Bridal market vows to bring individuality to Northern brides

A Yorkshire bridal start-up has plans to tour several UK cities with its pre-loved wedding fairs after hosting its first event at Leeds’ Kirkgate Market last month.

Hundreds of brides-to-be were brought together with recently married couples, over 30 wedding suppliers, catwalks, a large selection of pre-loved wedding dresses and live music, offering the opportunity to sell, buy and hire everything needed to create everything but the average white wedding.

Co-owner of The Bridal Market, Katherine Cocksedge had been running smaller fairs after struggling to find the right décor and choir for her own wedding four years ago. So the collaboration with Gaynor Hughes to form the brand in October last year was a marriage made in heaven for Katherine.

She said: “For me it was out of necessity, I didn’t just want to be another run-of-the-mill bride. It was all very much high street for physical items and the wedding fairs that I went to were really soulless – all in your corporate hotel venue with your bespoke packages that everybody got. There was nothing individual.”

After creating her own décor and sourcing independent suppliers, Katherine found herself inundated with requests from friends asking her to do the same for their weddings.

“Bridal markets are always about offering the budget-concerned bride different ways to stretch their money so it’s about giving them a different opportunity to buying on the high street.

“We always look at venues that are a little bit quirky and not your traditional hotel venue where it could be any couple getting married there with no personality, we find markets that fit with our brand and our individuality,” she added:

As well as selling wedding dresses and décor, the concept also stretches to provide a face-to-face platform for newly-weds to sell everything from their wedding back to brides-to-be. Katherine also offers wedding planning services for brides looking to host less traditional, quirkier weddings.

“We can start and end your wedding process, we can find your dream dress, we can find all your suppliers, your décor, your venue, then you come back and resell it at one of our bridal markets.

“We’re seeing a lot more brides wanting to do DIY weddings so they might have the ideas but not everybody’s crafty. Everyone can find something off Pinterest but whether they can actually execute it to a high enough standard to use at their wedding is a different thing.”

Katherine says nowadays alternative wedding venues and handmade brooch bouquets are becoming popular, along with as a general shift away from the corporate market.

“Brides are looking to make their weddings memorable for their guests as well, it’s all about the guest experience as well rather than just the couple.

“And everybody’s got mortgages to pay for, a lot more people have got kids before they get married. It’s not a disposable income everybody just has to spend thousands of pounds on one day so people are looking at ways to save money but not scrimp on quality.”

The next wedding fair will be taking place in March 4 at Leeds Kirkgate Market and throughout the year, the pair will be hosting wedding fairs in Halifax, Bury, York and Harrogate.