We recently connected with Sarah Ghabbour and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Our overarching mission for Loved Twice Bridal is to bridge the gap between buyers and sellers to increase the lifecycle of wedding gowns and wedding wear.

We do this with three goals.

The first goal is to assist former brides in selling their gowns. Traditional methods of selling a gown would be to list the gown on any one or more resale platforms and handle all the listing details and potential buyer communications. Instead, brides leave their gowns with us to handle the marketing and selling of their gown. This ensures the correct information is communicated to potential buyers and listings are not overlooked.

The second goal to make second hand wedding gowns accessible to all brides. By providing a private one hour appointment, brides no longer have to sacrifice customer service to make the sustainable choice. In addition to our in store brides, we have a unique try at home program that allows non-local brides three days with the gown they would be interested in purchasing. Brides shopping with us receive an elevated customer service experience.

The third goal is to encourage sustainability within the bridal industry. On average, a wedding dress can take 2,500 gallons of water to make only to be used for one day, 10 hours. We want to give gowns a second, and sometimes, third chance down the aisle to decrease the number of new gowns made.

Sarah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Prior to the inception of Loved Twice Bridal, I had 9 years of experience in the bridal industry, I started my career at a small boutique in San Diego as a part time intern and worked my way up while working at different boutiques in around the country; Charleston, SC & in Upstate New York. After moving back to San Diego, I came back to the original boutique I started my career at as an assistant manager. Shortly after, I was hired at BHDLN Carlsbad for a couple years and then received a job promotion as shop manager for the Beverly Hills location. My position was eliminated a year later and that led me to my final position with an International bridal company, before starting the company at the end of 2020.

The boutique opened in January 2020 and midway through March, the COVID shutdown happened. During the shutdown, I reached out to brides whose weddings were scheduled during the closure. So many brides no longer needed their gowns and would ask what to do with it. Outside of peer to peer marketplace websites, there was no professional service I could recommend. It was here that Loved Twice Bridal was born.

I look at my many positions around the country as the stepping stones needed to start my own business. These various shops and responsibilities taught me more than just product knowledge. In those 9 years, I crafted my customer service approach, I understood business finance and accounting at a deeper level and learned how to manage a team.

Up until Loved Twice Bridal, second hand gowns were only ever sold on peer to peer marketplaces and mom and pop consignment shops. Since the inception of the brand, we have continued to make a name for ourselves in the second hand bridal space by providing a concierge selling services for our sellers and a special bridal experience to our buyers both in person and online.

The Loved Twice seller can now pass off all the work of selling her gown to our tenured team. This same team then turns around and creates a product page with necessary information for our online customers. The gown lives in our boutique space for brides to try on and enjoy during a private appointment. Our full circle approach ensures our items are given equal opportunity to shine and caters to the bride’s special moment.

We are most proud of our consistent approach to each customer. No matter a seller or buyer, each customer receives the exact experience as the next and our reviews online are a testament to that. Our customers should never have a subpar experience when it comes to their secondhand items.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

There are two characteristics that have helped build our reputation within the market, curation and consistency. We do not take anything and everything and this is intentional. Our product assortment is truly curated by our team of stylists to ensure we are relevant to what is currently selling in made to order boutiques. Our second hand buyers should not be forced to shop dated and dingy products because she is being second hand. Instead, we stay on top of trends in the bridal industry to ensure we are in-line with full price items. Along with this, our standards on the quality of the items are also important so our customers are never shopping subpar items in bad condition. With regards to consistency, we’ve said it before, we will continue to work on delivering the same experience to every customer regardless of budget. Being a consignment store allows us to carry a very wide price rang  $2,000-$18,000. No matter what she can spend, her experience is the same across the board. The same can be said about our sellers and their items. Each items is listed the same way.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Google SEO and the Google Shopping page have been imperative to our success. Being a Google Merchant is not easy and there are standards that have to be kept up, but in doing so, our products are listed and clicked in an organic search. With regards to SEO, we continue to work with an SEO company to ensure our business comes up around the country and locally for brides looking to buy and sell their gowns. Sure, social media is important, but our biggest conversions have come from these two platforms.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lovedtwicebridal.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/lovedtwicebridal
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lovedtwicebridal/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/loved-twice-bridal
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/loved-twice-bridal-beverly-hills

Image Credits
XoandFetti, SimplyLovelly