No industry is safe from the effects of tariffs, and that includes the wedding industry. Nearly every element that may appear at a wedding is often imported — wedding dresses from China, flowers from South America, wine from France — meaning that many weddings may see their costs rise by 30% or more.
Kelly Cook, a 6-year veteran of David’s Bridal who took over as CEO in April, told Glossy that couples planning their wedding are feeling economic pressure across the board. In response, David’s Bridal has already moved a vast amount of its production away from China and to other countries. At the end of last year, the company produced about 63% of its goods in China. By next month, that number will be 0%.
Instead, David’s Bridal is moving production to places like Vietnam, Myanmar and Sri Lanka – all places with middle-of-the-road planned tariff rates compared to the higher tariffs on China. The hope is that the cost savings from divesting from China will balance out the increased costs of moving production and investing more heavily in quality control to ensure products remain unchanged. The company already has 300,000 gowns in the U.S. at prices ranging from $400-$5,000, which Cook said should ensure customers have options even if they have to cut their budgets.
“We do not want to raise prices due to tariffs and we haven’t raised them,” Cook said.
Her team compiled a list of all the products and materials they would need throughout 2025 and 2026, and purchased them all ahead of time, relocating the materials out of China and into other markets. They also mapped out David’s Bridal’s budget for the next two years, including all the information they have about tariff impacts, and determined that they could go without raising prices.
But the biggest change David’s Bridal is making is it’s beginning to manufacture for other companies.
“We are a massive operation,” Cook said. “We sell 2 million dresses a year, and we fully own our supply chain. So that scale helps us keep our costs down. We can get a new design center up and running, including training, in 30 days.”
The company has just signed its third agreement with an outside company to manufacture goods for them using its own factories. Cook couldn’t disclose who those partners are, but they include both smaller design brands and big-name retailers, she said.
The new model comes as David’s Bridal is trying a slew of new ideas. After emerging from bankruptcy in 2023, it’s been on an extended turnaround plan, introducing new ideas like selling menswear, creating an online marketplace and investing in media through its Pearl Media Network. David’s Bridal is privately held and doesn’t disclose its revenue, but it has remained a significant player in the American wedding industry, accounting for nearly one-third of all wedding dresses sold in the U.S., which is its primary market.
And while the new model emerged simply as a way to help out some of David’s Bridal’s partners, Cook said she already envisions it as a permanent new addition to the company’s revenue model.
“It’s not going away,” she said. “This will become a permanent, monetizable part of our business. We have massive scale, and scale gives you efficiency. Even if we were still in China, manufacturing with us would save a lot of money. But now, with cost avoidance because we have factories outside of China, it’s an even better proposition. It will become a permanent part of what we do.”
