Following the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman, please see below the changes to how I will offer my services:
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Yep. There aren’t any.
I still don’t care what your wee comes out of; just don’t leave any on the toilet seat please.
I won the Quirky Weddings Award for Weddingwear! The Quirkys are the UK’s only awards for alterative wedding suppliers.
I am so freaking happy!
I know everyone says this but I was absolutely not expecting to heat the Quirky Weddings founder Lily Jones to call my name. My fellow finalists are all weddingwear creators I’ve not only admired for years, followed on social media and regularly turned to for advice and sanity checks. Hell, one of them is even a judge on my category for The Wedding Industry Awards, which I’ve also entered this year (hi Bex, I love you very much).
Legend Bridal, Bex Brides, Caroline Versallion, Aimee at Corsetry & Couture and Harriet Christelow London are all top-of-their-game awesome so please check them out. We all do different things, are in different areas and will click with different people, which is so important when you’re creating such high-stakes pieces.
Maybe we should be rivals but we’re not. We love what we do, support each other and uphold standards across the industry which you can only do as a community.
Our Facebook and WhatsApp groups buzz with requests for advice, and there’s never any judgment. You’re laying yourself bare among your contemporaries when you post something like, “I’m having a brain fart and can’t remember how to do this type of zip; please can someone think for me?”, but within ten minutes – without fail – you’ll have at least five responses describing their favourite method or just empathising, “Oh God, I fucking hate those zips too.”
Best of all at the awards I finally got to meet Caroline and Aimee in person and see Legend’s Charlotte again. Next time, Bex and Harriet; I’ll have a pornstar martinis with your names on them.
And I got to meet other vendors with whom I’ve collaborated on styled shoots and real weddings. Big love and congratulations to The Lucky Sixpence, Proud Fox Ceremonies, Eva Rose Weddings, Toni Searle Beauty and Gem Wright Photography.
I don’t want this to be a glib post full of false modesty because I am so proud and very happy to have a win to beat back back imposter syndrome. But I need to credit all the finalists for all their hard work, talent and for helping to get me here too.
Also, massive kudos to Quirky Weddings for using the inclusive term ‘Weddingwear’ in the award title.
Thank you for all the love for these two dresses I revealed this week. But did anyone spot that they’re exactly the same dress, just in different fabrics?
The magic of fabric
It’s not just about the colours; texture is everything. Rachael’s dreamy wedding dress was made in drapey, cationic chiffon, which has the contradictory superpowers of being both lightweight and floaty but still falling heavily under its own weight, giving a straight, sleek silhouette (when you keep still!).
The floral confection modelled by Chenai at Rock n Roll Bride Live used printed organza, which is stiffer and bouncier.
OK, I tell a very small lie in that (technical details) the floral dress’s skirt section is cut as a full circle with a horsehair braid hem and Rachael’s chiffon is a double circle. But the number of layers, cut of sleeves, pleating and everything else is the same.
When I create bespoke wedding dresses, I offer a LOT of fabric options. We can pore over stacks of sample books, order in any fabrics I don’t already have and see how each one feels, moves and works with others.
I am always available for drinking tea and stroking pretty fabrics so please give me a shout if you’d like to come over for a play.
There are several reasons people post pics of their wedding dress in Facebook wedding groups before the big day – to share the excitement of saying yes to the dress with strangers who won’t be at the wedding, to ask advice on accessories, etc.
One bride I saw this week did just that. But then someone in the group stalked her profile, found her fiancé and sent the pictures of her in her wedding dress to him!
Heartbroken, she contacted the admins to report the sender but found there was no-one of that name in the group.
The troll had either done a midnight flit from the group or, more likely in my opinion, was using a different profile in the group than the one they used to send the images.
Some group admins are now refusing to allow pics of wedding dresses pre-wedding unless they are posted anonymously so the trolls can’t stalk their profiles.
It’s horrible when one troll spoils the fun and trust for everyone but I urge you to keep your secrets safe when you’re posting online, even in private groups.
Here’s how you can protect yourself:
Today The One Ring came full circle for me and I am so excited I just needed to make a note of it.
I’m currently working on the design for a custom veil with elements inspired by The Lord of The Rings. This is awesome enough I itself.
Then this morning, I finally got to meet my very good friend’s mother-in-law who only bloody worked with JRR Tolkien himself! Ann worked with “Professor Tolkien” as she referred to him during his time at Oxford, and she told me he was lovely and, “Just like one of his characters.”
