• by Larry Dobrow , March 15, 2004

When Fairchild Publications purchased Elegant Bride from Pace Communications in July, pundits practically tripped over themselves trying to make sense of the deal. Why, they wondered, would Fairchild waste its time trying to resuscitate what was considered in some circles a dying brand? Similarly, why would Fairchild almost invite internecine warfare by jumping into a category dominated by Advance Publications sibling Condé Nast?

These questions should be answered with tomorrow's Tuesday's arrival of a revamped Elegant Bride. "Revamped," actually, might not be putting it strongly enough: the magazine shares little in common with its previous incarnation beyond a name. The title now boasts a distinctly upscale bent. In tone and design, it resembles Vogue as much as it does its bridal-category peers. It seems to cater to a slightly older audience. Oh - and there's significantly more than a smattering of A-list advertisers this time around.

In short, the new Elegant Bride seems a natural fit alongside Fairchild titles like W and Details, a fact not lost on publisher Andy Amill. "To be frank, once the industry realized who was buying the book, there was pretty quick acceptance," he says. "Essentially, we were creating a brand new magazine, and we wanted it to have that upscale Fairchild feel to it."

While Amill disputes that the Elegant Bride brand had lost much of its market cachet ("it has always had equity with the consumer and within the bridal market"), he acknowledges that the overhaul was probably overdue. That said, even its biggest critics didn't anticipate the brisk turnaround, especially given the timing of the purchase. Arriving towards the end of the 2004 ad-planning process, Elegant Bride still managed to lure many of the segment's most prestigious names, including Vera Wang and Oscar de la Renta. The first issue weighs in at 155 ad pages.

"From the very first minute, we got the marketing community very involved," Amill recalls. "We outlined our plans and let them know exactly where we were coming from." Still, he admits that some marketers have taken the wait-and-see approach common for a new or revamped magazine. He's banking on hearing from what he dubs "the fence-sitters" before the end-of-April deadline for EB's second 2004 issue.

Though the first Elegant Bride is heavy on fashion and design, Amill believes that non-endemic advertisers - even those in categories that rarely patronize bridal magazines, like financial services and insurance companies - should listen to what he has to say. His reasoning: the older (average age of 27), affluent bride that the mag will attempt to attract should soon begin charting her post-marriage financial course. He goes against conventional wisdom by suggesting that these readers are at a point in their lives where they're eager to forge new brand relationships.

"They probably decide between Jif and Skippy at age three," he concedes. "But they have the inclination and income to spend smartly on this big event in their lives. Think about the psyche of the bride - at no other point are they so open to spending, spending, spending. It's a perfect time [for marketers] to get close to them."

Indeed, nearly 2.5 million people get married in the U.S. every year, and they spend more freely during the six months before and after their wedding day than during any other 12-month stretch in their lives. $72 billion was spent on weddings in the U.S. in 2002, plus an additional $19 billion on wedding gift registries and $8 billion on honeymoons. "The echo boomers - the kids of baby boomers - are waiting longer to get married," Amill observes. "They'll have far more money to bring into it than the newlyweds of any other era."

As for the rivalry with Condé Nast's Modern Bride and Bride's, Amill dismisses it with a snort: "They're very big brands with a much different mission." Martha Stewart Weddings, on the other hand, has a "how-to, formulaic tone. We don't see ourselves taking that preachy approach. Our readers can make decisions on their own."

Elegant Bride's cover price is $5.99. The quarterly title's distribution will be 500,000, a figure Amill plans to stick with for the time being.