Photo Credit: William Hall, Perla Images
Growing up the daughter of not one but two successful bridal store owners, Olivia DeAngelo didn’t exactly plan to follow in her parents’ footsteps.
No question about it, she enjoyed growing up in the family business of VOWS Bridal, a successful boutique located in Watertown, Mass., about 10 miles outside Boston. She also has many cherished memories of her industrious and ingenious parents, Rick and Leslie DeAngelo, a husband-wife business duo who launched their venture after their own wedding in 1992.
Having spotted a big gap and sizable demand for off-the-rack, value-based wedding dresses, the couple curated a small number of gowns from their one-bedroom apartment. Once they had a stockpile of 50 dresses, they set up shop in a 500-square-foot store, the first of three locations in which they operated VOWS Bridal over three decades of ownership.
Over time, VOWS Bridal became a trusted mainstay in the greater Boston community, ultimately settling into its current location in 2008 – a 10,000-square-foot space nearly 20 times larger than the couple’s original shop. The store didn’t just succeed in drawing brides from throughout the Boston area, but also from much of the Northeast, particularly at one point of popularity when the award-winning salon starred in TLC’s television show, “I Found the Gown,” which ran for three seasons starting in 2012.
To put it bluntly, their business model centered on off-the-rack gowns was more than an achievement. And for Olivia, the store’s success was more than milestones for her parents and all the hard work and creative energy they had invested over the years. She had formed lasting memories of growing up in a family-owned business, watching her parents take a very intentional, caring approach toward caring for customers, honoring brides in need of off-the-rack wedding fashion, and sourcing quality gowns that could meet that demand. She also recalls lending her parents a hand and learning skills, doing odd jobs along with her brother, such as making little blue tickets that would be hung on the hangers of gowns that brides would try on during appointments.
“For every stack of blue tickets made,” Olivia says, “We’d get a penny!”
Yet while the business was clearly a family-business fairytale in the making, Olivia, as a high school graduate, wasn’t ready to imagine herself part of that dream. Eager to pursue her education and not quite sure of her professional calling, she attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she enrolled in the Isenberg School of Management.
That time away, however, proved less of a detour and more of a reinforcement. The exposure to hard-earned pennies and – on some small yet important level – gaining a sense for how business works, undoubtedly contributed to Olivia’s spark for becoming an entrepreneur herself. She majored in business, with a minor in psychology, an area that, along with fashion, fascinated her. In 2017, post-graduation and while thinking about next steps, it hit her: Olivia wanted to open a bridesmaids’ and mothers’ boutique within VOWS Bridal itself.
“I wanted to do my own thing,” she recalls. “And my mom was like, ‘Oh my God! This would be such a great fit for you.’ It was right in front of me, and I just hadn’t seen it! From there, I started my own little entrepreneurial venture within VOWS, which allowed me to learn the ropes of the other (bridal) side of the business.”
And that venture is how she officially joined the VOWS Bridal team.
New Trends, Transitions & the Passing of a Torch
While skilling up in her new role, Olivia, along with her parents, had been taking note of a changing consumer trend, directly affecting their business strategy: increasingly, brides were shifting away from purchasing off the rack and requesting more special-order gowns instead. For VOWS Bridal, making such a change presented a bit of a dilemma, as its core strategy was based on off-the-rack sales – and what had proven a fast and firm competitive advantage.
Yet recognizing the undeniable change in this customer expec-tation and their overarching desire to stay relevant in a changing consumer marketplace, the DeAngelos – along with their daughter’s support – made a decision and, breaking from mostly off-the-rack sales, began a massive shift toward special-order bridal.
“We knew we had to pivot,” Olivia says. “And that’s when I came on board the VOWS side and basically led the rebrand from an off-the-rack store to a high-end special order store.”
Over the course of two years, VOWS Bridal underwent a major, but carefully planned, transfor-mation. This happened with Olivia’s management and planning skills, her parents’ retail and bridal expertise, lots of customer research, questionnaires and focus groups, plus guidance from a marketing agency that helped evolve the brand to align with the owners’ new vision, goals and customer audience. They also made the decision to step away from bridesmaids and mothers, focusing exclusively on bridal. As these changes proved successful, Rick and Leslie felt confident transitioning the business leader-ship fully into their daughter’s hands in 2021 – just four years after Olivia had joined the store full time.
For the DeAngelos, who had envisioned stepping back and moving into retirement “some-day,” the transition allowing their daughter to take the reins and the move away from their off-the-rack foundations felt somewhat bittersweet, Olivia recalls.
But emotions aside, her parents truly wanted the business to remain relevant to viable goals, operate with integrity, thrive for years to come, and continue under the guidance of someone they could trust.
You could say all that, and more, has been achieved under Olivia’s leadership.
Honoring Roots While Evolving a Brand
Today, while VOWS Bridal is well known for offering custom gowns and exclusive shopping experiences, it maintains a selection of off-the-rack gowns and is famed for big off-the-rack sales events, which happen twice a year.
