Bridal Gems - Making Your Special Day Sparkle

Technical Problem 24th January

2012-01-24T13:31:00.002+01:00

We had a fault reported today where customers were unable to complete checkout because they were been logged out and the contents of their basket lost. It turns out some maintainance work carried out over night caused the problem. We installed a new SSL system as an added security measure and the cookie domain name was set incorrectly. In short this caused our customers browsers to forget who they were, which in turn caused our website to not recognise them when they tried to navigate the site and checkout. This has now been fixed (we hope) and everything seems to be working fine. If anyone experiences further problems please let us know and also tell us what browser you're using so we can try to fix it.

Bridal Gems i-Shop Launched

2011-08-05T14:30:00.006+01:00

We're proud to announce the launch of our new i-Shop optomised for the iPhone and other mobile devices.

The new site has all the features of the full site and our complete range of up to 500 items are available to purchase from your mobile phone. You can scan the QR code below to go directly to the mobile site or just visit http://www.bridalgems.co.uk/ from your phone to be directed to the new site.

Scan The QR Code

Free Postage

2011-06-14T21:26:00.003+01:00

Back By Popular demand!
For a limited time we're offering free postage on all orders over £35, this is in addition to the great Get One Free Offers we have on our most popular tiaras, necklace sets and accessories.

Next Day Delivery

2011-03-16T18:36:00.002+01:00

You may not know it, but Bridal Gems now offers the option to have your order delivered before 1pm the next working day. You'll need to place your order before 2pm and select 'Special Delivery' to avail of the service.
Obviously public holidays and weekends are excluded, but provided Royal Mail are working we can usually provide the service.
This option is only available or UK customers, and if the option isn't available when you checkout the service may have been suspended for some reason, but will always be re-instated as soon as possible.

Get One Free

2011-02-15T23:24:00.004+01:00

Buying bridesmaids gifts or jewellery can be an expensive job, that's why we've introduced loads of 'Get 1 Free' offers. Many of our most popular tiaras and necklace sets are included with some buy 2 get 1 free and some buy 3 get 1 free offers. Follow this link to see all the Free Wedding Offers.

Buy 3 Get 1 Free

Buy 2 Get 1 Free

2011 Price Increases

2010-11-23T14:29:00.002+01:00

Well bad news is never easy to report, but we hope this early warning helps all you struggling brides get your orders in before the price rises kicks in. The UK VAT rate is going up to 20% in January 2011 and because of increased material and transport costs we've no choice but to increase our prices at the same time. We will be keeping the increase to a minimum and don't expect any rises of more that 15%, and where possible we'll be adding as little 2.5% which just covers the VAT rise. Our prices have remained stable for over 3 years now mainly due to the advantageous rate of the pound to the dollar, and if the pound remains strong we might even be able to absorb some of the up coming price rises.
We guarantee no increase before 1st January and all orders placed before this will be at the current prices. The exact changes will be made over the new year holidays, and at the same time we hope to introduce several new lines, including tiaras, necklace sets and wedding accessories.

Royal Wedding

2010-11-16T15:00:00.004+01:00

With all the doom and gloom about at the minute, isn't it great to get some happy news. Todays announcment that William and Kate are to get married in the Spring or Summer of 2011 is great news. I'm just about old enough to remember the last "real" Royal wedding, when Charles and Diana tied the knot and the buzz then was really something special. I doubt if I'll be getting a call about the royal tiara, but just in case I'll keep the phone lines clear lol, or maybe being the modern couple they are she'll be buying online, in which case I better get working on a special royal wedding discount coupon code :-)

Anyway joking aside I'd just like to offer my best wishes to the happy couple and hope they have a long and pleasant life together.

Free Postage & Packaging

2010-10-01T13:29:00.003+01:00

It's been a few years since we offered free postage on Bridal Gems UK so we thought it was time to give it a go again. For orders of £30 or more you'll have the option of free first class postage to anywhere in the UK. We'll still be offering paid special delivery postage for those urgent orders, and most international shoppers can get free or discounted postage by visiting our sister sites Bridal Gems Europe, Bridal Gems Ireland or Bridal Gems US

2011 Tiara Collection

2010-09-03T15:22:00.002+01:00

We've just started work on our 2011 collection, we plan to introduce about 10 new tiara styles next year. Currently we're searching around for inspiration and would love to hear ideas from 2011 brides. If you're getting married next year why not drop us a note with suggestions or comments we're always happy to hear from you. Our Bridal Gems contact form is the fastest way to get in touch or just reply here.

Confetti.co.uk Goes Bust

2010-08-17T23:55:00.002+01:00

I was amazed and extremely saddened to hear that confetti has gone bust, I've used the confetti forums many times over the years and thought they were a great asset to brides and wedding planners. The current recession has certainly taken it's toll on our industry, just as it has throughout the economy. The collapse of confetti has come as a surprise to everyone as the business was sold to 'The Hut Group' just last week, but put into administration 24 hours later. The Hut Group appears to have been more interested in Iwantoneofthose.com which it purchased along with confetti.

With reported losses last year of 13.8m GBP it's difficult to see where the businesses will go from here but lets hope the confetti brand is saved and the website survives.
Obviously we have no connection with confetti so can't directly help their disappointed customers, but by stocking up to 100 pieces of each style of tiara we sell, we're in a position to dispatch orders rapidly if any bride is left in a spot. All we ask is you tell us your wedding date so we can be sure to get the order to you on time.

If you've been let down by confetti, we want to help, put coupon code CGB20 in the box during checkout and we'll take 20% off your order total. I know it's not much but hope it helps a little.

Bridal Gems UK Make Over

2010-07-04T02:48:00.001+01:00

We've finally finished the new look for Bridal Gems UK. It's not the biggest make over we've ever done but it has tidied up things a bit and hopefully you'll like it.

New Side Tiara

2010-06-16T00:44:00.002+01:00

A new side tiara comb arrived today, it's a crystal butterfly design and it looks stunning.

Twenty Thousand and Counting

2010-06-11T11:30:00.003+01:00

Just noticed to-day that we now have over fifteen thousand website customers and about six thousand on eBay. When we started out on eBay in 2002 we certainly couldn't have dreamed we'd have helped over 20,000 people with their jewellery. It really is humbling to think of all the weddings and events our tiaras and accessories have been used in. We've posted orders all over the world, from obscure islands in the Pacific to the northern tips of Europe. Although most are used for weddings, some have been used on TV shows, pageants and even the odd fancy dress party. I guess it shouldn't really surprise us having so many customers, as every year new brides are getting married and we have to attract a whole new set of customers. Although having said that, it still amazes me how many repeat orders we get from the same people. I do hope they're ordering for other special events and not getting married over and over again :-)

I'm so slow at updating the blog these days that my next post will probably be about us reaching 40, 000 customers, but I'll try to make it sooner lol.

New Products

2010-05-11T14:50:00.005+01:00

This week we've launched two new stunning silver tiaras, one with some small white pearls and one with rhinestone flower designs.

The picture above is the Flowering Hearts Pearl and Rhinestone Tiara, with an introductory price of just £18.99 and below is the Swirling Flowers Crystal Silver Wedding Tiara priced just £23.99
Along with these tiaras we've also launched some great new bracelets, these can be viewed in the Rhinestone Bracelet section of the website.
This year so far we've added dozens of new lines and reduced loads of prices, in these difficult times we feel it's important to give our customers, not only great value but a great choice of new and exciting products too. As always we're happy to hear your thoughts and comments so please feel free to leave a message.

Weddings and Gifts

2010-02-02T15:30:00.006+01:00

weddingsandgifts.com is the US branch of Bridal Gems, it went live just last month and although it's now full operational it's still being developed, over the next few months it'll be officially launched, with special offers and promotions galore. With over 5 million weddings in the US each year we hope we can help everyone with their wedding jewellery, or should that be wedding jewelry since we're talking about America.

