Denise Buzy-Pucheu, founder and owner of the Persnickety Bride, said steep tariffs for imports from China injured US companies, including bridal shops and wedding dress designers. Some of the brands she wears have added a tariff surcharge.
With the kind permission of the furry bride; Photo by Stella Blue Photography
Days after President Donald Trump announced steep tariffs for imports from China, Denise Buzy-Pucheu sat on the couch in her bridal boutique and took off the business of the business.
In a video that was later published on Instagram, the founder of the Persnickety Bride in Newtown, Conn., Spoke directly with brides and potential customers and outlined how the tariff of 145% for Chinese imports in particular would build the bridal business.
Almost all wedding dresses are produced in China or in other parts of Asia – as well as many of the fabrics, buttons, zippers and other materials they use. Expert seamstresses are difficult to find and often come from older generations in the United States and in other countries in which the workers generally cost less, the prices of high -quality wedding dresses have brought you within reach for many American families.
“This type of work is not just something that you can pick up and bring to the USA,” she said in the video. “We just don't have these technicians here to do that.”
Tariffs for Chinese imports have hit a wide range of consumer goods, including T-shirts, terrace furniture, strollers and toys. However, the wedding dress and the clothing store for special events illustrate the damage tasks for small companies that are anchored in the global supply chain.
Most sales come from independent shops across the country that wear wedding dresses, tuxedo, sleaker clothes and more. They are aimed at customers with fixed deadlines, tight budgets and high expectations and often specify weeks or months before an article is created or sent.
In addition to this dynamic, the industry is particularly susceptible to tariffs. According to the National Bridal Retail Association, an estimated 90% of wedding dresses in China are produced – although a growing number of brands have moved to other parts of Asia such as Myanmar and Vietnam. The industry group represents around 6,000 wedding and special transactions in the United States
David's bride moved his production for tariffs from China. All dresses in other countries are to be produced by July, including Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
David's bride
The special pain that the industry will feel – like others who are strongly exposed to tariffs. In the past two weeks, NBRA US senators and representatives have launched a letter lettering campaign to urge the legislators and the White House to enable an exception. The industry already pays a tariff that started during the first Trump administration together with a separate obligation.
A spokesman for the White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry whether Trump would consider a liberation.
Some big names in wedding dresses started an online petition, including Stephen Lang, the founder and CEO of Trenton, in New Jersey Brand Mon Cheri.
Lang said that he had lost sleep through the tariffs. He fears that they will start the 120 employee company that he started in 1991 and many of the shops that his clothes have founded.
Many of these businesses were already fighting to cover expenses such as rent and employee wages, he said. And the business models of the boutiques felt squeezed because some customers use them as “subject transactions” just to buy a similar, cheaper alternative online.
When shops and clothing brands finally close their doors, he not only said companies – but also the ritual to find clothing for special occasions and family milestones, are lost.
“Our industry will be wiped out if it doesn't change,” he said.
If there are tariffs at the same level, mom and pop stores such as the decisions belonging by Sandra Gonzalez must make. Gonzalez, the Vice President of NBRA, said clothes that she wears in her Sacramento, California.
She held the increase in prices, but she said she was not sure how long she can wait.
“It's week after week,” said Gonzalez.
Sticker shock for brides
For many brides, wedding dresses already cause sticker shock.
A bride in the United States spent an average of $ 2,100 for a wedding dress, according to the 2025 Real Weddings Study from The Knot who sold wedding services and has a list of wedding sellers.
And that's not the only effort on the list. Overall, according to the wedding report, a market research company for the industry, the average editions per wedding per wedding report, 31,428. Some estimates are even higher: the node increases the average costs to $ 33,000, while David's bridal estimates are $ 37,500.
The Financial Crunch Brides has already made it urgent for bridal transactions and designers to find ways to manage higher costs of tariffs without losing their buyers against cheap online alternatives.
The buyers rely on David's bridal business near Harrisburg. David's Bridal LLC announced on Monday, April 17, 2023.
