The Bridal Store is Born

As a teenager I dreamed of designing my own range of wedding dresses. My mum is a seamstress, she used to work for Laura Ashley. By the time I was born, my mum had stopped working for Laura Ashley, but she never stopped making clothes. My childhood is filled with memories of our living room floor being her cutting table and our dining room being her work station. My sister and I were her tailors dummy when she was making bridesmaid dresses and even our own dresses that unbeknownst to us were our Christmas presents! I would often hear the whirr of the sewing machine late into the night as she worked and wake up to new creations carefully draped over the backs of chairs or hung up waiting to be finished off. As a teenager I asked her many times to make a dress for this dance or that function. I loved flicking through her many many patterns to find the perfect dress for her to make. Some of my favourite memories involve taking a trip to the fabric shop to buy new dress patterns when I just couldn’t find what I was looking for. I watched her create these beautiful dresses and wanted to be just like her. I wanted to make women feel like princess with dresses that I made.

I went to college and studied Fashion and Textiles still dreaming that I would be a designer and have my own range of dresses. I planned to go to uni and study fashion or some similar subject that would set me up to do just that…but life happened as it so often does. The past few years has been a whirlwind of changing plans when doors have slammed shut unexpectedly and new doors have flung themselves wide open!

The Bridal Store was definitely a door that flung itself open and just started at me waiting for me to walk through! I knew right away that I wanted to specialise in modest wedding dresses for Religious communities and everything just fell into place. I feel so lucky that I am in the position to be finally able to do what I love and what I dreamed of growing up. I really hope you love our dresses as much as I do!