The site is a slight variation off the usual Bridal Gems theme with a new Black and yellow color scheme.We'll be offering almost our intire range in the US with the exception of a few accessories such as wedding bubbles, which are too heavy to ship. Thanks to a new deal with Royal Mail we are offering exceptionally low shipping charges, and for next few months we're actually offering free shipping on orders over $30.

Two Minute Checkout?

2010-01-07T12:28:00.003+01:00

We're always trying to improve the customers experience on our websites and I was just taking a look at customer checkout stats on bridalgems.co.uk. I decided to do a quick average to see how long it takes to complete the checkout process from entering the name and address to completion. I just looked at one weeks worth of data as rough guide, and was surprised to find virtually every customer who completed checkout finished it in under 3 minutes and the average time was just over 2 minutes. I've no idea how this compares to other shopping sites, but it seems pretty fast to me and I don't think there's much we could do to improve it.

If you've any thoughts or suggestions why not contact us or leave a comment on any of our blog posts, we're always happy to hear suggestions.

New Irish Website

2009-12-14T17:14:00.004+01:00

Mid November saw the launch of Bridal Gems Ireland, after about 6 months of development and planning bridalgems.ie went live. The .ie site will have exclusive offers, only available to Ireland and all prices will be shown in euro. To get the ball rolling we're offering free postage and packaging to anywhere in Ireland for orders placed through bridalgems.ie valued over €20. Most old promotion codes from the .uk site should also work on .ie however new codes will be exclusive to either one or the other.

Current delivery times within Ireland are about 3-4 working days (might be a little longer over Christmas) and all orders are posted within 48 hours of receipt.

We're really excited to have bridalgems.ie finally up and running and really look forward to helping Irish brides over the coming months. Between both sites we now have in excess of 11000 satisfied customers, many of whom now shop regularly with Bridal Gems, buying everything from Tiaras to Necklace Sets..

Royal Mail Strike

2009-10-23T09:59:00.002+01:00

Amidst the worst recession in UK history royal mail workers have decided to go on strike again. In what seems to be a strike to maintain the crazy working practices of our postal service they are showing no regard for the thousands of small businesses which depend on them.
The Bridal Gems group of companies have loyally used royal mail for many years spending thousands of pounds of our customers money posting hundreds of items every week. To be repaid by the postal workers in this way is quite simply a kick in the face for us and all small businesses. What the future holds for the postal works is far from certain but from our point of view a small increase in the postage we charge our customers to switch to a more reliable service is something we're having to look seriously at.

A Few Links

2009-10-06T10:51:00.001+01:00

Bridal Gems

Support

Shop

2010 Collection Starting to Arriving

2009-10-06T10:31:00.003+01:00

As the title says our new products for 2010 are starting to appear on the web site now.
Check out the New Wedding Jewellery section for the latest additions.

New Communication System

2009-09-18T11:57:00.002+01:00

If you've signed up for an account with us recently you'll notice we now ask for the date of your wedding(if you know it). We're not just being nosey, what we now do is send you a little email 10 days before your wedding so if you've any last orders before the big day you can get them in on time.
Part of the same system also sends a reminder to customers who've not completed their order after a few days, this is just to check there's no problems with the checkout system, as occasionally bugs creep into the system which only affect some browsers or users. The feedback we get from this is great as it helps improve our service and if there's problems we can get them sorted promptly.

Bridal Gems Twitter

2009-08-02T23:51:00.004+01:00

We've just started to twitter and hope to post a tweet every day. It might not happen but our intentions are good :-)

Why not pop by www.twitter.com/bridalgems

June Already

2009-06-10T16:44:00.003+01:00

I can't believe it's June already, we've been pretty busy lately and I haven't had a chance to do much blogging. There's not been much time to work on the website but we have added loads of new products, as promised we've got a great new range of coloured tiaras and jewellery and these are all available on the site now. We've also added a Frequently asked Questions section which will hopefully answer some of the dozens of queries we get each day, but as always we're here to help if needed.
There's lots of exciting new plans for the coming summer months and we'll be running loads of promotions. We're currently adding new products to the combos section, were we take selections of the most popular products and put them together into one discounted package. Check them out here Discounted Wedding Jewellery

The Hen Night

2009-03-10T11:38:00.006+01:00

March is a time when the hen night plans for many summer brides start to be hatched. To help you along, this year Bridal Gems have again increased the range of accessories available. With everything from Hen Night Badges to Complete Kits, we think we've got it all covered. The ever popular "Hen Night Autograph T Shirt" is also still available this year so why not pop along and have a look :-)

Hen Night Accessories

Crazy Product Numbers

2009-01-30T18:27:00.003+01:00

Back in the early days of Bridal Gems we had only a few dozen products and decided at the time to give them item numbers based on the type of product. Because there were so few products, we numbered them in 10's so tiaras were coded T10, T20, T30 and so on and necklaces sets N10, N20 etc. This worked fine until the number of products reached hundreds, and when we coupled with that the fact that even discontinued items still had to have codes allocated, we soon started to run out of codes. We then started to use the numbers in between the 10's but this brought up altogether new problems. Our stock control was getting difficult because it was hard to decide on the correct code for a new product and picking orders started to become confusing as 'N' and 'T' or any of the other product prefixes could easily be mixed up and customers understandable wouldn't be to happy receiving a really pretty necklace when they ordered a tiara.
So the solution was unfortunately obvious, we had to re-code our entire stock and implement a system for new products that will last well into the future. Our old system although flawed in some ways, did work very well at the beginning, and a new version of this system is what we decided to use. We'll still be prefixing the number with a letter representing the product type, and so as not to get mixed up with old codes we're starting with T1001, T1002 etc for tiaras and to help avoid the picking errors we decided to start necklaces at N2001, and earrings at E3001 and so on.
With 1000's products in our database, the task of re-coding and making sure all reference to the old coding system are changed is quite a big one. We've had to work really fast as the worst possible situation is to have two different systems on the go at one time, as of today all reference to the old codes should have disappeared, the only exception is a few items listed on eBay which can't be change until the auctions finish. Just to be safe, and because we realise there might well be parts of the site we've missed, we have kept an old code label in our warehouse on all products and plan to keep them in case of future confusion.

New for 2009

2009-01-13T01:14:00.003+01:00

Our new 2009 range is due to be added to our catalogue from the second week in February. We've no plans at this time to discontinue any old items, however as always we're a little bit at the mercy of our manufacturers, if they do drop any lines we will of coarse try to source suitable replacements.
We hope to add an assortment of 20-30 new tiaras and necklace sets, with special emphasis on children's tiaras and coloured adult tiaras, as this is an area we're a bit light in.
Another plan for 2009 is to put together packages of tiaras at reduced prices, we're doing this to help brides on a tight budget who maybe have to buy for all there bridesmaids. We'll probably stick with the most popular budget tiaras and package them in twos, threes, fours and sixes with prices reduced by 20-30 percent. We were thinking about making up packages of matching necklace, earrings, bracelet and tiara, and although we haven't totally ruled it out, it may be better to just let the bride mix and match and get what they want.
We're all looking forward to another great year in 2009, we're fortunate that we've got a solid business model that will be able to withstand the economic recession we're all being told about daily, and have actually had to recruit more staff to meet recent demand. We hope our "value for money" prices will help both our customers who are on a tight wedding budget and us as we attract new customers who are looking for a bargain.
I might not get blogging much over the next few weeks as things get a little bit hectic around here this time of year, but I'll try to post up any important information.

