Everything you should know about Say Yes to the Dress’ Irish shop

We're very excited for this.

More than 2,800 brides have applied for Say Yes to the Dress Ireland already in the search for the gúna of their dreams. Ireland’s most famous wedding planner Peter Kelly (aka Franc) will be presenting the first series of the international reality hit show. And he told us at the RTE new season launch how “it’s a real special thing” to be joining the Say Yes to the Dress family. He told Her:

“I know Kleinfelds for years, I know the store, I know Maura and Ronnie Kleinfeld. “I know Randy as well, he’s amazing - I’ve been at wedding conferences around the world and I’ve met him there, and I met him when he came to Ireland. “It’s amazing to be part of that whole family now, it’s a real special thing.”

The Irish version of the popular wedding show will be filmed in the Vows Bridal Store in Co Cork. And, according to Franc, the store is kitted out with all the things that make it dream to pick the perfect gown. He added:

"We’re going to have some fantastic stories in the programme - and great fun. "That’s one thing I want to see a lot of, is us having fun finding the dress. "Sometimes it can be very dramatic, and there’s crying and whatever - that’s all emotional, and I love that too, but I love to see fun as well. “The great thing about is, where we’re shooting, it’s called Vows. It’s an existing store, just like Kleinfeld is. “The family have connections with doing wedding dresses for over 100 years, which is very similar to the American store. “I love the fact that there’s a huge selection of dresses: dresses you can buy off the rail; dresses for brides of all sizes; and there’s a huge selection of brands. “We’ve got an amazing couture salon now, where families can sit and meet their bride coming out in their dress. “The changing rooms are all very large and kitted out with air conditioning - things I would be looking for when travelling with brides.”

  And while the US version of the series occasionally sees grooms coming into Kleinfelds for the bridal salon, Franc isn’t too sure we’ll be seeing the same thing when the series debuts in Ireland. But he’s all for it, even if it can be unpredictable. He explained:

“It’s great - I’ve been in Klienfeld’s with a groom. But it can be quite dangerous too. “We were looking at a dress for $5,000 - and she ended up buying a dress worth $18,000.  And he was sitting there like, ‘Ehhh, okay, you look well in it…’ “It can be funny, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. “In America, there’s more grooms who attend the bridal salons - they seem to want to see what the bride’s going to be in. “Whereas in Ireland, it seems to be more superstitious that you don’t see the bride until the day of the wedding. “I don’t know yet if anybody’s bringing a groom, but if they were, I’d be 100% behind them to help look after them.”