Disney Princess wedding dresses
Mouse House designs line of nuptual wear based on animated movies.
Apr 17, 2007
(Source: news.yahoo.com)
Many women want to pretend they're a princess on their wedding day (Writer's note: While some prospective grooms dream of being a queen – whoops!). Well, The Walt Disney Company wants to help prospective brides enhance that delusion on their special day; they've asked designer Kirstie Kelly to design a line of 34 gowns based on dresses worn by Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle from Beauty and the Beast and other Disney Princesses.
"We do 'being a princess' better than anyone," claimed Korri McFann, marketing manager for Disney Fairy Tale Weddings and Honeymoons.
It's all part of a push to take the Mouse House's lucrative ($3.4 billion in sales last year) Disney Princess line of merchandise in a more adult direction, and get into the high-end wedding market. Disneyland and Disneyworld theme parks are already popular destinations for wedding ceremonies and parties; the resorts host approximately 2,000 weddings each year.
The price for looking like a Disney Princess ain't cheap: the gowns start at $1,500 USD and top around $3,000. That's below couture prices but higher than off-the-rack gowns in a wedding shop. The Mouse House claims that the price point is aimed towards couples who are marrying older, and are paying for their own nuptuals (Writer's note: And if you believe that one, I also have some Florida swampland for sale).
"We are enticing them to step up without breaking the bank," said Jim Calhoun, executive vice president for global apparel at Disney Consumer Products.
The Mouse House is jumping into the popular "destination wedding" market, where couples and their guests turn the nuptual celebrations into a vacation, quite often in a tropical setting.
Disney recently upscaled its Fairy Tale Wedding packages, hiring celebrity party planner David Tutera to design floral arrangements, decorations and furniture. Prices for the tonier wedding package start around $75,000.
"We have . . . couples that have been looking for an over-the-top wedding, and now we are going to offer that product to them," says McFann.
A standard Disney Fairy Tale Wedding package starts around $4,000 and tops out around $27,000 (the average budget of a wedding in the U.S.). The package can include such extras as a Cinderella coach ride, heralds with trumpets, and an appearance by Mickey and Minnie Mouse in formal attire.
If the Disney Princess wedding gowns are successful, the line could even go into adult fashions and home furnishings.
"If it really is the lifestyle opportunity that we think it is, then it really opens up possibilities ... beyond the day of the wedding," says Calhoun.