Reduced UK VAT

2008-11-24T14:57:00.002+01:00

At the time of writing, the reduction in UK VAT is still just speculation, but if the expected cut in the rate does happen, we've already geared up to implement the reduced prices immediately. As we don't know for sure how much the VAT may be cut by, or the exact date of implementation, we're going to have to wait and see what happens. What we are doing now is making sure we're ready to lower prices across the websites as soon as physically possible.
Obviously we've no idea at this time how long the reduced VAT will last, but it's great news for our customers with lower prices all round.

That time of year again!

2008-11-18T12:41:00.004+01:00

Strange as it may sound, but "that time of year" (November/December) for us is time for Amanda and myself to take a short sunshine break and recharge the batteries ready for the upcoming bridal season. We're heading away on December 3rd this year for just a week, and will be back December 10th. Our little break will probably add a few days on to delivery times for most website orders over this period, but as always we'll have the estimated delivery date posted on the website, and give plenty of notice before we leave.
We'll do our best to keep answering emails, and this year we should have the free phone support line staffed most afternoons, unfortunately although we'll be able to take telephone orders they won't be processed until we return.
I'm sure I'll repeat this in a later post, but I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank all those customers and friends who have supported us through the year, 2008 although difficult in trading terms, has been one of the most enjoyable we've had since starting Bridal Gems all those years ago. We're thoroughly looking forward to another great year in 2009 and even through all the economic doom and gloom being spread by the press, we know we're going to help thousands of brides have their dream wedding no matter what wedding budget they're on.

Nigel

Credit Crunch

2008-11-08T17:33:00.002+01:00

For all businesses an economic recession is certainly a scary time, and every responsible company should be looking at how their business is run and make sure it's in a sound financial position to with stand any potential down turn. Here at Bridal Gems we're no exception and thankfully we have not yet experienced a reduction in business, if fact October 2008 was our busiest October ever, having said that we're not taking things for granted, we have allot of plans for the 2009 season and hope to introduce several new products. We're also looking at ways of reducing our prices even further and have already cut the price of several of our most popular lines. With so many people struggling it these difficult times we're doing all we can to help our customers have the wedding they deserve.
As always we welcome suggestions on how we can improve our service, so please feel free to comment.

Website Problems

2008-10-01T16:37:00.002+01:00

We've a few problems with the server to-day (Wednesday 1st October 2008), and the bridalgems.co.uk site has been down intermittently over the past few hours. We hope to be back up to full service in the next few hours.

New Look Website

2008-09-15T13:48:00.002+01:00

With the summer (if you can call it a summer) over we're at that time of year again when things get a little quieter and we've time to put our minds to website improvment matters. During the summer we upgraded our whole website back end and moved to a UK based server. The move has technically been a huge success, although there's not been much change to the look of the site, the performance has improved greatly. Over the next few weeks we'll be rolling out a new look for the front end of the site and users should see many improvments with the new look due to be completed by about mid October. Feel free to post comments or suggestions either here or on our forum http://www.bridalgems.info/forum

Site updates and server move

2008-07-04T18:43:00.003+01:00

This weekend commencing Friday 4th July, we'll be moving the bridalgems.co.uk site to a new home. Up until now our site has been hosted on servers in Atlanta, Georgia in the US, as part of our on going efforts to improve the speed and quality of the site, we're moving to UK based servers. We've fully updated our back end software to support the latest server specifications, which is faster to load and more secure. We don't expect any major down time during the move, and have planned carefully to ensure as little disruption as possible over the weekend.
In the unlikely even that we do run into problems, we will keep the blog live and have a full roll back option should we need it.

Wedding Forum

2008-06-17T23:59:00.003+01:00

Ever since the old "UK Wedding Forum" closed down we've been working on a new improved forum and we've finally got to that, ready to launch stage. The biggest difference this time round is we're branding the forum as part of the new Bridal Gems information portal and it's hosted on the bridalgems.info domain. We'll also be heavily promoting the forum to customers on bridalgems.co.uk and to start the ball rolling a 25% discount promotion code will be available for all newly registered members.

Bridalgems.co.uk Site Updates

2008-06-17T00:22:00.002+01:00

Over the past couple of weeks we've been doing some major work on the the Bridal Gems website, hopefully we've not caused too much disruption and as most of the work is on the back end of the site it shouldn't be too noticeable. For anyone who's interested, the main bridal gems shopping site runs on a heavily modified Oscommerce shopping cart. The cart has been constantly updated and modified since it was first installed way back in 2003, the latest updates are designed to make it compatible with the newest versions of PHP and mySql, which is the software which keep the site going. The next couple of weeks will see us move the entire site to a new faster server, located here in the UK which should considerably improve the performance of the entire site. The plan is to serve the site from our UK server and keep a mirror back up on the US server we currently run from. This will give us a good solid back-up plan should anything ever go wrong with the main server, and because of the big geographical difference between the two servers it's unlikely that any network problems which might affect one could affect the other.
The new server will also host several of our other website too, but as they're not all live yet I won't post details here, but as soon as they're up and running I'll let the world know. It's been a really busy time on the technical side of things, and we've loads of new plans and features coming along over the next 6 months, with new products, and some great website features and deals. As soon as we get the server move out of the way we'll be working flat out to get them all rolled out.

Bridal Gems Auctions

2008-06-10T14:45:00.008+01:00

We've been selling on ebay for the past 4 years and usually have 80-100 items available at any one time. Over the past few months ebay have been making changes, which quite honestly are making it almost impossible to successfully sell on their site. Because of this we've now started to list on the UK's fastest growing auction site www.ebid.co.uk. Ebid have a much fairer auction system which costs us a fraction of what it costs to list on ebay. As our fees are much smaller on ebid we can pass the savings on to the bidders, and on average our ebid prices are between 10%-15% cheaper than ebay.
Currently we have almost 300 items listed on ebid, a figure we could never match on ebay. If you want to have a look at our current auctions our ebid shop is at the link below.

Bridal Gems Ebid Shop

New Information Website

2008-05-22T18:56:00.003+01:00

We're currently working on our new information site www.bridalgems.info once complete, the site will contain constantly updated news about all the websites in the bridal gems group. We'll also be doing a bit of blogging over there, but I'm sure we'll still find time to pop along here every now and again.

Belmore Street Office

2008-04-10T14:04:00.002+01:00

We're now almost fully moved into our new office in Belmore Street, Enniskillen. All orders are dispatched from here and we have a small display area open to the public. We haven't put sings up yet to show were we are, but anyone who wants to pop in and see us is more than welcome. Our address is 39a Belmore Street, and we're located on the first floor below Curves Gym. Due to the nature of our business, our office hours have to be rather flexible, and if you're planning on visiting us, it might be a good idea to give us a call on 0800 043 4850 to make sure we'll be there.
All returns are still processed through our old address, however over the next couple of months this too will move to Belmore Street. The final stage of the move should be complete early in the summer.

Easter Sale

2008-03-12T01:15:00.008+01:00

EASTER SALE

Our Easter sale is due to start next week, we'll be giving a 15% discount off all orders over £30. The discount code for the sale will be EAS33, the code is due to be advertised on the website from Monday 17th March 2008, but as a blog reader you can start using the code right now. It'll remain valid until Tuesday 25th March 2008 and can be used as many times in this period as you want. To get the discount simply enter the code in the "coupon code" box during checkout on the website.

www.bridalgems.co.uk

Wedding Journal Show

2008-02-25T22:45:00.007+01:00

Kings Hall, Belfast

Just a quick thank you to all who visited us on our stand at the Wedding Journal Show in the Kings Hall, Belfast over the weekend 22-24th Feb. 2008

We had several thousand visitors over the three days, and it really was a pleasure meeting you all. We're currently processing all the orders and requests and should have all done by Tuesday 26th.

