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Conversations with the Inspiring Lynn Crandall

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Lynn Crandall.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lynn. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I started working in bridal when I was in graduate school for my Master’s in Counseling. I was having a difficult time maintaining positivity and my own mental health while working with people going through their life journeys and struggles. My brand new husband suggested I get a part-time job doing something that would bring me the most joy. I walked into the closest bridal store to Colorado Christian University, where I was studying, and was hired as a bridal stylist right then and there! I was immediately bitten by the bridal bug. A short six months later, after graduation, I started planning a career change from counseling to opening my own business instead. I partnered with my Mom, GayLynn Rediger, who had been a stay at home Mom and was ready for her second career. We bought the book Small Businesses for Dummies and began our adventure. We opened The Bridal Collection in 2000 in Denver and expanded to a larger location just a few years later. As we grew and evolved, we realized we needed a much larger facility in order to accommodate our brides with plenty of room for their family and friends and plenty of parking, so we moved to our current 18,000 square foot boutique in Centennial four years ago. As we’ve grown, we have been able to use the business to give back and bless others, both internally for our customers and our employees, and to our community and even worldwide. It is our mission to celebrate and support women in all that we do. Along with that mission, I also started a consulting business to coach and teach others the concepts for business success I have learned along the way.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has not been a smooth road, and if it had been, we would not have grown to become who we are today. It is the difficult times that force us to learn resilience and opens our creativity, giving us the opportunity to grow in ways we didn’t think were possible before. After the 9/11 attacks, we worked straight through 48 hours to make sure our military brides whose wedding dates were moved up before either they or their fiance were deployed, still had the wedding they had dreamed of. We had a blizzard in 2003 destroy part of our shopping center where we were renting, but that damage enabled us to move into a larger space. My mother and I,along with several members of our team, went through personal struggles as well, including serious illnesses, miscarriages and high-risk pregnancies, deaths in the family and many other difficult life challenges. We have lost a team member, a child of a team member, and several brides and brides’ family members throughout the process.

In 2009, we had one of our competitors, in a different city, go out of business and just shut her doors while running away with money from 81 brides without delivering their dresses. The last thing she did before she left was to send an email to those brides telling them they could pick up their dresses at our store! Of course, we knew nothing about it, and we didn’t have their dresses, but our small boutique was flooded with angry brides. I was at Children’s Hospital with my 1-year-old son, who was having serious medical issues, when I got a call from my manager to tell me the store was inundated with furious brides who wanted their dresses. We were confused and stunned! After we figured out what was going on, we ended up giving away 18 dresses, selling another 20 at our wholesale cost, and staying up all night sewing to make sure these poor brides had something to wear that made them feel beautiful on the day of their wedding (one of which was only five days away!). When I look back and reflect on that time, it was truly one of the most difficult and I honestly don’t know how I survived it. But we had a mission to celebrate and take care of others and sometimes that comes before our personal struggles. My son is a healthy, happy 11-year-old boy now, and one of the brides that we helped had a sister who was so moved by what we did to help her, that she came and worked for us for over five years. She turned out to be the best salesperson we had at the time, helping us to grow our business tremendously. After difficult situations, I’m always reminded that being in the refiner’s fire produces the best results and there is always a rainbow after the storm.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into The Bridal Collection and Lynn Crandall Consulting story. Tell us more about the business.
The Bridal Collection celebrates with women while they shop for attire for the most special times of their lives. We love making lifelong memories by providing an experiential shopping event. We represent the top designers in bridal and special occasion dresses, providing only the best quality, beautiful gowns, and accessories. We provide for our customer’s needs from the beginning of the shopping experience through all the services she may need, including alterations, pressing, cleaning and preservation, and even hand sketching her gown and delivery and dressing services on the day of her event. We are known for being the shopping destination for brides-to-be in Colorado and have become the tradition for families to visit when they have a special event coming up, especially weddings. Being surrounded by beautiful things and so much joy everyday might make it easy to forget those who are in completely different situations. I’m so proud of our team members and our commitment to not become complacent. We have been able to give back up to 30% of our profits throughout the years! We are so blessed as a group of women to be able to live in this country and do the incredible work that we get to do each and every day. We never want to lose sight of those blessings that allow us to always be able to give back and share those blessings with others.

Looking back on your childhood, what experiences do you feel played an important role in shaping the person you grew up to be?
Well… I loved to play “boss” and my sister would be my secretary! 🙂 We also would dress up and I would “design” outfits all the time. But, I think the most significant thing in my childhood was my parent’s unending support in whatever I was passionate about. I grew up truly believing that I could do anything in the future that I desired. They also helped me form my faith in God as I grew up, which in turn, influences the leadership decisions I make and my desire to bless others in the work that we do.

Pricing:

  • Wedding gowns $1,000-$7,000
  • Evening Gowns and Prom dresses $200-$1,000
  • Services prices vary by service

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Sarah Roshan, Elevate Photography, Jessica Christie

Getting in touch: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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