Castle President Mark Franks told XBIZ that the company sent about 5,000 invitations to all brides-to-be who registered with the store, and invited all of Castle's major vendors — including California Exotic Novelties, System Jo and Empowered Products — to showcase their latest items.
"It's like a couture trunk show you'd find at Neiman Marcus or a high-end store, except we've figured out how to do it with bridal lingerie," Franks said.
Franks said that sales were "insane," and the flagship location's four cash registers could hardly keep up with the long lines of customers. He said some customers waited up to 20 minutes to make purchases.
The Dreamgirl Lingerie fashion show featured models from mainstream modeling company Ford Modeling Agency who walked down the runway in Dreamgirl's latest bridal and Valentine's Day outfits.
Franks said Castle holds a similar show in Seattle, one of the markets he said Castle dominates, which is held during a typical wedding season in time for June weddings. Phoenix's wedding season is earlier, he said, because no one wants to get married in the sweltering heat of an Arizona June.
"We try to tie [the shows] in to regional bridal events held in those cities," Franks said. "It's a great way to bring quality traffic into our stores. It's a big branding event for us too — it sets us apart from our competition. We don't have any competition that's capable of putting these types of events on."
Castle's next major event will be held in September, Franks said, and the company already is in the planning stage.