We had a small glitch with the discount vouchers we handed out on the day, we've fixed it and they should work fine now.

New Offices and Warehouse

2008-02-01T15:49:00.000+01:00

During this month (February) we'll be moving our offices and warehouse operations to new premises. The new facility in Belmore Street, Enniskillen will be open to the public towards the end of February, however all packing and dispatch operations are due to move over the weekend commencing 1st February and should be completed by Monday 4th February. We don't expect any disruption to our normal service and all orders should be processed as normal.

The new facility will have a small showroom giving customers the opportunity to view some of the available products. With several thousand different items available on our website, we won't be able to display them all, however we should be able to get hold of any item if there's something someone needs to see.

Further details of the new premises will be posted closer to opening time.

VAT and non EU buyers

2008-01-21T16:22:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note about VAT (Value Added Tax) all our prices include VAT @ 17.5% however if you're located outside the EU you won't be charged the VAT and it'll be deducted automatically during checkout.
I've added this information to the terms and conditions page just so everyone's clear.

Discount/Coupon Codes

2008-01-21T16:12:00.000+01:00

We've finally got the discount coupon code system working again, the problem arose when we changed our prices to include VAT. The system had a previously unseen bug which caused the order total calculations to be wrong. The error only appeared after the change in the VAT status of the products. No orders were affected and we manually deducted any coupons entered with orders before they were processed.

Just a quick reminder that all blog readers can get a 10% discount by entering the code BL31 during checkout, the discount applies regardless of order size, and we've extended the validity period for another 3 months.

Wedding Cufflinks

2007-12-20T23:47:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately over the last few months we've been struggling to keep our stock levels up for all the different cuff links we sell. It's really frustrating because we always seem to have a few styles available, but obviously this is no good when you need to kit out the whole party. To try to address the problem we're planning to bring in large stocks of all the following styles early in the New Year.

Best Man Cuff Links
Father of the Groom Cuff Links
Usher Cuff Links
Groom Cuff Links
Father of the Bride Cuff Links
Grandfather Cuff Links
Brother of the Groom Cuff Links
Brother of the Bride Cuff Links
Pageboy Cuff Links

Hopefully this will solve the problems and help avoid disappointment, these wedding cuff links are really stylish and look superb when worn by all the blokes in the wedding party.

Pre Christmas Sale

2007-12-04T14:25:00.000+01:00

It's a strange world really, when every other business is in a mad rush for Christmas, here at Bridal Gems things get a little quieter and we have time to catch up on some long over due website maintenance, and get things ready for all the newly engaged couples coming online in the new year. As a little thank you to Pre-Christmas shoppers, we'll be offering a 15% discount of all orders over £20 placed up to 26th December. The coupon code xm34 will deduct the discount automatically from your order.

Jewellery Reviews

2007-10-29T12:40:00.000+01:00

I was just reading through the jewellery reviews on the website and was amazed by the number of positive comments, we do have the ability to edit or remove comments but I can honestly say we very rarely have to use it, and then it's just to correct little errors or reply to a comment made. When reading the comments you can almost feel the excitement of the authors, now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's just the jewellery that's making them happy, but you definitely know there's something up, and it really brightens up a dull Monday morning sharing in the new "bride to be's" happiness.
I was thinking about starting up an on line gallery where brides could upload their pictures after the wedding. I'm just not to sure if anyone would take the time to come back after the big day and go to the trouble of uploading pictures. If you've any thoughts pop a comment on here as I'd love some feedback. Obviously any pictures would be welcome, but shots of our jewellery or accessories would be most appreciated. I'll work on it over the next few days and post a link when I've got something working. To start it off I'll probably have to put some of our own pictures on it but hopefully if I email some past customers we might get some from others fairly quickly.

New 2008 Jewellery Range

2007-10-15T12:32:00.000+01:00

We expect delivery of our new 2008 range of necklace sets towards the end of October. It'll take a couple of weeks to sort, photograph and list them all, so I'd guess they'll start to appear from the beginning of November on. There's some really pretty new sets arriving so have a look from November on and see what you think.

The set's will appear first at the link below, which lists all our new products.

New Bridal Gems Products

Latest Royal Mail Strike

2007-10-01T20:13:00.000+01:00

The latest round of Royal Mail strikes are due to start on Thursday 4th October, the way the strikes are planned, Royal Mail staff won't be back at work until Wednesday 10th October and there's likely to then be a backlog for a few day. Although there's nothing we can do for our UK customers, we're pleased to announce that we will be shipping international orders through another carrier, and these should be delivered as normal. Unfortunately we don't have this option for UK orders as the final delivery is done by Royal Mail.

We do plan to process and pack all orders as normal during the strike, however from past experience we've found it best not to pass the packages to Royal Mail until the strike's over.
As crazy as it sounds, after past strikes the backlog hasn't been cleared in order of first posted first delivered, rather what appears to happen is the mail is simply piled on top of each other and the post on top is delivered first. This means mail sent at the beginning of the strike is likely to be the last delivered, and post sent at the end of the strike delivered first, honestly you couldn't make it up. With this in mind I've listed below the days we'll be posting over the next week, if however things change we will of coarse react as necessary.

Tuesday 2nd We'll drop orders off with Royal Mail as late as possible to catch as many orders as possible.

Wednesday 3rd No normal post, but we will post registered post for delivery Thursday.

Thursday 4th No Post

Friday 5th International orders only posted

Monday 8th No Post

Tuesday 9th No Post

Wednesday 10th All back orders will be posted as early on Wednesday as possible.

I'm really sorry for the inevitable delays which will happen over the next few days and hope it doesn't cause to much inconvenience.

UK Wedding Forum

2007-09-22T21:31:00.001+01:00

At this time of year here at BG's, we've had a little extra time to give the UK Wedding Forum some more attention. We're trying to promote it as much as possible so if you're getting married or just fancy a chat, drop by and log on. The forum is of coarse totally free and we do love the banter and hope it can be a real help to new brides, grooms .

Postage Changes

2007-09-19T13:50:00.000+01:00

We've tweaked the postage charges a little bit to make it reflect actual postage costs a little closer. For the vast majority of customers there will be no change, some international orders will cost a little more and some small UK orders will be a little cheaper. Overall the changes are very minor and as always you'll be able to see the full postage and packaging price before finalizing your order.

Bank Holiday Special Offer

2007-08-26T18:29:00.000+01:00

We all love bank holiday's and here at Bridal Gems we're no different. To celebrate the last holiday here in the UK between now and Christmas, we're giving a massive 20% discount of all internet orders over £30. The offer will only last until Monday night so get your order in fast, to avail of the discount simply enter the discount code ABH27 during checkout.

Special Delivery 'v' Recorded Delivery

2007-07-30T13:49:00.000+01:00

With the current Royal Mail Strike we're getting more enquiries than usual about the differences between recorded delivery and special delivery. Firstly I'll cover it from Royal Mails' point of view. Recorded delivery items are treated in exactly the same way as normal mail, except that upon delivery the postman gets a signature from the recipient, or if no ones available to sign for it, it's returned to the local delivery office for collection or re-delivery. Special delivery on the other hand is tracked right through the delivery system by means of a bar code which is scanned through out the journey from dispatch to delivery. The special delivery service we use also guarantees delivery the next working day after posting. There are of coarse several other differences in the services, such as compensation levels and what types of things can be carried.
At our end we treat both order types slightly different. The special delivery items have to be brought individually to the post office, where as recorded items are collected in bulk by Royal Mail. This obviously makes the special delivery service much more time consuming which is why it's more expensive than standard recorded delivery.
We do our best to dispatch special delivery items within 24 hours of receiving the order but we can't guarantee this, so it's best to give us a call and check when we can get your order to you. If the order is urgent we can usually make time to get it packed and posted.