Paul Weaver | Light rocket | Getty pictures
David's Bridal, who has almost 200 shops across the country, has made the efforts available to get the entire production out of China. The wedding company based in Pennsylvania, which has gone through the bankruptcy twice and is in the middle of the efforts to modernize his business, sells wedding dresses that are between $ 99 and approx. $ 6,000.
By the end of last year, around 48% of the company's goods were produced in China in China. By the end of this year, the company would like to have almost the entire production from China and in other countries, including Myanmar, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, said CEO Kelly Cook. Imports from these countries have a much lower tariff than China at least-after Trump announced a 90-day break for higher tariffs for some countries in early April.
Cook said the company also worked to bring 300,000 clothes to the United States before the tariffs started and looked for ways to reduce the costs throughout the company, e.g. B. new tools for artificial intelligence, so it does not have to increase prices.
“Our last way out, absolutely last way out, it is to pass on to the customer due to a tariff,” she said.
Surcharges and slowing down production
Large bridal brands have started to add tariff surcharges, a percentage additional costs that are usually shared by bridal boutiques and customers.
Mon Cheri, for example, has charged a 39% tariff surcharge for shops. Other steps were also taken to manage the costs, including reducing their production in about two halves since the beginning of the tariffs, Lang said. There are only shipping orders it needs, e.g. B. Customer -specific dresses for certain wedding dates.
The company imports around 90% of all goods and about 80% of the brewing items from China. It sells wedding dresses between 500 and 20,000 US dollars that are borne by special transactions across the country.
For brides, the new surcharge for business means an increase in the retail price of around 15%, said Lang. For example, the average price for the company's wedding dresses is $ 2,200, so that the price would add 300 US dollars from a customer.
Another bridal brand based in New Jersey, Justin Alexander, also added tariff strikes to her clothes, said Justin Warshaw, his creative director and CEO. For brides, he said, these surcharges would have led to an increase in the retail price by about 6%. For example, he said, a dress of 2,000 US dollars now costs a customer more than $ 120.
Nevertheless, he said that the company had decided to absorb the cost difference for clothes, ordered the brides before the tariff began, a decision that could checks its profits.
“We understand that a bride said about the dress at a price,” he said.
About half of the company's production is located in China, followed by 45% in Vietnam and 5% in Myanmar, said Warshaw. The clothes dresses have a price of around 1,500 USD and $ 12,000.
However, some designers, wedding transactions and companies said their plans could change if the tariff level sinks. For example, David's bridal bride said that it could hold up to 25% of production in China if the duties drop. Some boutiques say brides or, including in contracts, that they deduct the part of the tariff surcharges that are included in the price when politics and import costs decrease, said Gonzalez from NBRA.
The wedding dress brand Anne Barge, based in Atlanta, completes its business in China and leaves the country as a whole, said the CFO CFO, Steven Jacobs of the company.
If the company in China had remained with the higher level of tariffs, its retail prices would have increased, he said. For example, the Norfolk dress from Anne Barge – which currently costs 3,730 US dollars – would have increased by almost 65% to $ 6,150.
Jacobs and his wife, creative director and CEO Shawne Jacobs, bought the high-end bridal brand in 2014. At that time, all of the company's clothes were produced in China, which had long had the specialized workforce to produce wedding dresses.
However, the husband-woman team saw the complexity and cost challenges in the United States, one of the declared goals of the Trump government's tariffs.
Shawne and Steven Jacobs motivate partly by covid-related supply chain shock and opened a production facility for their luxurious bridal line near the company's headquarters. The line of wedding dresses is between 4,000 and 14,000 US dollars.
“It worked because of our price points,” said Shawne Jacobs. “But we're talking about luxury goods.”
It took about two years until it was scaled up to a 35-member facility and the sample manufacturers, seamstresses and other workers who were needed to make detailed clothes, said Shawne Jacobs. Many of the company's qualified sewers are immigrants, she said, a talent pool that is now threatened by Trump's stricter immigration policy.
And she said Asia was still crucial for production: The entire cheaper bridal line by Anne Barge, Blue Willow, is manufactured in Vietnam. She said that the production of these clothes and maintaining her prices under 3,000 US dollars in the United States would not be possible.
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