I asked which one and she said, “Tom Bombadil.”
I need to visit her again if she’ll have me to pester her in more depth.
It’s usually asked to get an idea of how much the poster should expect to pay for their own.
With no additional info it’s probably the mechanics’ equivalent of, “How much will it cost to get my car through its MoT?” I even asked a similar question of the RAC man this week as he poked under my car bonnet to ascertain why it had stopped dead on the school run, would no longer start and even the hazard lights had given up the ghost.
The alternator was kaput he informed me as he closed the bonnet with a tinny click. “Oh. How much is a new alternator then?” I asked, trying to sound like I might know what an alternator actually was.
Even knowing the make, model and pitiful state of my car (*cough* rollerskate *cough*), he could only guesstimate a range of £70-£400+ before checking online. There are apparently many options.
And so it is with wedding dress alterations. Wildly variable. Moreso than alternators even.
What your alterations will cost depends on a great many things, chief among them:
Another dressmaker friend Amanda Davies reminded me that one thing highly unlikely to have a bearing on alterations costs is what you paid for your wedding dress in the first place.
I’ve done alterations that cost the bride £50; I’ve also done alterations that cost nearly £1,000. I could work out the mean, median and mode of those and everything in between but still wouldn’t come up with anything informative until I had seen your dress in person and knew what you needed doing.
My dressmaker friend Kate Edmondson reminds me here that one thing highly unlikely to have a bearing on alterations costs is what you paid for your wedding dress in the first place. You might have got an absolute bargain online, in a sample sale, or even brand new but if it takes the same amount of skill and time to alter as a much pricier dress, the cost to alter them will be the same. Yes, that does mean that sometimes alterations cost more than the dress itself.
My advice to find out how much YOUR wedding dress will cost to alter is to get recommendations of seamstresses in your area and get some quotes. You can also use it as an opportunity to see how well you click with different people. After all, this is an intimate, high-stakes process so make sure the person you choose is someone who gets you.
A good starting place if you’re in the UK is the Find Your Bridal Seamstress Facebook Group, which is linked to the group for pros I’m part of that is running the regional cost surveys I mentioned.
The car gets a new alternator tomorrow. It’s costing £250. 😏
When people ask how you’re having your hair on your wedding day, they’re not usually talking about your armpits.
When the photos dropped from our fairytale styled shoot earlier this year, I was thrilled to see our model bride Meg rocking the natural underarm look. What made me even happier was that it was a complete non-issue; it wasn’t mentioned at any point in planning the shoot, on the day, afterwards or anywhere the photos were published, including on social media or in Pretty & Punk.
So I’ve debated internally whether to even blog about it because I didn’t want to make it a thing. But I do want to make normalising brides with body hair a thing, so here we are.
Sorry…
Barely a week goes by without hearing a bride apologise for her underarm/bikini/leg hair during a dress fitting. Honey, I’ll show you mine if it’ll make you feel better, and I’m not apologising for it.
I’m not advocating that everyone ditches the razor as it’s a personal choice how you style your hair wherever it is on your body. But I do want everyone to feel comfortable about their choices (or just what’s there that day, chosen or not).
Personally, I’ve gone through phases of shaving, waxing, epilalating, IPL-ing, plucking and letting it all do its thing. It still varies.
“Mummy, why do you shave your armpits?”
It’s been ten years since my toddler asked me, “Mummy, why do you shave your armpits?” and I really had to think about it.
“Fashion,” I told her, because that’s ultimately all it is. Oh, and to make money by playing on women’s insecurities about their appearance of course.
The Smithsonian Institution reports that the 1920s fashion for sleeveless tops and short dresses revealed western women’s legs and underarms for the first time, “and advertisers seized the opportunity to tell women to shave.” Boom! The razor manufacturers doubled their target market.
When my toddler subsequently started school, a classmate was bullied about the dark hair on her arms and legs, because apparently some children believed girls shouldn’t have hair anywhere other than their scalps (but lots it there of course). She was FOUR years old.
Mercifully, my own child seemed immune. “I can’t wait to have hair in my armpits,” my then 5-year-old told me, “So I can dye it like a rainbow.”
She hasn’t yet, but I’m here for it if she ever does.
