Lubiana Badeau poses Monday with the original sign for her bridal shop. The Barre store is for sale said Lubiana, who has been in business for more than 30 years. Photo: STEFAN HARD/TIMES ARGUS

By DAVID DELCORE TIMES ARGUS STAFF

BARRE – Lubiana Badeau still remembers the first wedding gown she ever sold.

"It was an A-line, pleated gown with a high neckline and long sleeves," recalls the woman whose exotic first name has become synonymous with wedding wear in central Vermont over the past three decades.

"It was beautiful," she says.

Badeau – the soon-to-be retiring proprietor of Lubiana's Bridal – won't get any argument from her first customer.

"It still is," says Yvette Routhier, who bought the gown when she was still a Bellavance, wore it with pride when she tied the knot with her husband, Raymond, on Aug. 25, 1979, and, oddly enough, recently unpacked it to see how it held up over the years.

"It looked just like I remembered it," Routhier says of the gown that she absolutely had to have.

"When I saw that dress it was the one," she recalls. "I'm sure I tried on a few, but this one here caught my eye."

Routhier was the first in a long line of satisfied customers that now numbers in the thousands – a line that will end when Badeau, the Italian-born daughter of an immigrant granite sculptor, sells the business that she started in the second-floor apartment of her parents' Granite Street home back in January 1979.

At the time, Badeau's youngest child and current business associate, Tania Lewis, had just started school and the 30-something mom with the supportive husband decided to try living her dream.

"I always had a fascination about wedding gowns," says Badeau. "At first I made a few then I figured: 'Why not sell them?'"

Why not?

A $7,000 bank loan and a quick trip to Boston later, Lubiana's Bridal Shoppe – now Lubiana's Bridal – was born.

Badeau, a seamstress by trade, recalls buying 20 gowns on the "shopping trip" that launched a business, which bounced around some before settling in its current North Main Street location 18 years ago.

Despite its humble beginnings, Badeau's husband, Victor, said his wife's bridal shop was a surprising success in the early years.

"We were on the second floor of a private house on a side street and we did business," recalls the veteran car salesman. "If you've got something to offer people they will find you."

In fact they did, and it didn't take long for Lubiana's to outgrow the small apartment, which at its height was home to 40 carefully selected wedding gowns and perhaps another 30 attendants' dresses.

Badeau briefly moved her business to State Street in Montpelier in 1983 before returning to Barre less than a year later to rent space in the basement of the building that now houses her one-stop bridal salon and tuxedo rental business.

At the time, Badeau says the Town Shop occupied the ground-floor storefront and its owner was willing to lease her the basement.

The location was great, but the business was still growing and its owner was keenly interested in something the cellar space didn't have.

"I wanted a window," she recalls.

Badeau had to move across the street – right next door to the Paramount Theater – to get one.

That was 1986, according to Badeau, who moved back to her current location in 1991 after the Town Shop closed. This time she leased the basement and the ground-floor storefront – creating the spacious two-floor, six-dressing room bridal shop that features well in excess of 400 dresses, and a growing tuxedo rental business that her husband – ever the salesman – claims is recession-proof.

"Cupid doesn't go on strike," he jokes. "I love that boy."

Victor Badeau believes the turn-key bridal shop with parking in front and back would be a good investment for a young entrepreneur.

"We're asking a realistic price ($149,000) and if someone steps up to the plate they'll own it," he says of the business – name and all – that was recently listed with redstonevt.com.

For the time being it will be business as usual at Lubiana's, but Badeau says her decision to retire was driven in part by the need to spend more time with her 88-year-old mother and in part because she isn't getting any younger herself.

"Now I have the daughters of my brides getting married and I think to myself: 'Oh my God am I getting old,'" she says.

Still, Badeau says she has relished her behind-the-scenes role helping couples of all ages, from all walks of life, make special memories.

"I'm 100 percent sure I'm going to miss it," she says. "There's nothing like watching a bride fall in love with her wedding dress … It's magical."

david.delcore@timesargus.com