The Wedding Dress She Wanted: Meet Designer Sareh Nouri

Photo: Moshe Zusman

Sareh Nouri was a bride after my own heart, determined to have her wedding her way: “I always had a really big passion for bridal gowns, since I was young,” she said. “And when it came time for my wedding, I went to different salons, and I couldn’t find a dress that I wanted, what I’d envisioned. I liked the top of one dress, the bottom of another. And I thought, it’s too bad I can’t combine them! So, I decided to design my own dress. I found a great dressmaker, went to the garment district and bought my fabrics, and she made exactly what I wanted.”

Sareh has a big, bubbly personality, which comes out in her awe of the phenomenal response to her first collection – Since January, her dresses have been on the covers of five wedding magazines, Brides magazine has compared her dramatic and romantic sensibility to dress giants Monique Lhuiller and Marchesa, she’s been featured on TLC’s “The Brides of Beverly Hills”, and Miss America is going to wear one of her designs when she becomes a Mrs. later on this year.

I mean, really.

But like most “overnight” successes, this didn’t happen overnight, either.

Shortly after their wedding in D.C., she and her husband moved to New Jersey, where the former graphic design major found a job first as a sales person, and then as a buyer for a high-end wedding salon. For three years she modeled dresses, sold dresses, and became an expert in the wedding couture industry, and, more importantly, in what appealed to brides the most. We talked about that great feeling we’ve both experienced when we’d watch a bride try on THE dress, and no other one will do. “I could tell two minutes after a bride walks out of the dressing room, if it’s the right one or not. And I’ve never seen a bride change her mind,” she agreed with me.

Photo: Moshe Zusman

Her desire grew to design her own gowns, so she decided to give it a shot. They were first sold in her salon’s two locations. “In the beginning, I was a little intimidated, so when brides would try on one of my dresses, I wouldn’t tell them that it was mine. But when they would pick it over Vera Wang, I would get so excited!” she said. In the first year, she sold 150 gowns. Seriously!

Her Spring 2012 collection is currently carried in only five stores across the country. Two are in New Jersey, twenty minutes from New York City, and there are two in the D.C. area, where she hails from. And, since last May, she’s been exclusive on the West Coast to Renee Strauss Bridal in Beverly Hills. The price point for the collection starts at $3,900.

Photo: Moshe Zusman

Her dresses are made of fine French lace and Italian silk, but Sareh is proud to say that each is handmade in the U.S. Her passion for her work and her clients is infectious, and she sums up her personal philosophy neatly in a quote on her website, “I believe finding a wedding dress is like finding a true friend; you should be able to trust it, you should never regret it, and whenever you see it…it should always make you smile.”
Yes. This.

Find out more about Sareh’s gowns and the designer herself at www.sarehnouri.com.

See you at the end of the aisle,

Liz Coopersmith
Silver Charm Events
www.silvercharmevents.com
323-592-9318
liz@silvercharmevents.com