We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful ShaRae Willden. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with ShaRae below.

ShaRae, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

I believe that family businesses are the true backbone of the American dream. So many businesses have started from a family business and become successful large companies that employ thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. Family businesses are, I believe, what America’s economy has been built on, and I strongly believe that they will continue to move America forward and keep our economy running. That said I also believe that family businesses have become a bit of a forgotten piece of the American dream that is slowly making a comeback. I come from a long line of family-owned business owners. I grew up completely surrounded by them and helping out at them for as long as I can remember. The concept and structure of a family business are so ingrained in me that it did help influence me to purchase my own business. I wanted to have the freedom to be able to work and support my future family while retaining the ability to be a hands-on mother. Where I do not have a husband or children of my own yet, my family business is still that, a family business. My mother and sister-in-laws all help me when it is needed, and all of my nieces and nephews are growing up spending plenty of time with me at my store.
Being raised in a family business you learn so many invaluable lessons about hard work and the importance of a good work ethic. My father ran our local movie theaters that were owned by my aunt and uncle. So, growing up I got to watch plenty of free movies, but I learned so much about dedication and hard work from watching my dad, my aunt, and my uncle. Watching my dad I learned how to manage a team and staff, such skills that saw me taking charge of my own shift and team at the tender age of 16 with my first “official job”. Another lesson was the importance of good customer service, and that with good customer service customers comes back. Considering that I’ve been in the customer service industry in one way or another for 15+ years I attribute my success in this field to the lessons I learned from my dad and from my mom. When I was 11 my mother opened her own 1-hour photo store, and I got the pleasure of being her main employee. I’d walk to her store after school to work and spend my Saturdays hanging out with her helping with customers and with printing photos from camera film.
I learned the importance of hard work and the importance of a dedicated work ethic from many family members that owned their own businesses, but the one that truly impressed the lesson of hard work and dedication was my uncle who owned his own wood business. Essentially he would spend summers in the mountains cutting and splitting wood for fireplace use and spend from late summer to early spring delivering it to customers all over the state. For workers, he had his sons and all my siblings. We spent summers helping him and my grandpa cut wood. We, of course, were not allowed to help with the actual cutting until we were much older, but we were excellent wood gatherers and stackers. These are definitely some of my fondest memories from my childhood, and I can attribute my uncle to teaching me that I could do anything just as good as the boys can, and even better in some cases. He expected just as much work and help from me as he did from my cousins and brothers. This was a lesson I took to heart since I was the only girl against 7 boys! I was definitely out to prove that I could work just as hard as they could.
I grew up as a child of several family businesses, and the wonderful thing about family businesses is that the family is always there to help. It cre ates a bond between families that is unique and so strong. A family that works together defiantly stays together. Now that I am a business owner myself, I appreciate and am so grateful for all the lessons that I learned growing up in family businesses. I got a front-row seat to see how important family businesses are and essential it is to so many people. I hope that these will be lessons that I can leave with my future children and all my nieces and nephews. I hope that this is a legacy that they can learn from and that it will encourage them to pursue their dreams.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi, my name is ShaRae and I am the owner/operator of Brides Etc. I grew up in a small town where there wasn’t much to do to entertain one’s self this was just before the internet became accessible without a dial-up connection, but because of that, I picked up a love of sewing. That love of sewing turned into a love of making formal or fancy dresses and costumes, and that led me to a dream of one day owning a wedding dress shop. Owning a wedding dress shop was something that I didn’t know I would ever accomplish in my life. It was definitely not what I set out to do. I left my small hometown and traded it in for the city at the age of 19 to attend college. I lived in the city for several years, but as my grandparents began to age and became afflicted with dementia and other diseases that affect the elderly, I felt the need to return home and help my family take care of some of the most important people in my life. At the time of my return, the local bridal shop was for sale, and on a whim, I decided to look into it. By the end of that year, I had become the new owner of Brides Etc. our local wedding and formal wear store. It was a dream that I never thought would come true. A dream that I attribute to being successful thanks to my grandmother, who passed shortly after I purchased the business. My grandmother was the one who taught me to sew. She encouraged me to pursue my love of sewing clothes and dresses and even gifted me my first sewing machine at the age of 12. Even though there were plenty of days when she didn’t remember what I did for work, I was super happy and glad that she got to witness the first year I was in business. That she was able to see the store once or twice before passing almost a full year after I had purchased the store. If she hadn’t taught me how to sew and encouraged me in my hobby I wouldn’t be the seamstress that I am today. My hobby has become my profession. The knowledge and ability to alter wedding and formal dresses are a big part of my business and having that skill and knowing that someday I’d be able to design and create my own formal dresses to sell in my shop was a big factor in deciding to pursue this dream. At Brides Etc. we cater to just about all of your wedding or formal wear needs including tuxedo and suit rentals. We partner with a great company that has wonderful styles and color options for suits or tuxedo rentals. They have a fit guarantee and that helps us create a very streamlined process. You just come in and pick your tux or suit, get measured and that’s it. You pick up your rental a few days before your event with a perfectly fitted garment.
