How this bridal shop owner pivoted her business amid COVID-19

Adrienn Braun Bridal & Fashion Studio Owner and Designer Adrienn Braun joins Yahoo Finance's Zack Guzman to discuss how she was able to pivot her business amid COVID-19.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: As we've been highlighting through this pandemic, small business owners have had to be very scrappy and shifting around as restaurants have had to close down through this. Other businesses have been impacted. And one big sector hit hard through all this is the wedding sector as more weddings have been postponed due to the pandemic, and that's impacting small businesses across the board. Still the case, too, for one Hoboken-based bridal and fashion studio that pivoted here and shifted away from wedding dresses to more seasonal summer dresses as well as masks being sewn in the studio.

And here to discuss how the studio was able to shift away from bridal into everything else, with us is the owner of Adrienn Braun Bridal and Fashion Studio, the owner and designer Adrienn Braun joins us now. Adrienn, thanks so much for coming on. I mean, it-- it's a great story here when we think about the ingenuity that's needed to make these shifts. How-- how did it go for you, and how impacted were you by the pandemic when it first hit back in March?

ADRIENN BRAUN: Thank you so much. So as you said, the wedding industry has got really, really hard because all of the sudden just people started calling me and all of the weddings canceled, and, you know, we got kind of a panic situation that we need to solve very fast. So we were trying to accommodate all of our bride and tell them that it's going to be OK and we are going to get through this together and figure it out what is going to be the next steps. Because obviously, this is a situation that we've never been.

So we're just make sure that we assured all the bride, and we just kind of keep with-- going with the flow. But when we realized after being, like, maybe in a month in this situation, we saw that we don't know what's going on, and how can I survive as a business? And obviously, people are not going to call me and, hey, making an appointment. So I just started thinking.

At first, my first thought was that because I spoke to a lot of people that are working in hospitals that they used to be my brides, so they asked me, they said, hey, Adrienn, can you make some masks for us because we heard about a shortage? So actually, me and my husband Emilio, we just kind of jumped into the studio and started using all the leftover fabric, and-- and we ended up donating, like, after almost five months in this COVID, like, 6,000 masks. So we're just kind of doing it, doing it and just ended up. So it was amazing to be able to support them--

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah.

ADRIENN BRAUN: --and Hoboken was just amazing that reaching out to us and helping to support as well.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, it's a great example of pivoting through all this and making sure you can keep the business thriving here. I mean, you-- you had seamstresses working from home during this on masks, as you said, and then shifting over to the other dresses out there. But as you've seen this drag on, I mean, have you seen an uptick now back on the wedding side as maybe more people do shift to weddings at home or maybe smaller venues out there now?

ADRIENN BRAUN: So basically, because I do custom-made wedding gowns, people obviously wanted to leave the big gown that we designed for six to eight months prior to the wedding and we worked so hard with the brides together to-- to create basically their dream gown, they decided-- some of-- half of the brides, they decided to go and get married in a backyard.

And they said, let's leave the magic dress for next year when we are able to do a more-- the bigger ceremony that we were dreaming about. So we were, like, very busy the last month, month and a half to create more simple dresses. So that's how the idea came through actually also to create a ready-to-wear line, give reason to people to come into our store and try to serve them because you still need a good summer dress.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I mean, as you look out to the timeline too, as you've been able to navigate all this, I-- I mean, where do you think it might be before you start to see maybe some resurgence? Because I know-- I've been on a couple Zoom weddings here. They're a very-- they're very different. I think you still probably would need the dresses here. But what is your forecast looking like and maybe the demand that you're forecasting for next year?

ADRIENN BRAUN: So this month, a lot of bride reached out to me, and most of the wedding is happening 2021 March and July. That's the two busiest months that I'm seeing at venues and everybody give more appointments and trying to get back to track, but definitely loosen up a little bit more than it was like a month ago.

So small weddings are still happening if people willing to kind of sacrifice. I always tell the brides like, you guys, if you love each other, it doesn't really matter. Just go ahead and do it. And when the time comes, you know, you can have the big wedding. So we are definitely here to support them.

ZACK GUZMAN: Absolutely. You still got to look good, though. If it's a backyard wedding, you're still going to be posting pictures. And-- and definitely a great story here in terms of how you've been able to grapple with all this, and congrats again and good luck. Adrienn Braun, Adrienn Braun Bridal and Fashion Studio designer and owner, appreciate the chat.

ADRIENN BRAUN: Thank you.