These sales, which are part of a larger strategy to boost events and in-store experiences for its customers, feature loads of gowns priced at 50-80 percent off: a true tribute to the DeAngelo roots and the not-insignificant category of customers who flock to the store when those biannual sample sales happen. Looking back at how it all happened seemed a bit like it was meant to be.
“I just jumped on board and kind of dug in deep to this new venture,” Olivia says, reflecting on the time when all this transition happened, and her parents started stepping back from the business. “I love that we overlapped for a couple of years in what was a shifting moment for VOWS.”
What’s more, beyond some of the core business aspects holding steadfast to this day, Olivia and her parents have contributed their own unique ingredients to what’s become and remains a collective, yet evolving recipe for success.
“We have very similar perspectives about customers being at the base of all our decision-making and the driving force behind the decisions,” Olivia says.
Given that, however, they naturally have differences, which over the years really comple-mented one another…her parents being very quick responders to market changes and decision-making, leadership characteristics that Olivia says she admires and knows have enabled many aspects of the store’s incredible adaptability, growth and success.
However, as someone who ardently strives to uphold her parents’ legacy while trusting her own instincts, she says one of her better-known, self-admitted traits is being more of a “marinator.” When faced with decisions – some small, some big – she may move forward swiftly but then tends to “sit with all the possibilities,” remaining open to changing course if a different perspective or understanding becomes clear over the following days or weeks. Conscientious, she puts a lot of thought into getting details exactly right, such as in what’s reflected in marketing, branding and communication.
For example, she says, “anything Instagram, brand or website related, I always take a beat to think about the messaging. . . but I do think the way you word something or present yourself is very important. With the rebrand, we had to be so focused on that…so I’ll say, ‘I like that but let me take a minute and think about how that’s going to be perceived or portrayed.’ And this really helps me to feel very confident in decisions because I have thought through every angle.”
Olivia brings a similar, inten-tional approach to cultivating a healthy workplace culture. For instance, overseeing a staff of 25 women, including three mana-gers, can come with some challenges, yet she’s 100-percent focused on maintaining an environment that’s warm, enga-ging, supportive and built on trust.
How does she do it? Transparency and integrity are the key, she says. Olivia and her managers role-model those values, and the stylists and other staff members – knowing what’s clearly expected – follow suit. These are values ingrained in the culture’s DNA. Meeting three times a week with managers and weekly with all staff helps ensure everyone is on the same page, communicating openly and effectively, addressing concerns or challenges consistently, and collaborating creatively.
The workplace culture doesn’t just support the functionality and friendly feel of the staff, but carries over into the customer exper-ience as well. For instance, helping someone find “the dress” is far more than a transactional event in a beautiful store.
“It’s about creating a com-fortable environment, where brides feel they can be honest with us, share insecurities, or share what they may be feeling in that moment,” Olivia says. “I think it’s honestly about being a good person. There’s nothing contrived about what we do. All of our stylists are genuinely warm, comfortable and curious people; it’s this very comfortable atmos-phere that sets us apart.”
That warmth and authenticity translates to genuine, customized service – where every bride is perceived as “unique” and treated as such. When asked if they offer “VIP Packages” or “VIP Exper-iences,” Olivia is quick to respond, “No. . . with us, everyone is a VIP.”
Voices From the Past, Eyes on the Future
There’s something to be said for both starting a new career and then almost immediately helping transform the place in which you work to align with a new business strategy – challenges that demand innovation and real strategic smarts.
But as we know, the unexpected often reshapes the best-laid plans in business – and in life. For Olivia, that moment arrived with the pandemic. Like so many retailers across the country, she was quickly forced to get creative simply to survive, but just two years into her fledgling career. Navigating those times was something that would test her leadership and the store’s resilience.
“We had to furlough employ-ees so that was horrible,” she said. “But we did well during COVID. We’d come in, answer phones and ship gowns out for bridal consultations over Zoom, so brides knew we were here and open for business.”
The uncertainty and need to navigate the unknown didn’t sidetrack the store and, in fact, Olivia looks back on the experi-ence, realizing all the pressure and roadblocks enabled some new efficiencies they still maintain today – in short, it led to progress.
For now, Olivia is focused on finding her rhythm, cultivating a positive, productive work culture while delivering exceptional, deeply personal experiences for every bride. And she’s also working fervently to add value to the store, building in events customers will appreciate and considering how she might meet growing demands for the business with a possible expansion someday in the works.
The pace can be demanding and, at times, stressful. But Olivia has developed strategies to steady herself, including one that has proven especially grounding in recent years and particularly given her parents are no longer in the store to help guide her through busy days or challenging moments. (Happy ending for them: Leslie and Rick are retired!)
“I always just try to minimize the level of stress that I feel and think about my parents because they are very level-headed people,” she says. “So when I’m having a stressful day, I have their calming voices in my mind.”
More than a comfort, those voices have become a compass, ingrained for years at VOWS Bridal and remaining a guiding force today. The steady, inherited reassurance – rooted in pers-pective, empathy and trust – continues to shape the way Olivia leads, ensuring the business remains as thoughtful and human-centered as the legacy she carries forward.
