Is the Recession Finally Over

BBC News - Was 2013 the year NI's economy finally started to recover?.
The UK and Ireland were in deep recession long before ordinary people realized. In fact 2 years into the recession a conversation with a guy from Wicklow just showed me how out of touch ordinary people were. The guy reckoned the recession wasn't affecting him because he didn't borrow or over spend during the boom years. Now at first sight this seems pretty reasonable but if you look deeper into the statement you soon realize how out of touch we all were. This guy earned just under €800 euro a week, a good wage for the manual job he did. Now here's the problem, this guy didn't borrow any money, he only spent what he earned and he didn't get into debt. The problem here is where the money came from to pay his €800 wages, it was borrowed or at least somewhere down the line the money was borrowed. So through no fault of his own this guy was affected by the recession. Six months after the chat the guy had lost his job and was in a new one paying half his original wage, he was lucky enough to be able to adapt and because he hadn't over stretched he is now surviving on his 50% wage cut. The main point here is that it took over 2 years for this guy to see the recession in action.
The thing here is that just as it took 2 years to see the recession at the beginning it's going to be the same in the opposite direction, and being out of recession in no way reflects on ordinary people for a least a couple of years. What makes it worse is the fact the the economy shrunk so much,  being out of recession does not immediately equate to a recovery, so it could take many years longer for us ordinary people to see it.
This is not meant to be a depressing post, we have to start somewhere and the news of recovery in 2013 is great, just don't expect magic, we're still a few years away from where we all want to be but we're getting there.
Just like every other business at Bridal Gems the recession has hit hard, we have struggled trying to keep things going over the past 4 years and are always trying new ways to re-invent our business and keep our current market position. This isn't an easy process and we've had to make hard decisions over the past few years, some good some not so good, but over all and with hind sight I don't think there was much we could have done differently. For example we closed our shop Glitzy Bitz in Enniskillen before Christmas, the shop had been opened in an effort to increase our market share and get more local business. It was only there for a couple of years and just didn't work out. It hasn't affected our online business in any negative was so it was probably worth a shot at the time, but again with hind sight more effort in the website might have been better use of our resources.
So regardless of what the future brings, we'll keep the struggle going and hopefully in the next couple of years business will start to grow again and we will finally SEE the recession ending.

Wedding Tiaras

A wedding tiara is more than just a piece of jewellery, for thousands of years tiaras have been worn as decorations and status symbols. Today the humble wedding tiara can add sparkle and glamour in equal measure, the bride wearing a beautiful rhinestone crystal tiara can feel like a princess.
A brides tiara is as much a keepsake of the wedding day as other more obvious things like the video or photo album. Often tiaras are passed from generation to generation as the something borrowed on the wedding day, a great way to keep traditions going. It should never be underestimated just how precious a gift of a tiara can be, be it new or secondhand a bride getting a tiara is going to treasure it for the rest of her life.
Bridal Gems have some great advice on their website about looking after all crystal jewellery and there's even some information on how to store tiaras. This is of course important if you plan to keep your tiara for the next generation or even just to keep as a keepsake.
Don't be fooled into thinking that because a tiara is not very expensive, it's any less valuable than a piece of jewellery costing thousands of pounds. Value is in the sentiment of the piece and not necessarily in what it costs.

Amanda Côté Jewellery

2014 sees the introduction of the charming Amanda Coté collection of beautiful jewellery. The collection includes silver, gold and platinum plated finishes with a range of glistening crystals in various colours.
With prices starting at under £10 and loads of deals available these are sure to be popular with our 2014 brides and bridesmaids.

Below are just a few of the stunning necklaces we've added to our 2014 catalogue and we're adding more all the time as they become available.

Why not pop along to Glitzy Bitz and check out the full collection

Grey Wedding Jewellery Set

One of the benefits of the new website is the ability to easily group products together and offer them as a single pack at a discount price. So today we've put together our really popular silver grey jewellery and made it into a pack.

The beautiful Grey pearl and clear crystal necklace is accompanied by the matching bracelet and earrings, and the set is completed by a nice grey feather and mesh fascinator.
Check it out here Grey Wedding Jewellery Set

Website Software Upgrade

Well after 10 years using different versions of osCommerce to power our website this weekend saw us move to prestashop. The decision to move was a difficult one as the two shopping carts are very different, but the final decision was really down to the fact that the core of osc is now over 10 years old and quite honestly the osC project now seems dead with the long promised version 3 still not near production ready. Short term we're sure there'll be a little disruption and even a fall in google ranking might happen but we think for the long term benefit of the website a newer more modern approach was essential.
The new site will allow us to offer everything the old one did with a few extras such as being able to offer related products to purchase with each other and even grouping products together for purchase in a single click.
The benefits of the new site are probably too great to list here but if you check it out you'll see whats on offer.

For UK and Ireland customers you can see our UK Wedding Jewellery here.

Illusion Necklace and Earring Sets

Our range of illusion necklace and earring sets are becoming more and more popular. Today we launched a new style. The Blue Double Drop Necklace and Earrings Set, pictured here it's just perfect for the bride who wants to add a little colour to her look.

Jewellery Making

Since the addition of the Glitzy Bitz handmade jewellery range, we've been working on adding some jewellery making supplies to our product portfolio. We now have a dedicated section for any one who wants to make their own jewellery, from here you can buy beads, pearls and findings. We've also made a few videos to show how different jewellery is made and we're adding these as soon as they're ready.
Jewellery making can be fun and if you're making it for your wedding it can be very satisfying to know you've done it yourself.

New Home Page Layout

We've been working on a new design front page for bridal gems this week. While updating the page we also added some new functions, most importantly we now have a selection of random products displayed with links to the corresponding category below the product. It's still a work in progress but the general layout is finished.
We decided with this update to re-instate the link to Bridal Gems USA in the page header, the US site is now run on a newly designed site and in the near future (depending on customer feedback) we'll be working on moving Bridal Gems UK to the same design.

Postage Prices

This month we've introduced a fixed rate postage charge for all orders depending on destination. The price is the same regardless of the size of the order.

Clearance Centre

We've opened a section of the Bridal Gems website to list clearance items. Over the years we've gathered up quite a few pieces that we no longer stock on our websites. Most are perfectly good items which have just been discontinued or displayed in our shop and we've decided to clear them our at heavily discounted prices rather than let them sit about gathering dust :-)

Click the links above or visit our Wedding Jewellery Clearance centre for more details

Technical Problem 24th January

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

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

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

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

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 3 Get 1 Free

Buy 2 Get 1 Free

2011 Price Increases

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

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

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

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

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.