Your dream dress? It all starts here…
The journey for your dream wedding dress begins way before you walk into any bridal boutique. I am in the wonderfully unique and often terrifying position of choosing what we put on to our rails ready for you to fall in love with. The mind swirls with thoughts of fabrics, fit, trends and of course cost all in readiness for the upcoming year’s selection. Who is our bride, is she young and flirty, or mature… and flirty ;-) Is our bride modest or does she want full on glamour? These are just a fraction of the considerations that spring to mind when buying for Bride and the Party.
Bridal Week inspiration
These are also the considerations that I need to keep front and centre when we visit the shows, catwalks and bridal fashion houses to select the best of the gowns being shown this season. This is what my team and I are currently doing now that Spring is in full swing. The invitations to the shows arrive early in the year and we choose which designers to visit. There are three main ways for a boutique shop to buy a wedding dress and that is either by being invited to a catwalk show at the designers chosen venue, by visiting the designer at their design studio or by attending one of the big international trade shows.
What we get to see is a preview of the hard work, creativity and trend setting that a design house will be offering brides in the following year. Meeting the designers is always a privilege and hearing about the fabric choices, the visits to the manufacturers for quality control and understanding how a collection is put together is the ultimate inspiration. I love bringing that story back to our brides. By the time a dress has gone from sketch to concept to show a whole year or more could have passed. Add on to that our buying time and the months of dress making before we take delivery, and you realise a single dress can be two years from design to store. This, I believe makes every bridal dress special.
The previews and catwalks shows are a spectacle of white, pearl, lace, silk and satin and diamante and every other fabric and adornment you can imagine. It is quite the challenge not to fall in love with everything. But, it is ultimately you, our bride that we are at the shows for.
Models from Rachel Allan Bridal catwalk show
One of the busiest events we attend is in London when the bridal fashion houses come together in Shoreditch, London for the annual Bridal Week trade show. It is a chance for the team to have a great day out, meeting the design teams and seeing what the new trends are (if you want to know, my predictions for any 2027 and 2028 brides is the basque waist, corsets with visible boning, and pearls will be all over bridal). We also have the opportunity to try veil, accessories and shoes. What is not to love!
I will never not worry that our brides will love what we have chosen for them to shop from. In fact, I will always reassure a bride and her party that during her appointment, the most important factor is that she has a great time. We may or may not have her dream dress and that’s okay. Of course we want you to walk away having found “the one” and we know our brides and stock well enough to guide you in the right direction.
When you are in your appointment and you have that feeling of overwhelm at the sheer volume of white dresses and the desire to find the right one, believe us when we say we understand. We go through this stage twice (or more) every year and it never gets easier.
Simply know that you can trust us to select a curated number of gowns for you to try on based on what you tell us when you arrive and the feedback you give during your appointment. You know that every gown is chosen with love, care and attention. Isn’t that what you would wish for your wedding dress?
Love, Rebecca
To try on any of our gowns you can get in touch by phone or book an appointment online. We are open by appointment and are ready to accommodate you and your party.