Postal Strike Continues

2007-07-25T14:59:00.000+01:00

The Royal Mail postal strike which has been ongoing for the past few weeks is continuing. We're noticing some small delays in orders but nothing too serious, and we're working hard to get orders posted quickly and following Royal Mail's guidelines on when is best to post. The situation is a little further confused by the fact that postal workers in Northern Ireland are striking on different days which means we can sometimes get orders collected here when they wouldn't be in the rest of the UK, and obviously the down side is that some days when work is going on as normal in the rest of the UK, we've no collections here. We have been actively updating the Royal Mail Strike page and will keep doing so until the situations resolved.
We are doing everything possible to minimize disruption and do hope it doesn't cause to much inconvenience.

Hen Night

2007-07-21T11:50:00.000+01:00

We've added a few new hen night products to both the Hen Night Shop and the hen night section of Bridal Gems. The new range includes:

Single Use Cameras
Name Badges
Dare Cards
Pink Feather Boas
"L" Plate Boppers

The new range is exceptionally high quality and very competitively priced.

Bank Transfer Payment

2007-07-11T10:13:00.000+01:00

We've decide to stop accepting BACS bank transfer payments through the website. This wasn't all that difficult a decision because since we started to accept online credit/debit card payments virtually no one used the facility and to be honest we found it only cluttered up and confused the checkout page. We can of coarse still accept BACS transfers and if anyone still wants to pay be this method they should contact us.
Just on the payment side of things we've made a small change the the checkout page and added debit cards to the list of accepted payments, we did always accept debit cards but for some reason they were not listed separate from credit cards which just occasionally caused confusion. The payment option is now credit/debit card.

Continued Royal Mail Strike Action

2007-07-11T09:34:00.000+01:00

Royal mail workers are to continue their strike action on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th of July. Customers can expect some delays to orders over this period. The main problems will be for customers expecting to receive orders on Friday. Any orders placed over or just before the strike period will be packed as normal but we won't be able to dispatch them until after the strike.
Again we'd like to offer our apologies for the inconvenience caused and hope it doesn't upset your plans to much.
For more information visit our Royal Mail Strike page.

Returns Policy Change

2007-07-01T20:19:00.001+01:00

We've made a few minor changes to our returns policy, we've changed the return address and made the actual wording of the policy a little clearer. The basic principles of the returns policy are pretty much unchanged. The main reason for the change is the security issues involved in addressing packages to "Bridal Gems". Some time ago we realised having "Bridal Gems" written on the packages we send out, greatly increased the chances of the package going missing in the post, so we dropped all reference to it and the rate of loss fell. The new return address simply puts "Amanda Carson" in place of "Bridal Gems" which will hopefully help protect our customers returns.
The full Postage and Returns policy can be found here: Bridal Gems Returns Policy

Royal Mail Strike

2007-06-26T17:12:00.000+01:00

As you're probably aware Royal Mail postal workers are going on strike on Friday 29th June 2007. Because of this, we'll not be able to post out any orders on Friday, we do plan however to process and pack as normal and will be bringing the mail directly to Royal Mail on Saturday morning, which will hopefully be processed for delivery at the beginning of the week.
We'd like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and hope we can keep the disruption to a minimum by managing our dispatch system as efficiently as possible.

Unfortunately being based in Northern Ireland there's no cost effective alternative to Royal Mail and we're stuck with them for now. If the situation does escalate, we'll have no choice but to look for alternative delivery options and hope that we can absorb the extra costs and still remain competitive. For more information on the Royal Mail Strike visit our website

Children's tiaras and accessories.

2007-06-14T09:43:00.000+01:00

An area of "Bridal Gems" that's been a little neglected over the past few years is our kids range of accessories. Although we've always done a few tiaras that can be adjusted to fit anyone from 4 years up, it's only now that we've started to do a range specially selected for the younger members of the wedding party.

The headbands above are just a few of the new range, with a choice of popular colours available. We've also introduced some small tiara combs like the one below.

We plan to extend the range further over the next few months and maybe even have a separate kids section on the site. If you have any comments or suggestions please let us know.

Bridal Gems Discount Coupons

2007-05-30T14:39:00.000+01:00

We've finally got round to adding the discount coupon system to the site. It's a pretty straight forward system where the customer is given a code to enter during checkout, this then applies a discount to the order total. The code can be set up to allow any type of discount, a fixed value, postage discount or a percentage discount. To roll the system out we're posting a coupon out with all orders, so repeat customers can get a discount off their next order.
As a thank you to all our blog readers we'd like to offer you a free code so you can get a small discount off your next purchase, just enter the code below during checkout and you'll get 10% off the order.
Discount Coupon Code: BL31
This is a single use code, the full terms and conditions of use can be found on the Terms & Conditions page.

From time to time we'll run bank holiday or weekend promos, we'll post details both here on the blog and at the top of the site so you can easily see if there's any offers currently running.

Hen Night Shop

2007-05-15T09:55:00.000+01:00

With the success of the hen night section on Bridal Gems, we've decided to build a whole new Hen Night Shop . The new shop is located at www.toys-central.co.uk, we chose this domain as it was an existing part of the toys-central.com site and was somewhat under used. We hope you enjoy browsing through the new shop and can find what you're after. Pop a comment on here or drop us a note if you have any suggestions or comments about the new site.

Website Maintenance

2007-04-30T23:08:00.000+01:00

The Bridal Gems website www.bridalgems.co.uk will be down for a few hours in the early hours of Wednesday 2nd May 2007. The maintenance is due to last for about 3-4 hours starting at approximately 01.00 GMT on Wednesday. We hope to be up and running again before breakfast time on Wednesday.
The work is in preparation for a new secure certificate we're going to be installing, the new cert will give us full 128 bit encryption through out the site when ever sensitive information needs to be entered.
We've tried to schedule this work for the quietest time, on the quietest day of the week, and hope it doesn't cause too much inconvenience.
The down time will be pretty fluid and some users might not notice any disruption, but as always it's best to err on the side of caution.

UK Wedding Directory

2007-04-13T14:20:00.000+01:00

With the rapid growth of the Bridal Gems UK Wedding Directory, we've decided it's time to give it it's own seperate website. The new domain for the directory is www.ukweddingdirectory.info the directory itself hasn't changed and all previously listed sites are still there. Regular submissions are still free, and for a limited time we've reduced the cost of featured listings from £15.00 to £4.99 per year. Over the next few months we'll be building new features into the directory and have a whole new homepage planned with links to all sorts of useful wedding websites.

If you have a wedding related site you can add it to the directory here Submit URL

Bridal Gems Live Help

2007-03-05T14:43:00.000+01:00

There are many advantages buying from a website rather that a bricks and mortar shop, however there are of coarse many disadvantages also. One of the biggest concerns our customers expressed was the inability to chat to an assistant without having to telephone us, with this in mind we have introduced out latest communication initiative which is a fully functional live help system.

Every time an assistant is online the live help box on the site will turn green and once clicked by the customer, a one on one chat screen will be opened where both the customer and the sales assistant will be able to type in their comments live. The chat can be ended at any time by either party and a copy of the transcript can be requested by email so you have a record of the conversation.

If no sales assistant is available the box will turn red and show as offline, when clicked in this state the customer can leave a message, for the assistant and if needed we can email a reply.

As always we hope this new feature will be useful and if you've any comments or suggestions please feel free to leave them.

Hen Night Fun

2007-02-21T14:25:00.000+01:00

We plan to roll out our new Hen Night accessories by the beginning of March. We've introduced new lines and are planning on expanding it further over the next few months. We've a whole load of fun and exciting gear in the pipline at the usual "Bridal Gems" rock bottom prices. From Signature Tee Shirts @ just £8.99 to Flashing Boobs for under a fiver, we've got something for everyone.

