A Bride’s Best Friend: Randy Fenoli

As a fashion designer and bridal consultant on TLC’s hit, reality television series Say Yes to the Dress, Randy Fenoli’s fun personality and ability to advise and calm overwhelmed brides has captivated audiences across the country. His expertise is not only a talent, but also a gift. 

Coming from humble beginnings, Fenoli was raised on an Illinois farm and taught himself to sew at age 9. He then went on to graduate from The Fashion Institute of Technology and immediately designed and released two bridal dress collections afterwards. His fate as a wedding dress aficionado had been sealed.

After 19 seasons and several spinoffs of Say Yes to the Dress, Fenoli has become Kleinfeld Bridal’s most trusted expert to help brides find the gown of their dreams. He knows what to look for from a dress, and a bride-to-be. 

OFM had the opportunity to chat more with Fenoli about the show’s success, how COVID-19 has hit the wedding industry, what drew him to designing wedding gowns, and latest edition, Say Yes to the Dress: In Sickness and In Health, which launched on the Discovery+ app January 4. Hi, Randy! Thank you for taking some time to chat with me, and Happy New Year! What are you looking forward to in 2021?
To be able to get back to normal life. I cannot wait to hug my brides and see their happy faces in person. Our incredible team pulled together and made these virtual appointments absolutely amazing, but for me, there is nothing better than standing alongside a bride and sharing that emotion and the interaction with family and friends.

What can audiences expect from the new spinoff, Say Yes to the Dress: In Sickness and In Health, that will premiere on the new Discovery+ app?
It is going to be so exciting! What’s great about this series is that we have figured out how to jump through hoops to reach brides whose weddings were canceled or postponed. This has been quite a year, so for us to be able to find a way to help them, that is an amazing accomplishment for 2020. We were able to help these brides find a dress and say yes virtually. 

What are you most excited about for this spinoff?
Say Yes to the Dress has always been an inspiring show. A series that is full of hope, and that theme of love continues with In Sickness and In Health, which our audience will love. It is about taking an appointment into someone’s home. It is a very unique experience to do this outside of a bridal salon.

How bad has the pandemic hit the wedding industry, and do you think it will ever be able to fully recover?
That is a good question. I’ll be honest with you, Denny, a lot of these salons are mom-and-pop salons. They are basically living paycheck to paycheck, and they are struggling and having to close their doors. It is going to be very difficult. When the pandemic started, I had a collection of around 22 new dresses ready to show in Amsterdam, and I was not able to show those. To this day, I have, like, 150 dresses that are still stuck in a storage facility in Kentucky that I have not been able to ship out because weddings have been put on hold, postponed, canceled, or whatever. 

So, I am paying for storage for those dresses. In the bridal industry, you may not know this, but a store puts in an order, and we pay for the fabric, the production, the shipping, and the fees to get them imported in. Because of the virus, fewer flights have been coming in from overseas. There are now limited spaces on flights. It used to cost about $25 to ship a dress, but now it is costing me, like, $150. I am actually losing money on every, single dress I sell.

How has Kleinfeld been adjusting?
It has been really rough. During the pandemic, Jacques, the designer of the store who does the windows and everything, he literally transformed the entire salon. We are only allowed 50 percent capacity, so he put up sanitizer stations in all the rooms, Plexiglas around old pedestals, like on three sides. Brides can only come in with one person for their entourage, they can Zoom in the rest. Brides can only try on so many dresses now, and once they have tried those on, they go on a rack, and they go into a room, where they are then sanitized. Such planning and thoughtfulness have been put into making sure that the brides and staff are safe.What advice have you been offering brides during these troubling times?
I understand how important this wedding is to brides, but the best advice I can give them is that first, they need to realize just how lucky they are to have someone. Someone who is with them and wants to marry them. That they are engaged, going to get married, and that love is there. They are able to share it during this pandemic and get closer and be together. It is a true test of what their future is going to be like. If you can be locked up together for six months and get along, I think that is going to be a true test of how your marriage is going to work out.

You will be able to eventually have this wedding, and I think when you do, it is going to be even better than it would been because you had time to really step back and not make it just this big, over-the-top spectacle. I think it will be more thoughtful and personal. For that reason, I think their weddings are going to be much more sentimental and poignant.