Something else that sets us apart and that we use to our advantage is that we are a small business. This lends itself to a low-stress environment and shopping experience. The one thing I always hated when I shopped for dresses was the short appointments or the pressure you would get from your sales consultant to make a purchase. I pride my business on getting rid of that completely. You do not need an appointment to come see us and we have no time limits on you being in our store. You can take your time trying on the whole store and I’m totally ok with that! We never pressure you into buying any of our products, that doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in the sale because each and every sale means we can keep our doors open, but we want you to be able to pick out your dress for your special occasion stress-free or at least stress-free from our end. We want you to love what you wear, and if you feel pressured into it you won’t love it as much. We give you all the information you need to help you make the decision, but we won’t push you into a purchase. Crazy for a sales-reliant business I know, but we want you to love the experience regardless of if you purchase from us or not. If you love your experience, even if you don’t buy from us, you tell your friends, and they come to check us out because who wants a stressful dress-shopping experience?
Even though we are small we are mighty. I put a lot of work into keeping a wide variety of styles and sizes for both wedding and prom dresses. I may not be able to carry multiple sizes of each style, but I defiantly try to keep up with popular trends and keep a good variety of dress styles in stock. Because we are small and can’t carry hundreds of dresses in stock we do offer personal shopper options. Basically, you tell us what you are looking for i.e. style, size, color, and price, we will do the shopping for you and find as many options that we have available through all the regular vendors that I purchase through on a regular basis ensuring that you will get exactly what you want, and you just have to choose and we order it in for you. This is a service that allows us to stay competitive and cater to our clients the best we can.
One of the best things about us is our price points! Being located in a small town we gear our pricing to that. We offer dress options for just about every budget. Our average wedding dress prices are $300-$800. For our prom dresses our pricing average is $180-$250. We really try to cater our pricing to our economic area, which is not as high as the cities that surround us, which means you are bound to get a gorgeous dress at a great price.
One of our biggest goals right now is the introduction of plus-size-friendly sizes and styles. It is a need that needs to be filled in our area and really in our state. This year I was able to make the first step in branding my business as a plus-size-friendly formal wear shop with the introduction of our plus-size line of wedding dresses from Sydney’s Closet. In-store we currently carry up to a size 38 women. In this coming year, I will be working on increasing style options that are available in all our plus size options for both our wedding dresses and our prom/formal wear dresses. To be able to reach this point is such a huge win for us and we can’t wait to get the word out. We want every bride and woman who comes into our store to be able to find a dress with us no matter their size or shape. We work to educate ourselves about all body shapes and sizes and fashions that work for those to better be prepared to help our customers feel beautiful in their chosen dresses for their special days.