We will of coarse be keeping the old favourites, like the plastic tiara and veil and the ever popular Learner kits. So why not drop by and have a look.

Hen Night Accessories.

Update from Bridal Gems

2007-02-13T10:23:00.000+01:00

Well it's been almost a month since I posted on here and just thought I better drop by and say hello. The new year has started with a bang and we've all been busy packing orders and keeping the web site updated. The beginning of February has continued the same as January and the orders have been flowing in thick and fast. We did manage to get a few days earlier this month with some of our suppliers and are happy to announce the arrival of two completely new product ranges for later in the spring. The first and biggest is a range of new jewellery, the collection consists of about 24 new necklace and earring sets and half a dozen different matching bracelets. There are a couple of new tiaras in the range also, but as we have over 80 different styles already in our portfolio we didn't go to heavily on these. The second new range is the long awaited update to the Hen Night and accessories section of the site, we've got some super fun new novelties, and a few new wedding favour ranges. The first to arrive should be the hen night and accessories which will hopefully be online some time towards the end of February. The new jewellery collection is still in production but should be here by early April.
All in all it's a busy few months here and I don't expect to get as much time as I used to for updating the blog, I will however be sure to keep it refreshed with new news and information as often and possible.

A Quick Thank You

2007-01-15T19:59:00.000+01:00

Just a quick word of thanks to those customers who visited us at the Everglades Hotel yesterday. The show was a huge success with hundreds of visitors enjoying the fashion shows and dozens of exhibits. It was great to meet some of you face to face and we really do hope you enjoyed our display.

Due to space restrictions we could only show part the range but it was great for customers to actually feel the quality of the products before buying, and the feedback at the show was very much appreciated.
We're now looking forward to our next outing (The Beechlawn House) where we hope to have an even better display with more products and a few specials not available on the website.

Beechlawn House Hotel - Wedding Show

2007-01-13T22:47:00.000+01:00

Our latest confirmed wedding fair venue is the Beechlawn House Hotel in Dunmurry, just outside Belfast. The show is on Sunday 4th March 2007 from 1pm - 6pm and we'll be showing with a whole range of other quality wedding professionals. For more information on our show venues visit our Irish Wedding Shows site.

New 2007 Jewellery Range

2007-01-03T00:21:00.000+01:00

Along with the old favourites from 2006, we're introducing some exciting new jewellery for 2007. The range will be introduced over the next few weeks on a rolling basis and will be available to purchase as soon as stock arrives. The main focus will be to increase the number of rhinestone bracelets as this has been an area in which we were light in 2006. There's a few new necklace sets and some tiaras also being added. We don't have any plans to discontinue any jewellery this year, however if supply of an items becomes difficult we might have to revise this.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank all our customer over the past year and wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Nigel

Wedding Show Update

2006-12-15T01:57:00.000+01:00

We've started finalising details of where we'll be showing in 2007, the first show is planned for the Everglades Hotel just outside Londonderry in Northern Ireland. The Everglades is a great 4 star hotel and a super wedding venue. As well as covering the Derry area, it also attracts brides from Donegal and all over the north west of Ireland. We'll be there on Sunday 14th January from 2-5 pm. We have more shows planned and will be anouncing them as soon as we finalise the details.
More information can be found here www.irish-wedding-shows.bridalgems.co.uk the most up to date info will be found here.

Christmas Toy Rush

2006-11-30T13:40:00.000+01:00

Traditionally this time of year is pretty quiet here at Bridal Gems, most brides are thinking about Christmas and the spring or summer wedding goes on the back boiler for a while. This year to keep busy we've started selling a range of cheap toys, through our website www.toys-central.co.uk and eBay. We're not targeting the mass hysteria toys like playstation version 2 million and six, which tend to have mass hysteria price tags, instead we're concentrating on budget toys and stocking fillers. We've imported a wide range and are concentrating our efforts on selling through eBay. I've no doubt we'll keep at the toys in the new year although obviously they'll have to be scaled down a bit as the bridal side of the business picks up again.
For those of you still looking for bridal jewellery, please don't worry we're keeping the Bridal Gems website going and are getting most orders out within 24 hours.

Where have we been all weekend

2006-11-21T14:32:00.000+01:00

As many will have noticed we were not available on the phone or email over the weekend 17th - 20th November, we're now catching up with the almost 600 phone calls and emails missed over the period. We hadn't planned on disappearing :-) but had simply popped over to Scotland for a family function on Saturday and couldn't get back to Northern Ireland because of the weather. Some orders have been delayed but only by about 24 hours, and all are now being processed.

We'd like to apologize to all our customers and have been trying to get in touch with everyone who has left us messages over the weekend. Anyone who still needs to get in touch can now give us a call on 0800 043 4850

Irish Wedding Shows

2006-11-01T19:21:00.000+01:00

We're currently searching for wedding shows and bridal fairs through out Ireland. If you're an event organizer and would be interested in having Bridal Gems exhibit at your show give Nigel Carson a call on 0845 2571715 or fill in the form on the Bridal Gems web site, Irish Wedding Shows.
We're happy to consider all types of wedding related show regardless of size or location. At most events we'll be exhibiting our full range of Tiaras and Jewellery, and were available will set-up a fully interactive website portal for placing orders at the show.
This is a really exciting opportunity for event organizers to have one of the UK's largest wedding jewellery retailers exhibit at their show. Our show dates and venues will be fully advertised on BridalGems.co.uk which has thousands of visitors every day and will be a great benefit and asset to the shows we choose to exhibit at.

Free Phone Order Line

2006-10-14T18:48:00.000+01:00

0800 043 48 50

From Monday 16th October 2006 our new Free Phone number will be fully operational, we've been testing it over the weekend, and are still ironing out a few small problems. Along with the new free phone number we've also added a new standard number and have introduced an out of hours answering service. Our old numbers are still fully operational and we have no plans to remove these however we will be replacing all contact information on the site to reflect the new numbers.

Our Contact Details Are:

Free Phone 0800 043 48 50
UK Standard Number 028 6638 0027
Republic of Ireland 048 6638 0027
International +4428 6638 0027

International customers please remember we're based in the UK and use British time (GMT) when calling you'll need to check what time it is here, so you're not calling in the middle of the night :-)

Wedding Directory

2006-10-10T21:24:00.000+01:00

Submissions to the UK Wedding Directory are still fairly steady and most accepted sites are listed within 72 hours. The directory is of coarse still free and we're happy to consider all sites however we do request that you list the site in the most appropriate category.

Making Payments To Bridalgems

2006-09-27T11:51:00.000+01:00

If you've read through this blog or had a look at our website www.bridalgems.co.uk you'll know that we accept many different forms of payment. There's really no need to go through all the different options here as they're well documented elsewhere. What I do want to say here is a quick word about helping us identify your payment, you'd be amazed just how many times we open an envelope with nothing but a cheque or postal order inside. Although it's a bit of a pain, we can usually trace the order by looking at the amount on the cheque, the name (if it matched the order) and in extreme cases the post office frank to see where the envelope was posted. As you can imagine a simple slip of paper with an order number or even the buyers name would be a great help. The other payment type that causes us problems is direct bank transfer, now this is a little more tricky as not all banks let you put a note with the payment, but if they do then again either the order number or name would be fine. The other point about all payments, especially if you don't plan putting a note with them, is to make sure they are for the exact amount. Again many people round payments up, for example an order total of £16.45 and they send a cheque for £16.50, no big deal if there's a name with the payment, but a problem if there's not.
Having said all this I think there's only been a handful of occasions were we couldn't match payments with orders, and even in these cases we've been able to sort them as soon as the customer contacts us. The real problem is speed of processing, as with all things we want to get the payments cleared and orders out as quickly as possible.
In summary, put a little note with all payments with either your order number or name and pay the exact amount. We don't need a fancy typed letter, just any old scrap of paper with it quickly scribbled on will do. :-)

New Toys Central Website

2006-09-12T11:04:00.000+01:00

Toy Central sell an amazing range of Hen Night Accessories. It's worth checking out the bargains available.

