THE CHIC BRIDE

Here comes the bride, but now she's all dressed in high fashion. It comes compliments of Couture Bride, the year-and-a-half old bridal salon that boasts designers such as Vera Wang, Monique Lhuillier, Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera.

In the past, brides in Las Vegas who wanted a name-dropping wedding dress had to travel to L.A. or Manhattan to get their fix. Now, they just hop in their car and head to Summerlin.

As clients walk in the doors of Couture Bride, a wave of ivory bridal gowns absorbs them. Each hangs on a rack from a ceiling wire and floats in mid-air like a pearl-hued balloon, begging to be played with. The owners -- Dawn Heaney, Annette Cirillo-Bergen and Flora Petakas Marinelli -- offer assistance but, as Cirillo-Bergen says, the dresses sell themselves.

"If they come here first," she said, "our quality will overshadow all the others and they'll be back." The construction, fit and fabrics of a designer gown trump that of a dress sold at a 20,000-square-foot bridal store where women fight for dressing rooms and attention, she says.

When the bride-to-be plucks her selections from the rack at Couture Bride, she has only two dressing rooms to choose from. And one of the co-owners -- all of whom hail from Queens, N.Y. -- accompanies her behind the curtain.

There are two reasons for this: Wedding gowns are as easy to get into as a Hannah Montana concert and most of the dresses here come in sample sizes (the bridal equivalent of a ready-to-wear size 2). If a client requires a bigger size, they get clipped into the sample gown to capture the look. If they decide they want to buy it, the proper size is ordered without the bride trying on her proper size first. It's one of the disadvantages of going designer.

The other would be the price, but most women who stroll into a salon called Couture Bride know what they're getting into.

Either they have the bank account to comfortably back up their taste for the finer things in life or they're label-obsessed. "If you wear Christian Louboutins and Manolo Blahniks, you're going to want to get married in a designer dress," Cirillo-Bergen said.

Her partner, Heaney, who has worked for Vera Wang and Oscar de la Renta's bridal divisions in New York, sees another inspiration for expanding the dress budget. "People say you only wear it one day for eight hours but you know what?" she said, straightening up in her chair. "You're going to see the picture every morning when your alarm clock goes off, every time you go into the office and every time you go to your mom's to eat. So you better like it."

Both agree that the average bride can be intimidated by the concept of a designer gown. Donning a dress by a designer who makes frequent cameos on the red carpet seems out of their league. On the contrary, while some dresses reach price points of $18,000, you can find a Vera Wang for $2,650. And, to open the door to that bride who's right on the border, Couture Bride has brought in designers that start at $1,500: Sonia Cholette and Augusta Jones.

Clients become comfortable at a formerly uncomfortable price point when they trust the source, be it the designer, the owners or both. When you're treated like a bride and not a commission, the relationship turns intimate. Cirillo-Bergen and Heaney (Petakas Marinelli lives in New York still where she's launching Badgley Mischka's bridal collection) have become used to crying on the job. When the bride comes out in THE gown and her mother leans her head to the side and clutches her heart, you can't help but get wrapped up, Cirillo-Bergen said.

"That's the difference between us and anyone in Las Vegas," she said. "This is our money that we've put into (Couture Bride)... If she doesn't look good, we don't look good and that could make or break our lifestyles."

Couture Bride is located at 950 S. Durango Drive. For more information, call 647-7778 or visit couturebridelv.com.

Contact fashion reporter Xazmin Garza at xgarza@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0477.