For any bride-to-be, the wedding day is a moment of immense joy and anticipation. Every detail, from the exquisite dress…
Welcome to our podcast bridal beauty! Our first episode is all about us. Get to know co-hosts Tash and Kass as they discuss the bridal shop, their love for the wedding industry and how their past experiences gave them the tools to help every bride that comes into the store.
Listen to "Episode1 "Our Why"" on Spreaker.Have questions or episode ideas? Email us at info@va-bridal.com
Intro welcomes our listeners to our podcast:
‘Hey bridal beauties! I’m Tash.’
‘And I’m Kass’
(T) ‘Welcome to our podcast ‘Every Body is a Bridal Body’.
(K) It’s the bridal podcast for all brides (and wedding enthusiasts alike) who want an inside look at our small bridal shop and how we help our brides find ‘the one’.
(T) We will discuss everything from current wedding dress trends we’ve seen on the runways to the history of the white wedding dress and why the color white doesn’t represent what you think it does.
(K) We will talk with local experts on their services and when to start booking them for your big day. As well as how long it takes for your dream dress to be made by one of our designers.
(T) But the most important thing we want you to leave every episode with is learning to feel confident in your own skin.
Episode starts with Tash:
Tash starts talking about why bridal has been her dream her entire life. She spent time sketching since she was a small child and it was always elaborate, poofy gowns. Her friends always asked her to do normal, everyday clothes that didn't satisfy tash’s fashion heart. She loves everything elaborate, delicate and sexy. Tash has a love for historical clothing–the closest modern concept to those pieces of clothing would be wedding dresses.
After high school graduation Tash was supposed to move to Long Beach, CA for fashion school but the school closed after 50 years the summer she graduated high school. After her college dream fell through, she had to figure out her next steps. Local community college here in SLC didn’t have a degree in fashion at the time, so she decided to try going to U of U but it only lasted a month. Tash had to drop out due to debilitating migraines that mimicked strokes.
Feeling broken hearted after a summer of dreams falling apart, being raped and feeling lost she realized now that going through all this pain has given her the tools to help her brides. Tash recognizes how every woman (cis or trans) has experiencede some level of trama in their lives so her own experience of being raped at 18 gave her the compassion to not only learn to love herself but learn to teach other women to love themselves.
Tash and Kass go back and forth in conversation about self love, body image issues we women have and why we believe ‘Every Body is a Bridal Body’, we reassure our brides that you can wear anything your heart desires. There is no right or wrong when it comes to what makes you feel confident and beautiful in your skin. They discuss how brides in stores react to areas of their bodies they don’t love, while others didn’t get the chance to try on the styles they wanted at other stores because that consultant told them ‘they didn’t have the body for that type of dress’.
Both hosts do a brief overview of the purpose of dress shopping, the process of finding what style matches your vision for your day. They also remind the brides that they should take time deciding which friends and family they should invite to the shopping appointments. They are here to be your best friends and give you the love and support you deserve. Bridal to Tash is more than just a dress–it’s about falling in love with the woman they are today and feeling confident enough to show her off to the world.
Kass starts talking about her life before bridal:
Kass adds in information about her life. Talks about her negative areas of her body she doesn’t love, the trauma of body images issues that have been passed down in her family and how working in bridal has helped her find the confidence to wear things she thought she ‘couldn’t’. Tash and Kass dub themselves ‘Fairy Bridalmother’s’.
Kass starts with talking about her high school dream of being a CNA so she took classes to get her certification. She worked for years at Primary Childrens, doc offices,etc. She couldn’t handle the abuse CNA’s would receive at work and knew there was something more for her out there. Because of this medical background, Tash gave Kass the ADA dressing room to assist brides that come into our store who need a little extra assistance.
With her perfect bedside manners from her medical time, Kass is able to implement that into bridal. Kass backtracks to her early years at the age of 12 when she started daydreaming about her wedding day and making her first Pinterest boards. She always loved weddings but never thought about it as a career initially. After years of medical stress and covid times, Kass put herself out there and applied for 3 bridal consultant jobs at the end of 2020.
Kass tells the listeners about how different interviewing for bridal is compared to medical. Tash tells the story how she found Kass’ email weeks after she applied in the junk mail folder. Tash adds in small story bits about her working in medical and how one company she did doctor office calls for was based in the bay area and she had to pretend she was in California and not in Utah.
With both hosts recognizing their strengths with being loving and compassionate towards others, they take their backgrounds of every job and life experience they’ve had to take care of their brides in store. Kass loves that everyday Tash and her husband Sean give her more tools and training for growth within the company. They believe in her and know she is such an important piece of the business and want Kass to know how much they love and appreciate all she does for the bridal shop.
They continue on with bantering about starting a podcast, their hopes for what this podcast will do for their listeners and if there can be a TV show on bridal, why can’t there be a podcast about it? They joke about applying for the show ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ to see what questions they ask in the process of choosing what brides to feature on the show.
As Tash and Kass talk about future episodes, they go over their thoughts in interviewing local Utah vendors in the wedding industry and what they can provide couples as they plan their wedding days. They have friends in the bar service, custom suits or wood floral arrangements. Possibly doing interviews with their designers and giving them the opportunity to talk about their why’s and businesses. In the excitement of talking about future ideas, they talk about their ‘international’ brides who have come in from Canada and their exclusivity of their designers to their store.
They are still on the journey to get their brand out there, but they are excited with the success they’ve found on TikTok and how it helps them spread their message out globally. As Tash reminds us, no matter who you are we are here to make you feel beautiful. As they try to encompass all of what ‘Every Body is a Bridal Body’ they are making sure to implement their beliefs into their everyday lives.
When Tash decided to do the photoshoot for their trademarked slogan ‘Every Body is a Bridal Body’ she wanted to make sure it was more than the same look in models that they always get at shoots. We live in such a melting pot of cultures not only in our state, but across the nation, they wanted to make sure those different cultures (and body’s) were represented in bridal. Tash talks about her mom growing up LDS in Utah but not practicing, and her father coming from former Yugoslavia, she understands and appreciates having a dual culture homelife. Kass tells how she was ‘somewhat’ raised in the LDS culture and identifies as ‘Jack-mormon’--they follow the beliefs but don’t go to church and they drink alcohol and coffee. As she grew up she questioned the church and she was glad she was never forced by her parents to attend church.
Both Tash and Kass don’t believe in organized religion and identify as more spiritual, but the most important thing they practice is being a loving, kind and compassionate human towards others in the world. Tash believes that ‘pretty dresses make the world a better place’. Kass accidentally called Princess Diana ‘Diana Ross’ (haha) but she meant it was amazing how one person could change the trajectory of bridal fashion with her wedding dress.
They end on tangents and laugh at how chaotic their thoughts are. As the episode ends they give a quick announcement about the next episodes being about their designers and who they are, what they design and if you can customize with them. Tash tells the listeners all the links are in the show notes. Kass end’s with the reminder of ‘Every Body is a Bridal Body’.
Music starts, episode ends.
ALL ARE WELCOME, CELEBRATED + ACCEPTED.
