process, which is very long, but step one was getting a phone call. A few months later, after we moved to the warehouse, it was like step two to 2,000. [There is so] much due diligence you have to do.
I always tell people who want to be on “Shark Tank” to be buttoned up from a financial standpoint. So make sure you know [your] profit and loss statements, your balance sheets, have all that stuff buttoned up because they’re going to get into all of your business before you even get on the show.