Say Yes to the Dress began in 2007 and has produced 19 seasons, as well as several spinoffs. Why do you think the show has been such a success all these years?
I will tell you my personal take on it. In the beginning, I said, ‘Absolutely not. I will not do this show.’ Now, doing the show, one, we do not script the show. I won’t even meet the bride until the cameras are rolling because I want that first meeting to be genuine. I do not want to know anything about her or the entourage. I want to walk into that appointment like I would any other appointment and it be caught on camera, so you get the real reaction. I think the fact that it is real reality TV, I think the audience can tell. 

Beyond that, Say Yes to the Dress addresses some deep subjects. Like, a father is not going to be able to live long enough to walk the daughter down the aisle. We had the girl who lost her leg in the Boston bombing, a girl with a bionic arm, a girl who lost her dress in the floods in Louisiana, girls who come in and have such horrific family members, whether it be their mother, brother, or whoever. Friends that treat them so horribly, or they have body issues. Even though we go through this throughout the entire appointment, at the end, you always end up with this couple walking down the aisle in love. 

[Also, there is] this beautiful song that was written by Kristian Bush, specifically for our show. He came as a guest, and he was so inspired by being there, he created the song for us. To have that song being played and seeing these people walk down the aisle and sharing their love, I think it gives people hope. During this pandemic, I think that is one of the greatest things that we need right now. Just some hope. 

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If the country ever sees normalcy again, do you have any plans to film another season of Say Yes to the Dress: America? Words cannot describe how beautiful it was to see a mass wedding like that.
Oh, God, I would love to. I do not know if we are going to renew that series, but I have to say, that finale was absolutely the most amazing experience I have ever been through in my entire life. Just everything that happened that day was so unscripted. There was so much happening and so much beauty and inclusion. We had two gay couples that got married, and it was just wonderful to see people come together from every state in America. With all my heart, I truly wish we would do another season.

You grew up with a love of fashion and began sewing dresses when you were 9 years old. What drew you specifically to wedding gowns?
In my third semester at FIT, they had a contest. If there was a contest for anything, my teachers were always like, ‘You got to enter this; you got to enter this.’ Well, the contest was really for fourth-semester to eighth-semester students, and I was only in my third semester. Because I had such a passion for evening wear, I did female impersonation for about 10 years, I always wanted to do evening wear, but this bridal contest came along, and I entered it. 

We were supposed to design a mood-board bridal and bridesmaid design. Me being an overachiever, I designed five mood boards, five bridal designs, and five bridesmaid designs. When the judges came in, they were supposed to choose the top 10, and they chose all five of mine not knowing it was the same student. Whoever was in charge was like, ‘Listen, you have to go back and choose one of these and go back and choose four others because this is the same guy.’

One of the judges was Vivian Dessy Diamond, who passed away in 2019. She spotted my drawings and said, ‘We have to get this kid.’ They called me, and her husband owned The Diamond Collection Bridal Company, and they said they wanted to hire me. They wanted to give me my own name and label. I am the only student who graduated from FIT with their name on two labels. 

I got thrust into it, but the reason I love bridal so much is because this is the single-most-important garment a woman will probably ever wear in her life. She has thought and dreamt about it, so for me, it is such a personal garment. They bring in their mothers, fathers, best friends, and everyone to help them with this decision because it is so important to them. When that bride puts on a dress, and she feels beautiful, sometimes for the very first time in their lives because they have had body issues, but when they step into that dress, look in the mirror, feel beautiful, start to tear up, and say yes to that dress, it is like winning an Academy Award for me. Every, single time. It never gets dull. 

Since you mentioned female impersonation, will we ever see a return of Brandi Alexander?
I would love to go back and do it, but I do not see it happening in my future. Those were some of the most incredible years of my entire life, and I had so much fun, but for me, I was a female impersonator, which is completely different from what you see today.

Now, you have shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, and it has become this over-the-top caricature of drag, and that is just not what I did. We had group discussions on current events during Miss Gay America, and they drilled you throughout the entire pageant. I was so proud of that and it taught me so much, but today, it’s like, you can throw on six-inch lashes and a pink wig that goes six feet tall in the air, and you are a drag queen. It is a caricature of the art form of what I did. It is just not the same as what it was. Do you have a favorite and least favorite bridal trend?
If you look back at the 1980s bridal, all you saw were big leg of mutton sleeves that came down to a point. You saw a basque waist and a big, gathered skirt with lace, pearl, and sequin applique all over. Every single dress looked the same. Nowadays, literally every single dress is different and unique. If you want to look bohemian, princess, Cinderella, however you want to look, you can have any look that really represents who you are. Having a dress that is personal, speaks to who you are, and makes you feel beautiful is much more important than just putting on a white dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves. I would say that is my favorite trend, although it makes it much more difficult as a designer because you have to design every look under the sun and be inclusive.

