WINDSOR — “Guns, wedding gowns, cold beer” reads the famous sign that sits across the street from Hussey’s General Store.

“Some people think it’s a joke,” said Kristen Ballantyne, who helps her father, Jay Hussey, run the general store.

The first floor of Hussey’s has an entire grocery department, complete with a butcher. Across from the groceries are home furnishings with everything needed to decorate a camp or a home, along with Maine souvenirs. Upstairs are the guns, Carhartt jackets in the clothing department and a book nook started by Elwin Hussey, Ballentyne’s grandfather. In the basement is the hardware store.

On the second floor sits the the bridal department that Ballentyne and her sister Lindsay Hannon run. DownEast Magazine named it the Best Bridal Shop in Maine in the magazine’s 2025 “Best of Maine” awards. 

The awards confirmed what the sisters — and many brides over the years — knew all along: while the store might not offer champagne toasts, it can compete with its counterparts, with something for everyone at generally affordable prices. 

“We’ve fought over the years to tell people we are not just some redneck store with silly-looking dresses,” Ballantyne said. 

Now, largely because of the popularity of the sign, Hussey’s has brides from all over the country — even all over the world — visit its bridal department at what may be the only general store with a full bridal department.  

The sisters curate a hand-picked selection of dresses suitable for any type of wedding. 

“If we were just Hussey Bridal and that’s it, we’d probably be like all the other shops. It’s because of our history and we’re surrounded by all the other departments that it’s a really interesting thing and it’s gotten a lot of attention over the years,” Ballantyne said.

MORE THAN A CENTURY OF TRADITION

Ballantyne’s great-grandparents, Mildred and Harland Hussey, started the store in October 1923, the same year her grandfather Elwin was born. 

Elwin Hussey made it to the 100th anniversary of Hussey’s in 2023, which coincided with the year of his 100th birthday. He died a few months after his birthday in December 2023.

By the late 1940s, Mildred Hussey saw a need for formal wear.

She created the Terrace Room, where women could buy formal wear and dresses in central Maine, minimizing the long, pre-interstate highway journey to Portland, where the only other formal stores were located at the time.

“It was very formal,” Ballantyne said. “All the ladies would come from near and far. There weren’t a lot of options back then. People didn’t get around as easily, and for women, it was hard to find formal wear and nice dresses.”

Through the decades, the focus of the Terrace Room shifted to the bridal department, which is still evolving with the growing expectations and popularity of weddings and Maine’s growing identity as a wedding destination, despite a wedding gap caused by the pandemic. 

The pandemic also largely affected the way Hussey’s bridal department runs.  It started to focus on necessities and stopped custom order dresses, focusing only on off the rack options. It became more difficult to find help in the bridal department with employees that knew how to do fittings. 

“We’ve had to change it up to appointments because I didn’t know if we’d have coverage if someone walked in,” said Ballantyne.

BRIDAL FITTINGS

The sisters, both local to Windsor, greet brides from all over the world, but the bride-to-be on a Sunday in late January was from only a couple of towns away.

Sam Wiswell, 26, of Albion, found her dream dress at Hussey’s.

It was Wiswell’s second time at Hussey’s — her first was when her fiancé, an avid hunter, brought her to the store — but it was her first time looking at dresses. 

Before her sister was married, Wiswell went to David’s Bridal with her, but she wanted a different experience to choose her own dress.

“Hussey’s is such a unique place to have wedding dresses and I thought how cool would it be to say I got it there,” said Wiswell, who walked out with her dress after trying on 18 gowns.

The sisters hear similar sentiments from brides, including that Hussey’s is where a family member bought her dress.

Olivia Leduc wanted to buy her wedding dress where her mother and grandmother bought theirs. Her grandmother, a “true Mainer,” found a dress there for her 2016 wedding. Leduc got engaged in 2025 and immediately wanted to look at what Hussey’s had in store, mostly in memory of her grandmother, who died in 2023.

“The weird part was, I had already bought a dress two weeks prior to going to Hussey’s, but kept the appointment for the sole reason of Nanny,” Leduc said. “I tried on two dresses and on the third, I looked at my mom and said ‘I guess I’m buying a second dress.’ It was a full-circle moment.”

For Hannon, helping the brides during their appointments is her favorite part of the job.

“I love seeing the bride try the dresses on and seeing how happy they feel,” Hannon said.