Planner: @garnet_weddings_ltd
Venue: @kingstoncountrycourtyard
Photographer: @lotusphotographyuk
Videographer: @becky_takes_photos
Dresses: @bridesofdorset
Veils: me! @hollywintercouture
Porcelain bouquets: @beaut.blooms
Tiaras/jewellery/lace footwear: @tessastiaras
Model: @meg.birley & toddler Elias
Hair & Makeup: @sapphirestylinghairandmakeup
Chocolate decor: @levoco.chocolates
Flowers: @dorsetdriedflowers
Styling: @noviaeventsvenuestyling
Trees: @maryjanesweddingstyling
Lighting: @bhsoundandlighting
Violin: @lauraheathcoteviolin
Calligraphy: @simply.laura.calligraphy
Cake: @atcakeartistry
Wedding creche: @theweddingcrecherz
Confetti: @flutterdarlings
Between all the inquiries I get and social media bridal groups I’m in, something I see and hear almost daily is ‘dress regret’. You’ve bought/ordered your wedding dress and are now panicking you’ve made the wrong choice, should have tried more on, or worried about how you look in it.
You’re still bombarded with wedding day pics of couples looking awesome, not to mention designers’ perfectly styled publicity shots, and there will always be new collections, etc etc etc. You’ve had to choose one dress from almost infinite options so how can you ever feel you’ve got it right?
Out of the hundreds of brides I’ve worked with, I’ve only known two come for their fittings and then decide to buy a different dress, and both were already on their second or third dress at that point.
From experience, here’s a little reassurance about why dress regret creeps in and how we can thwart it:
Want an objective opinion? I’m always happy to take a look at your dress either in person or pictures and give you options objectively (and kindly) so feel free to drop me a line.
TIL this about handcuffs.
This week, I surprised a customer by embroidering a tiny pair of handcuffs in the pocket of the bridal jumpsuit I’m making for her. There was a precedent to this; it was a bit of an in-joke following several inappropriate giggles during fittings with her and her fiancée. Also, I stitched it so it was easy to remove if I really had misread the room.
Fortunately, not only did she like it, it was even more appropriate than I’d imaged. The bride is a native Spanish speaker and told me that the word for handcuffs in Spanish – esposas – also means wives.
This naturally tickled my etymological tastebuds and it turns out both words stem from the Latin spondere, meaning to bind, so it’s not hard to see how each word evolved.
Not too dissimilar from the (usually sexist) English expression ‘ball and chain’.
But let’s not forget that husband shares its Old English roots with bondage.
However you want to keep the magic alive.
Back in a previous lifetime when I worked on a student newspaper in the Canadian capital, I received a double award at the end of my year abroad: the International Correspondent Of The Year / What’s In It For Me? Award.
Apparently, in addition to my hard-nosed journalism covering the Zapatista movement in Mexico, I’d accidentally earned a reputation for only offering to review the movies and music we were sent if it was a DVD or CD I already knew I wanted (Robbie Williams’ North American debut album was a highlight).
No-one working for The Charlatan was getting paid, other than in honed journalistic skills and CV fillers. I’ve also worked for no pay on my student paper in the UK, my local newspaper in Bedford and the Evening Standard I’m London.
In this incarnation, as a weddingwear designer and dressmaker, I’ve also worked for no money. Here are some examples:
In all of these cases, as altruistic as I might like to think I am, there has always been something in it for me. They might not pay the mortgage, but exposure and warm fuzzy feelings do count for something.
I’ve also made costumes for Star Wars (the Andor series) at minium wage to help out a friend and because STAR WARS!
Value
The crux of what I decide to do for no pay boils down to this: whether my work is being undervalued and/or the person I’m doing it for is exercising an inflated sense of entitlement.
This week’s risible request to “create synergy” with Miss Europe Continental for Amazon Prime galvanised my thoughts. In case you missed it, the “synergy” would have seen me design and create two gowns for a contestant at my own expense and for no pay AND I would have had to pay the organisers €1,980 for the privilege of my involvement. Never mind that the project manager requesting this hadn’t noticed that I only do bridalwear.
Other requests I’ve turned down include:
Finally, one I did agree to a discount for but only because she caught me off-guard, very early in my career. About an hour after her fitting, she called me and asked to cut her bill by nearly 30%.
Her hen-do dress that she’d also asked me to alter was dropped off to me unwashed and with sweat stains and crusted deodorant under the arms – where I was to take it in – and fake tan covering much of the rest. She spent her next fitting on the phone to a friend, boasting about how cheaply she wangled her latest wedding supplies and how much discount she’d got from someone else.
She doesn’t know I keep a list of customers I will never work with again but it makes me feel a bit better that I do. She’s the only person on it.
