Toula’s staff aims to make brides dress dreams come true
By Kalea Hall
CANFIELD
Erin Fulton was nearly a year away from her big day when she walked into Toula’s Bridal and Formal Wear in Canfield last week.
With four of her nine bridesmaids there to help her make the big decision, Fulton took on the challenge of finding a dress.
She was in good hands, and had thousands of options surrounding her.
Fulton’s goal: Find a simple and elegant dress.
The goal for Mirna Dibo, an 11-year bridal consultant for Toula’s: Find the dress desired.
In the end, Fulton and her bridesmaids left the shop smiling and laughing.
“She was so helpful, and before I knew it, she grabbed the perfect dress,” Fulton said. “I am relieved a little bit.”
For the past 30 years, consultants and shop owner Toula Kostoglou, have fulfilled the dress dreams for thousands of brides.
“I always loved fashion and creating,” she said.
After three decades in the business, she still does. On Tuesday, she had a fitting booked every 15 minutes, but she still gracefully glided around the dresses with sophistication.
It’s prom season, and almost wedding season for the store, located at 4373 Boardman-Canfield Road, so it’s been busy and it’s about to get even busier.
The business she’s created over the years is not something she would have dreamed of back when she first started sewing.
The Greece native started custom sewing for people in the 1980s. By 1985, she started her store with a focus on prom wear.
“It was a great year with prom, and then slowly we got into bridal,” she said.
The inventory was much smaller then than it is now, but top-notch lines always filled the racks.
Now, bridal is the big part of the business — so much so that Toula twice expanded the business to accommodate her bridal customers. Last year, she had a room built for the mothers of the brides.
And to think it all started because, to her, sewing was fun.
“It was a great experience, and even to this day, people will come in and want me to help them,” she said.
Most of the business comes from referrals, and several customers who came to Toula for a prom dress came back for their wedding dress.
They know that somewhere in the sea of white gowns made by Enzoani, KITTYCHEN Couture, Maggie Sottero and several others is their gown. And they also know Toula and her staff will be able to find it.
“They know I will tell them the truth,” she said. “Even if I don’t like something.”
The Knot, an XO Group Inc. company that provides ideas and advice on weddings in print and online, awarded Toula’s twice in 2013 and this year as a best vendor in Northeast Ohio.
But what’s more rewarding are the comments left about Toula’s on TheKnot.com website, such as this one: “Toula’s staff made me feel like the princess I wanted to be for my big day.”
The brides may come in knowing what they want, but the staff serves up the dream dress and then perfects it to the bride’s fit.
Kostoglou and her staff are like family. Considering the stressful times, and late nights they have had, they have to be.
“I have great seamstresses that I have all the faith in the world in,” she said.
Virginia Reash has been at Toula’s for 21 years, but her sewing experience covers more than 40 years.
She got into it because it provided a creative outlet for her, and it she has stuck with it because it still does.
“I love to sew,” she said. “I do just about anything.”