Royal Mail Special Delivery

2006-09-04T12:45:00.000+01:00

We've decided to re-introduce the option to have your orders delivered by Royal Mail Special Delivery. The Special Delivery service offers a faster more secure delivery option for urgent orders.
Back in 2005 when we first offered this service we advertised it as "Next Day Delivery" unfortunately because of the time it took to process the orders and get them posted we were occasionally missing the deadline for delivery and understandably customers, having paid for "Next Day Delivery" were unhappy. For this reason early in 2006 we suspended the service and went back to the normal Recorded Delivery service we'd always provided.
This time round we're not making any promises on delivery time just that the item will be sent by "Special Delivery". We won't be processing these orders any differently from normal Recorded items but will still do our best to get them posted as quickly as possible.
So in summary we have not reintroduced Next Day Delivery, but are giving you the option to have your order sent by Special Delivery if needed. From experience I know how important it is knowing your order is going to arrive safely and this option will, I hope add an extra dimension of security.

With the introduction of pricing in proportion by Royal Mail in August, our postage costs have risen by a massive 35% this inflation busting increase has been justified by Royal Mail because our packages are a non standard size, and therefore take longer to process. Although we're not happy with the increase, Royal Mail's virtual monopoly on home deliveries leaves us no option but to accept it. We just hope they can use the extra revenue to ensure a better service with fewer lost and stolen items and no more postal strikes like to one in Belfast in March which crippled our business. Because of the price increases we've made a few small changes to our postage and packaging charges. For most orders the costs will remain the same, about 75% of our currently orders cost £3.50 P&P and these will remain unaffected. Our charge of £1.75 for small items such as a single bracelet or pair of earrings has gone up to £2.50 and we are no longer offering free postage for large orders, instead all postage charges will be calculated during the checkout process and you'll be able to view them before completing the order.
I honestly think our Postage and Packaging charges are still very good value for money, and when you compare the total price you are going to pay for your Bridal Jewellery to the equivalent purchased through a high street bridal shop you'll still be saving up to 70% on their prices.

2006-08-29T00:05:00.000+01:00

Things here at Bridal Gems are finally starting to wind down a little, this summer has seen a big growth in business and we've been continually expanding our operations to make sure we delivered all orders on time. We always aim to deliver orders for UK customers in a few days, and over the busy summer period we've scored pretty well on this front. Approximately 94% of orders were delivered within 3 working days and over 60% were delivered in 2 working days.
The quieter winter months will give us time to make some changes to the website and get some updates done that we've been planning for a while now. Hopefully there won't be much disruption during the upgrades and if there is we'll be keeping this blog live and updated with the latest information.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers over the past few months for their continued support, we understand that with out you, bridal gems would not exist. We do hope that all your big days have gone well, or if they're still in the pipeline that all your plans are progressing well.

Nigel

Telephone Orders

2006-08-14T19:27:00.000+01:00

Thanks to our new streamline credit card processing facility, we're now happy to accept payments and orders by telephone. It's still much easier if you place your order online and select the telephone payment option, but we can process the complete order over the phone if you want. For more information or to place an order give us a call on 0845 25 71 71 5.
I'd really like to apologise for the delay in implementing this service the problem was caused by euroconex who messed about with our merchant account.
Nigel

Irish Dancing Tiaras

2006-08-03T16:38:00.000+01:00

We've just launched our new Irish Dancing Tiaras website. As the name suggests we've brought together a collection of tiaras that were popular with our Irish dancing customers and we've built a whole new website for them. The site has been in development for some time but now it's live and ready to promote the Irish Dancing side of the business. We hope this is useful for customers looking for specific tiaras, and in the future we plan to develop sites for other unique markets.

Alternative Credit Card Processor

2006-07-28T13:55:00.000+01:00

Due to the large number of failed payments through paypal and the number of customer complaints, we've now added credit card processing through nochex as an alternative payment method. Nochex, like paypal offers users the chance to pay for their order by simply entering their credit card details. There's no requirement to have an account with them and the process is pretty simple. We've kept the paypal option there for those who prefer it, and we still encourage customers to use it as paypal's fees to us are a little less than those charged by nochex.
In the next few weeks we'll also be able to offer customers the option to pay for website orders over the telephone, and a few weeks after that we'll be implementing a full telephone ordering service where we'll be able to fully process orders by phone.
For existing customers nothings changed and all the options previously there are still available with a few extras. :-)

Bridal Gems - Wedding Fair Tour 2007

2006-07-27T22:32:00.000+01:00

From spring 2007 we plan to take our jewellery and accessories collection on the road, with the Bridal Gems website expanding all the time it seems like a natural step in our evolution.

The venues and dates have not been decided yet and we'll be starting small with just a few locations, but if things go as expected we'll expand to cover more and more venues.

As we get confirmed dates and venues I'll post them here.

Connection problems

2006-07-19T12:44:00.000+01:00

We have noticed today that some customers trying to access www.bridalgems.co.uk are having trouble connecting to the site. We're investigating the problem, but at this time our server is working fine and it would appear the problem is somewhere on route between the bt broadband connection and the server. We'll keep an eye on this and hopefully it will resolve soon.

UK Wedding Forum

2006-07-13T02:07:00.000+01:00

I'm not to sure how I should start this post, the UK Wedding Forum is at last back on line. The forum, which was successfully running for a few years was lost back in April because of a server failure. We have finally re-built the forum and users can now register again and start chatting. It's obviously going to take a while to get our user base built up again, but if you fancy being there at the birth of a new forum get logged on and register, it's free with no catches. We're also happy to have business users on there promoting their services, the only thing we ask is that they don't pretend to be customers and are up front about their interests.

Mid Summer Madness

2006-07-11T00:26:00.000+01:00

Well, July hasn't really held any surprises for us, this year like every other is just as crazy. The little notes with the orders, "I'm getting married next week, will my tiara be here on time", still put a smile on my face. It's not the last minute buying that amuses me, but the sudden realization that it's real people in real situations we're dealing with, and not just an order number on a screen. It's sometimes easy to forget that we're not just selling any old piece of jewellery, and the tiara or sparkling necklace is part of a girls dream, that she's probably had since a child. So not only does the influx of "urgent" orders keep us burning the midnight oil, it also gives us a good old dose of reality. Thankfully we can usually get the orders out on time, and so long as we know the deadline we normally make it.

Order Status Explained

2006-07-05T16:55:00.000+01:00

I just though I'd take a moment and explain the different payment status notices sent to customers and found when you login to your account. The payment status is either set automatically by the site or manually by the person dealing with your order, below I've listed the most common settings.

Processing:
This is when we have received your order and your payment but have not yet posted your order, this will either have been set automatically for credit card and paypal customers or manually when we've receive a cheque or bank transfer.

Pending:
Pending is used for orders awaiting bank transfer payment, awaiting cheque clearance or if there's a problem with an order that needs our attention. This status is also set for a short time for returned orders until we manually update it.

Awaiting Payment:
Pretty much explains itself, we are awaiting a cheque or postal order for the order.

Posted:
Your order is on it's way, once set to this there should also be a Royal Mail tracking number in the comments box.

Preparing [Paypal IPN]:
Once you select paypal as your chosen payment method, this status is set, this is automatically updated to processing once we receive payment, if your order remains at this status then payment has not been received.