The last thing I will leave you with that sets us apart is our customization options. Thanks to grandma and everything she taught me and her encouragement to learn even more when it came to making and altering clothing we are able to offer the service of customizing your dresses be it wedding or formal wear. We can customize just about anything. It is an important service that helps set us apart because we work to full fill your dress dreams no matter how big or crazy they are. We offer this service to any bride looking for alterations or changes. You do not need to buy your dress from us to have access to this service. We happily offer it to any customer who needs it.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

As I am sure many others can relate to, COVID was a trying time for everyone and the way that we came through that is a testament not only to my resilience but everyone’s. So, first off I give a shout-out to all those that persevered and the hard work and struggles that everyone went through just to make it from day to day, and I honor all those that were lost during that unprecedented time. My story with the COVID shutdown is, in a sense, still ongoing today. I am still standing my ground and trying to overcome the effects of COVID. The initial lockdown for COVID impacted my business a great deal. We were 2 weeks away from the first prom of the season. Being a wedding and formal wear shop, prom is one of our busiest times and helps us keep our doors open throughout the rest of the year. My store services at least 3 high schools in just our local area and several other smaller high schools in the surrounding more rural areas. So, shutting down at the beginning of our season was a huge hit for us and honestly, there were several times that I didn’t know how we would pull through. I ended up having to refund the majority of our tux rentals which meant that we were losing even more money and had even less to help us through lean times. I was really beside myself with what I was going to do. Because my store is operated by just me, at the time, I did not have any other employees, which made funding and help for my business scarce, well to be honest it was non-existent. We didn’t qualify for any government help during this time, which really affected us. Basically, we were on our own as there just wasn’t much help out there for an extremely specialized business that I could find.
During this time I asked, “what can I do to help my business get ahead once the economy opened back up and people were doing school dances and weddings again, and how can I stay productive d?” The answer came to me in the form of a blog post of other bridal industry owners asking just that. The advice that was given was to do the things that you would normally have to close your doors for. It was sound advice and advice that I took to heart. With the help of my brother and his expertise, and my family we remodeled our bridal room during the shutdown. We had a fresh new look just in time to open back up for the summer and all the summer brides that would need a dress for their much smaller-than-usual weddings. I took steps to try and be as productive during that time as I could. At the end that did pay off. While we are still suffering and recovering from the effects of COVID, it wasn’t all bad. The following year we actually saw a good increase in business because people were focusing on shopping locally and not traveling as much. This was attributed to both the effects of COVID and the rise in gas prices. Even so, we’ll take all the good we can get. COVID taught me invaluable lessons and I hope that I have learned enough to continue to grow my business and keep it thriving.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

One of the areas that I found that I struggle with when it comes to my business is the social media marketing aspect of it. Social media marketing is such a huge asset and can really make or break a business’s online presence. This is an area that I struggle with quite a bit. A lot of that is due to not understanding the platforms, and I am not a social media person myself. My personal social media was actually set up by my mother back in 2010 when Facebook was just really becoming popular, and the only reason my mom set it up for me was so we had a way to communicate with each other when I was off to college. I thought that being able to text, call, and come home on the weekends would be enough, but I guess I was wrong on that point. It is a pretty funny story that that is how I got my Facebook account. Without her doing that I don’t know if I would have ever set up a Facebook account, and honestly, all I use it for is to save cooking videos and the occasional joke. So, as you can tell, social media is just not my thing and I really struggle with it when it comes to my business. Knowing that social media marketing is something that can help grow my business’s image and client base, especially where we are growing and adding new items and sizing options on a yearly basis, I knew that I had to learn how to best utilize the resource. I can’t afford to hire someone to do it for me so, I had to learn it for myself. I purchased a book, Social Media Marketing Workbook 2022, by Jason McDonald to help me learn what I needed to to be better at using social media for my business marketing. So far I love this book. It is very informative and has a lot of external resources available to help in your social media marketing and step-by-step instructions on how to utilize them. This book really put into perspective what social media marketing is. Basically, it is an ongoing party hosted by you, and as the host, it’s your job to make sure all the partygoers are having a good time. I am so grateful that I was able to find this book. It has really helped me understand social media marketing better and will be a great benefit in helping me learn how to grow my client base in today’s world. If you are struggling with social media marketing I highly recommend this book.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bridesetcutah/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bridesetc