Marry Me Live Guest Post

In today’s world, it is not uncommon for your bridesmaids to be spread across the country, or even the world and that makes bridesmaid dress shopping incredibly difficult! Shiny Orb recognized this pain point. The Berkeley founders, Elizabeth Yin and Jennifer Hsieh launched Shiny Orb this month and have answered my questions below to introduce us to what Shiny Orb offers to its users.

BABG readers interested in trying out the site, ShinyOrb has created a special access code for Bay Area Bride Guide readers.

Access Code: BABG

1. What inspired you to start Shiny Orb?

Last year, Elizabeth Yin was planning her wedding. Her four bridesmaids were scattered across the globe — in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Boston — and the crew spent hours scouring the web for the right bridesmaid dresses. They wasted even more time trying to decipher each other’s opinions in a flurry of email exchanges. Elizabeth and her bridesmaid and best friend Jennifer Hsieh thought, there’s got to be a better a way to choose dresses, and so they dreamed up Shiny Orb, a comparison shopping site for bridesmaid dresses with a social twist.

2. Can you walk me through the online experience?

Shiny Orb aggregates dresses from multiple retailers and designers from across the web, providing brides with a large selection — thousands of dresses ranging from formal ballgowns to flirty cocktail dresses. With the site’s unusual style-based filter, a bride searches for dresses by attribute, such as neckline or length, making it easy to find that perfect dress. Recently, we introduced in private beta a new social shopping feature called Shiny Orb Dressing Rooms for brides and their bridesmaids to centralize coordination of bridesmaid dresses online.

A bride or bridesmaid browses the large collection of bridesmaid dresses on Shiny Orb and adds them to her bridal party’s dressing room. Then, everyone in the bridal party can comment on any of the suggested dresses in the room. When a dressing room has been updated, all members of the group are notified by email. Comments can only be seen by dressing room members, but all added dresses are displayed as an inspiration board for other brides.

3. What are the benefits to bridesmaids and brides?

We simplify dress-selection for bridal parties. We make it easy for bridal parties to search for dresses and collaborate and socialize around them.

4. Who are your favorite designers?

There are a lot of great designers we love. For more classic bridesmaid looks, we really like the clean lines of Alfred Angelo dresses. On the more flirty and fun side, we’re fans of Mori Lee. But, it’s definitely not all about designer bridesmaid dresses. There are fabulous dresses from many independent designers as well as some of our favorite retail outlets. We see a lot of interest in non-traditional, non-designer bridesmaid dresses, too, so we’re working on getting them included on our site.

5. What are the hot fashion trends in bridesmaid dresses currently?

Probably the most talked about trend right now when it comes to bridesmaid dresses is the “wear-again” bridesmaid dress. It may be due to the economy, but brides are trying to help their bridesmaids get the most of their money by choosing dresses that don’t look so “bridesmaids-y.” We’re talking about asymmetrical hemlines, ruffles, one-shoulder necklines — tea-length or cocktail length dresses that can be worn to any party with little modification. To this end, lots of brides are skipping tradition and taking the plunge with the LBBD, the little black bridesmaid dress.

ShinyOrb Contact Information:
* Email: media[at]shinyorb[dot]com
* Twitter: @shinyorb
* Facebook: www.facebook.com/shinyorb
* Telephone: (650) 691-5ORB
* Mailing address: 1275 University Avenue, Suite 2, Berkeley, CA 94702

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