New behavioural data from Bridify reveals new insights into bridal budgets, regional tastes and what a bride’s first choice really tells us.
“I’m looking for an A-line.” It’s probably one of the most familiar sentences heard in a bridal boutique. But how much does that first statement really tell us about the dress a bride will eventually love? And what can her budget and where she lives reveal about her bridal preferences?
The bridal discovery app Bridify allows brides to explore designs from leading bridal brands, save their favourites and find local retailers carrying the styles they love. This interaction also provides Bridify with valuable insights into bridal preferences, including the ability to compare what brides say they want at signup with what they subsequently swipe on.
Bridify’s latest findings offer an interesting look at brides in Germany and the United Kingdom, revealing some unexpected patterns around budget, location and silhouette preferences.
Where are the higher-budget brides?
When filling out the Bridify app questionnaire during signup, London brides selected the highest budget considerably more often than brides elsewhere in the country, representing the largest regional budget difference Bridify found in either market. Northern and southern English brides were indistinguishable in their stated budgets.
Germany delivered another surprise. There was no big-city budget premium. Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen sat slightly below the national average. Instead, Bridify found a stronger geographical difference between the south-west and the eastern states, with Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg showing considerably higher stated budgets than the eastern regions.
Importantly, these figures represent the budgets brides state when signing up, not what they ultimately spend. Raffael Schulz, the founder of the Bridify app, says that brides have a strong incentive to name their actual budget, as this influences which dresses they will see in the app.
As her budget rises, A-line gives way to ball gown
The data shows how dress preferences change as budgets increase. In Germany, A-line becomes less popular as budgets rise, falling from 47% to 34%. At the same time, ball gown increases from 16% to 30% and mermaid from 11% to 17%. The UK shows a similar, but less pronounced, trend: A-line falls from 45% to 32%, ball gown rises from 15% to 28%, while mermaid remains relatively stable.
Location affects budget, but not necessarily taste
Across the regions examined in Germany and the UK, there were no meaningful regional differences in silhouette preference, either in what brides said they wanted or in what they actually swiped on.
Budget, however, did reveal a pattern. As stated budgets increased, preference tended to move away from A-line and towards ball gowns in both markets. In Germany, A-line fell from roughly half of a bride’s selections to around one-third as budgets rose, while ball gown preference nearly doubled. The UK followed the same direction, although more gently.
Mermaid was the exception. German brides selected it increasingly often as budgets rose, while British brides showed greater interest through the middle budget levels before returning to approximately their starting point at the highest end.
The A-line bride may not really be an A-line bride
Perhaps Bridify’s most intriguing finding concerns the industry’s most familiar silhouette. Among brides who named exactly one preferred silhouette, seven out of ten chose A-line.
However, choosing A-line at signup was less likely to predict what a bride would later add to her moodboard. Brides who chose ball gown were nearly twice as likely to stick to that preference.
Bridify summarizes the finding provocatively: “Treat ‘A-line’ as an undecided bride, not an A-line customer.”
The explanation may sound familiar to retailers. A-line is deeply embedded in our idea of what a wedding dress looks like. It is familiar, flattering for many figures and widely represented in bridal collections.
So a bride choosing A-line may genuinely love the silhouette. But in some cases, it may simply be the safest answer before she has discovered what else she likes.
For the consultant, that distinction matters. The bride asking for A-line may be exactly the bride who should be encouraged to try something unexpected.
The A-line default
Among brides who selected just one preferred silhouette, seven out of ten chose A-line. Yet A-line was the least reliable of the three main silhouettes in predicting what a bride would later like.
How much should you trust what a bride says she wants?
More than you might think. Bridify found that a bride was approximately two and a half times more likely to like a dress that matched a silhouette she had named at signup than one that didn’t.
But not every bride is equally certain. Of every 100 brides analysed, 44 showed a clear or very strong preference for the silhouette they originally selected, while 56 were much more open in their subsequent swiping behaviour.
Interestingly, budget didn’t make a bride more certain. Higher-budget brides actually followed their original preferences slightly less closely, although the difference was small. In other words, a bigger budget doesn’t necessarily mean a bride arrives knowing exactly what she wants.
And those initial preferences shouldn’t be dismissed either. Bridify found that what a bride selected at signup continued to predict what she liked even after hundreds of swipes.
How much her signup answer tells us, per 100 brides
The average bride is somewhere in the middle. But the spread matters. About one in seven brides gives an answer that tells us essentially nothing about what she will like. Another large group leans toward what she said, but only gently. At the other end, one in ten brides is very strongly drawn to the shape she named.
From the swipe to the fitting room
These findings also explain why Bridify does not treat a bride’s initial preferences as rigid filters. What she says she wants influences what she sees, but the app continues to introduce other options and learns from what she actually swipes on.
For bridal retailers, there is a familiar lesson behind all that data.
Listen when a bride tells you what she wants. Her answer matters. But don’t let that answer close the door on everything else. A bride may arrive convinced she wants an A-line, only to discover that the dress that changes everything is the one she would never have chosen herself.
Bridify’s data puts numbers behind something experienced bridal consultants have known for years: sometimes finding the right dress begins with giving a bride the opportunity to change her mind.
For further information on the app, visit Bridify.