Making ends meet by running a 33-acre goat dairy farm isn’t easy. In fact, it’s very hard. But when Penny Bowers-Schebal and her husband inherited the property from his mother in 2016 they decided to give it a try. After a couple of years spent raising and milking a herd of American Alpine goats, the ends still weren’t meeting so Penny drew from her background in retail and opened Formality Bridal, a store that sells wedding gowns.
Originally located in an abandoned church in tiny Geneva, Ohio, the store’s hopes didn’t look much better than the farm’s. But Penny put an ingenious twist in her business model. She contacted and developed relationships with wedding boutiques from around the country, buying up last-year’s dresses that had been used as store samples. She then offered a wide selection of these beautiful gowns to brides for a maximum price of $999. That’s roughly $1,000 less than the average cost of a wedding dress today. Customers quickly began coming to her from far beyond her small, rural area.
“We came onto something without even realizing the potential,” Penny tells Davis Michaelsen on the latest episode of Grow Getters, a Farm Journal podcast focused on how producers are creating new businesses to diversify their ag operations and generate additional income. “It’s a business located in northeast Ohio, but the opportunity is nationwide,” Penny says. “We bring in bridal gowns from the whole country and we bring in brides from the whole country.”
While her husband ran the farm, she built Formality Bridal, eventually adding a second location in Erie, Pennsylvania. The business model clearly works. “There are benefits on both ends,” she says. “It benefits me because it helps support our lifestyle, it benefits the bride because she gets a significant savings, and it benefits the original bridal store that doesn’t have the room to store something that can’t be ordered anymore.”
She tells the podcast audience that she made a few pivots as she developed the business, including a name change for the store. As far as advice for grow getters thinking about a side business of their own, Penny says, “You need a supportive person behind you or you really won’t have the confidence to continue. The second thing is to trust your vision. It’s okay to have two very separate lives. Don’t be afraid of it. You can do farming and something else. I often say that I wear barn boots in the morning and pearls in the afternoon and that’s okay.”
Watch the full interview on Grow Getters
Visit Formality Bridal online at https://formalitybridal.com