My least favorite thing, and I design a lot of dresses. Some of them are super, super sexy because brides want that, but for me, if I had a daughter walking down the aisle, I would not allow her to wear some of my dresses. I do not think about me when I design; I always think of the bride and what she wants.

We had a girl who said she wanted to look naked on her wedding day, and she literally came out in see-through dresses. I’m like, why is she doing this? Her in-laws, grandparents are going to be there. They don’t want to see her naked. Her husband is going to see her naked later that night. I mean, come on. It is more based in religion and tradition, so I think brides should be a little more mindful and respectful.

I would probably say that would be my least favorite trend. Brides are like, I paid for these titties and want to show them off. Well, honey, we really don’t want to see them. Everybody knows you paid for them. They are perky as a rock; we get it.

Does Kleinfeld accept walk-ins, or has the show made the show so exclusive that it is by appointment only?
We are by appointment only right now because of the pandemic, but there is a little leeway. They always say we are fully booked, but if somebody is from out of town or whatever and needs to get in, we can squeeze them in somehow. I have seen it almost on a daily basis. The owners go out of their way to take every bride and make sure they have a personal experience. They give them their home phone numbers, their cell phone numbers to these brides and say, listen, if there is anything you need, you can call me 24 hours a day. I want to make sure that you are taken care of. They really do take care of their brides.

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What can people in this industry do to bring more attention to America’s acceptance of same-gender weddings?
Good question. Well, watch Say Yes to the Dress! We have had many same-sex couples and also a transgender bride. We are very inclusive. No matter what size, shape, age, ethnicity, TLC and Discovery are very big on supporting that. I am so proud to work for them because they are such an inclusive company.

What is the best way to handle a bridezilla?
I do not see them as bridezillas. I see them as someone who is under so much pressure from peers, friends, and family. Watching all these shows where everybody is getting married, there is so much out there. Everyone is looking gorgeous, so brides want to find the perfect dress. They come in, and they are under so much stress. Am I going to find a dress, am I going to look good in it, will I be able to afford it? It comes out all wrong, but I will say, and I’m not bragging, but I do have a gift of truly listening to them. Hearing them and calming them down.

I say, listen, I have been doing this for 30 years, and I have yet to see a bride walk down the aisle naked. We will find a dress. You may have to kiss a lot of frogs and try on a lot of dresses, but I will stay here and pull every damn dress in the store until we find you one. Some of the managers hated me because I will not let go. They sometimes have to take a break, come back, or go to another salon that has different designers, but eventually, they will find their dress. I just have to let them know that. Don’t worry. It is going to happen, just like you found your fiancé. You are going to find your dress.

Which celebrity would you love to design a wedding dress for?
Oprah Winfrey. She is such a beautiful woman. I think she had such a horrific childhood that she has spent her whole life trying to do good in the world, and she has struggled so much with body image issues. She is so real and raw; it would be such an honor to dress her and make her truly feel beautiful on her wedding day. She has always been at the top of my list. I have met her a few times, and she has such a beautiful heart and soul.

What is the most ridiculous request you have gotten from a bride?
I have two answers for that. One bride we had was a nudist, and she wanted to have a nude wedding. It took everything we could to get her into a dress that she actually liked. The other request, a bride wanted to get married underwater. I was truly afraid of her going underwater, getting tangled up in the dress, and not being able to swim and come out alive on the other end. The wedding did happen underwater, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Those are the two most outrageous requests that I can recall.

Before we wrap up, what’s next for Randy Fenoli?
Oh, gosh! I don’t even know where to begin. I really want to grow the brand and expand into other things besides just dresses. I want to do bridesmaids and mothers of the bride, engagement rings, China, anything related to that. Hopefully, that will happen in the future moving forward. I want to expand the brand, make products that make women feel beautiful, and hopefully be able to give some money to charity with the business. I am involved with about 30 charities. I want to make sure I give back.

Follow Fenoli on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay up-to-date, or visit his official website, randyfenoli.com. Visit tlc.com for more information on Say Yes to the Dress. 

Photos Courtesy of TLC