By Marie Baxley
Photography by Andy Baxter Photography
Our Southern Lady of the Year and star of reality television’s Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta encourages women over 50 to pursue their dreams.
Bridal world giant Lori Allen is famous for getting people to say “yes.” In the midst of high drama and often tears, her distinctive voice coaxes, questions, and soothes emotional brides trying to select a gown for the big day. But “yes” takes on a whole new meaning in Lori’s own life where perseverance, a positive attitude, and business acumen have combined for a booming business, a battle against cancer, and now a new book, Say Yes to What’s Next.
“It came to me in the shower one day. There’s really not anything geared to women over 50 that motivates,” says 60-year-old Lori, whose bustling wedding shop, Bridals by Lori, is the location for both Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta and Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids on TLC.
More than 1 million people watched each episode last year as Lori and her sidekick, fashion director Monte Durham, bantered and helped brides decide: Bling or no bling? Full skirt or straight? White or ivory? And on Bridesmaids, the witty pair elicited agreement between brides and their attendants on age-old questions of length, color, neckline, and more. The new season combines the two shows and is airing this winter, later than usual, after a terrible spill on a tulle bridal train knocked Lori unconscious and halted production.
While she’s still recovering from two shattered wrists, Lori’s cracked ribs and facial injuries have healed, and her attention is fully on the book, due for release this summer. Written for women beyond their child-bearing years, it broaches a variety of topics, from being a mother-in-law and caring for aging parents to maintaining friendships and achieving goals. “It’s about motivating ourselves, and if we haven’t found our passion, finding our passion, and aging with sass and class,” says Lori, recently honored as Southern Lady magazine’s Southern Lady of the Year.
Woven throughout her book are Lori’s experiences as a daughter, wife, mother, and businesswoman. Bridals by Lori, the 25,000-square-foot mecca of Southern wedding salons, has such a worldwide reputation that even a Russian princess has shopped there. Because of its size and popularity, the TLC network contacted Lori in 2008 about expanding their already popular Say Yes to the Dress show based in New York.
Early in her career, Lori envisioned making shopping for a wedding dress a special experience rather than just a day at the mall. As Bridals by Lori expanded in the 1990s, she saw that people were willing to travel to a destination salon. “It’s not something you buy off the internet. This is a something—a touch, a feel, and a connection with a dress.
This touch-feel connection has to happen in a store,” Lori explains. The show has pushed the idea even further, making friends and family part of the occasion. “I think Say Yes to the Dress made shopping even a bigger thing than it used to be, and now they bring large entourages,” she says.
Four decades ago, weeks after graduating from college, Lori launched her shop in a 1,000-square-foot space with Wedgwood blue walls, four pull-curtain changing rooms, and her mother, Jean Burns, as an unpaid sales assistant.
“We had one mannequin and her hand kept falling off. I would change her 500 times a day because it was so boring,” says Lori, who was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but spent her formative years in Fairfield, Ohio.
“We were kind of the misfit Southern family,” she recalls. “My mother was the only one making biscuits and okra in Ohio.” Her family later returned to the South when her father, Carroll, an insurance executive, accepted a job in Atlanta.
As she strolls through her chic, cleanly styled three-level megastore, she pauses and smiles proudly as a bride in a sparkling, strapless couture gown basks in the excitement of her final fitting, the staff tending to her like royalty. From the store’s shipping area where thousands of frocks arrive each year to the famous runway where television brides strut, Lori stops to chat with clients, floor managers, and clerks—even posing for a photo for a construction worker whose roommate adores the show. “I wasn’t sure it was you, but then I heard the voice,” he says.
Building her business has taken time, persistence, and patience. She tells entrepreneurs just starting out, “Don’t think that you’re going to open the doors and have nine million people.” She believes in being hands on and still assists patrons, a trait she says has contributed to success. “I’m out there. I’m mingling. I listen to what brides say.”
As a child, Lori played dress up in her mother’s bridal gown, often adding her own touches. “They [her family] would get up on Saturday morning and I would have the bridal gown on—with fake flowers—watching cartoons,” she says.