Cancelled:
If no payment is received, we manually cancel all orders, paypal order are usually cancelled in a few hours and cheque orders about 10 days, if we receive payment for a cancelled order we return it to processing provided we still have the stock to fill it.

Returned:
This denotes an order has been returned and refunded in full partly returned orders retain the Posted status.

Delivery Problem:
Used in the unlikely event an order gets lost in the post or is damage in transit.

There are a few others but they're used mainly for testing and internal order processing, if you see a different status to your order you should contact us to see what it is. You can view your order status by logging in to your account here Wedding Shop

New Look Bridal Gems Website

2006-06-28T00:18:00.000+01:00

We've been working on our site design over the weekend to better incorporate the eBay listings into the home page. We are now using an RSS feed to update the eBay listings and have redesigned the whole front page to better fit the feed in to the page. The new look is well over due as the old front page had just about done it's time. We've tried to keep the page layout as simple and logical as possible and all the links that where on the old page should still be there with a few additions, mainly the new eBay listings. We added a new header to the page also just to complete the look. Comments and feed back are welcome and as always we'll be tweaking it a little over the next few days to iron out any remaining bugs that come up.

The biggest change on the front page is the addition of three special offers, which although I won't have time to update them all the time I will try to change them as often as possible. :-)

Bridal Gems on eBay

2006-06-26T15:32:00.000+01:00

Currently we list several hundred items a week on eBay. All listing are in an auction format with a starting price up to 40% below the website price. Although many items are bid up and sell at or above the price on the website, occasionally items finish with no bidders and you could really pick up a bargain by popping on a late bid.

To help our visitors spot the bargains, we now list the latest eBay items on our home page. The list is connected live to eBay and updates as the auctions finish. We are also able to combine eBay and website orders to save on postage costs, all we ask is that you pay for both orders the same day and put a note with the payments that you want them combined.

Why not have a peep and see if you can pick up some cheap wedding jewellery, happy bidding :-)

Nigel

New Coloured Wedding Tiaras

2006-06-22T16:18:00.000+01:00

For several months we've been trying to source a range of coloured tiaras, and although it's by no means the complete package we've finally got a few styles and colours added to the website. To start off we decided to go with a few simple rhinestone and leaf designs. Firstly we have the T79 Cream Tiara, it's sterling silver plated and set with sparkling clear crystals. The leaves are enamalled with a cream coloured coating. The tiara is a standard adult size although it can be flexed in and out to fit little bridesmaids. For those looking for other colours we've introduced the same style in pink, purple and blue. These are very similar to the standard cream tiara with the exception of the rhinestones being coloured to match the enamalled leaves. All the tiaras in this range have fitting rings on the end's of the head bands and are about 5 1/2 inches in diameter. If you'd like a look at all the colours try the links below.

We also added a very pretty and stylish Lilac Spouting Stone Tiara to the range, I did hope to have these in a few different colours but we where let down by the manufacturers. I'm not sure if we'll be able to maintain a stock of these, but I thought they were worth a mention as they really are nice.

My little rant for to-day - Returns

2006-06-15T12:47:00.000+01:00

We have a very flexible attitude to returns and understand that buying online, or by mail order you need to know you can return an item if not suitable. In our returns policy we simply ask that returns are accompanied by the original invoice and sent back in the same condition they where received within 7 days of you receiving the order. We don't have this policy to be awkward or to put people off returning orders, we have very good reasons for all three of these requirements as detailed below.

Firstly lets look at condition, any item returned must be resold and as such absolutely has to be in perfect condition, we will not and can not sell any item which is not perfect and as such we strictly enforce this policy.

Secondly is the time frame, 7 days should we think be ample time to look at the jewellery and decide if it's suitable. We re-order stock as it sells and to accept items for return outside the 7 days would totally compromise our stock control system, which is in place to ensure we have the goods in stock that our customers need.

Thirdly and finally is the invoice issue, this is the one policy that is most often ignored. I've lost count of the number of times we've receive a box with a couple of necklaces or a tiara in it and nothing else. On average we dispatch between 3 and 4 hundred items of jewellery every week. When we receive an un-accompanied return we have to search through 2-3 weeks worth of sales to attempt to isolate all customers who purchased the particular product returned, and then try to figure out who sent it back.
Even when we receive a return with a customer name on the outside of the package we still have to try to trace how payment was made and when the order was delivered.
It may well be the wish to have an easy life, but we do now insist on the invoice being returned with the order. All packages returned without the invoice are simple set to one side and not refunded, we can not make exceptions to this, however if the customer sends the invoice separately we will then sort out the return.

Well that's the end of my rant for to-day, with less than 1% of the orders we dispatch returned, it's not really a big problem, but if we can make the process simpler and more efficient it can only benefit every one.

New Dedicated Customer Service Phone Number

2006-06-12T13:52:00.000+01:00

We now have a dedicated "lo-call" customer service phone number 0845 2571715, UK customers using this number will be charge at local call rates from anywhere in the UK, and will get through directly to a customer services advisor.
In the next few months we'll be introducing our new sales phone number for telephone orders and credit card payments for customers not happy entering their credit card details online. As our website has grown so too has our offline mail order sales, and from next month we'll be able to process customers orders over the phone as well as online. I'll be posting the sales number here as soon as it goes live. The new phone numbers are just a small part of our continued commitment to provide the best possible services :-)

New Packaging Options

2006-06-06T23:15:00.000+01:00

This week we've added the option of having your tiara packaged in a presentation box, the boxes will fit most of our standard tiaras and will come pre-assembled when purchased with a tiara, or flat packed when purchased on their own.
The boxes are cardboard with a metallic finish and a clear plastic lid.

We've been trying to source these for a while now and still only have limited stock availability, but we'll keep trying to get a reliable low cost supplier so we can continue to offer this option.

The Stone and Pearl Skip Tiara, Back at last

2006-06-03T11:12:00.000+01:00

Ok so we've been sold out of one of our prettiest tiaras for over 3 weeks, well not any more, from Wednesday 7th June they'll be back in stock. The T260 "Stone and Pearl Skip tiara" is a real favourite with brides and bridesmaids, the low profile suits many who don't want the larger more overt look.

The shipment due to arrive on Wednesday will also have more of the ever popular T130 "Baby Bubbles" tiaras, which have been selling fast in the past few weeks and were very low in stock. The "Baby Bubbles" was one of the first tiaras we ever sold and is still as popular today as it was back then. The simple unclustered look makes it a favourite for bridesmaids, brides and even little flower girls. It's also sold quite alot for "First Holy Communions" in Ireland as are a few of our other small rhinestone tiaras like the T410 and T120.

We'll that is for now folks, not bad my second article on the blog and I managed to post photographs, well provided you can see them, if not then I've screwed it up again :-)

Nigel

What's happening at Bridal Gems

2006-06-01T12:28:00.000+01:00

I've decided to create this little blog to keep the world updated about Bridal Gems.
Bridal Gems was born in 2002, and has grown over the years to what it is today. We are based in Northern Ireland and sell wedding jewellery and accessories through out the world. Our aim is to supply simple low cost jewellery without any hassel or pressure on the prospective purchaser. Currently we only sell online, both through our website www.bridalgems.co.uk and ebay.co.uk

I plan to update this blog every time something new or interesting happens, this could be daily or maybe even weekly. If we run into trouble or have problems this is where I'll get it off my chest and possibly even find solutions, in my ramblings :-)

Please feel free to comment on my articles and don't hold back, this is where I want to hear the good and bad side of things. If you're not happy with any aspect of our service, or if you've had the best shopping experience ever, let us know.

That's it for now, but I'll certainly be back soon.