Her aunt June Cottingham also influenced Lori’s career choice. She owned June’s Brides, a wedding business in Birmingham. “She worked really hard. I saw her love of bridal, and she was an inspiration for me in all this,” says Lori, who has always followed fashion trends. But it was her dad who convinced her to major in business at Columbia College, a decision she doesn’t regret. “If you want to go into business you need a business degree, not a fashion degree.”
What makes shopping for a bridal gown so special? “I think this dress shopping experience is not about the dress, even though we show dresses. It’s about the people who you bring that are important to your life agreeing on this next step that you are taking.”
That’s where it gets interesting, especially on TV. There isn’t much Lori, Monte, and their crew haven’t seen—from families fighting on camera to touching moments like a bride in a wheelchair recovering from a car accident and hoping to walk down the aisle with her father and her physical therapist by her side.
Some women are hard on their daughters. “Mothers will say, ‘You’re not walking down the aisle in that,’ or ‘I’m not going if you wear that.’ You’ll see big tears roll down and you’re thinking, ‘Why would you say that?’” says Lori.
The network picks about 100 brides from thousands of applications received each month (available on the TLC and Bridals by Lori websites). Only about 25 make it on the show each season, which takes six months to shoot.
Lori and Monte are not given any information about the customers. “It’s like putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. We have to work fast. What’s going on? What’s the problem?” says Lori, who offers about 15 couture bridal lines with more than 1,000 gowns, starting at $2,800.
Designer veils, jewelry, tiaras, and other top-of-the-line merchandise are available as well as bargains sold off the rack on the first level of the store. In addition to brides and bridesmaids, the boutique also handles tuxedos, social occasion dresses, and mother of the bride ensembles. Lori’s husband, Eddie, who she married while still in college, recently sold his bridal shop software company to play a more intergral role in daily operations of the store.
Which is Lori’s favorite wedding? “I think both my children’s. They were over-the-top. I have not been to anything to compare to them.” Daughter Mollie Surratt’s special day involved six (yes, six) designer gowns, while son Cory’s bride, Becca, had three.
Mollie was married in 2008, before Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta. “She worked with the designers and Monte on my dresses,” says Mollie, 37. “I changed several times to honor some of our favorite designers, and it was magical.”
It was Mollie who urged Lori to go public with her breast cancer, diagnosed in 2012—a year she almost skipped her mammogram. Lori got the call from her doctor as she drove her husband to the hospital to have cancer surgery. After Eddie’s operation, she and Mollie went out to lunch and pondered the news.
“Sometimes you take a leap of faith. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.” —Lori Allen, Owner of Bridals by Lori
“Mollie said, ‘Mom, you have this huge platform to share this story,’” says Lori, who has been cancer-free nearly eight years and spends October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, sharing her story and urging women to get mammograms. Her show, Say Yes to the Cure: Lori’s Fight, won a Realscreen award, a top honor for reality television.
Mollie says her mom’s positive, can-do attitude played a major role in her life growing up. “My brother and I agree that she always has been and always will be our biggest cheerleader. She managed to be a working mom before it was commonplace, growing a successful business and never missing a baseball game or dance recital.”
It is this optimistic confidence and tenacity Lori hopes to convey in her new book as a means to inspire others. “I don’t want to ever come across like everything is perfect in my life because it has been far from it. I just feel like I am a person who sticks with things, keeps forging ahead,” she says.
She draws strength from life’s difficulties, reflecting that both the cancer diagnosis and her terrible fall came in the month of April. “We all have Aprils in our life,” she says. “What are you going to do with that April? How are you going to get to May?”
When she turned 60, people asked if she planned to retire. “I said, ‘Why are you asking me that?’ I have no intention of retiring,” she says. “So many of us have worked, and I feel like we have so much to offer.”
Energizing and motivating women is a goal of her book. It’s after 50, Lori says, that women have saved some money, the kids are gone so you have time, and you still have energy. If you do retire, she urges that you make a plan for the future. “You have a wealth of experience,” she says. “It’s about looking at life as the next chapter, not the last chapter.”
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