“Do you make wedding dresses for men?” To answer an increasingly FAQ, I make wedding dresses, veils, bridalwear* FULL STOP. For whoever wants it. Women, men, non-binary people, everyone.
I don’t care what your wee comes out of; just don’t leave any on my loo seat.
You are very welcome to, but don’t even have to, tell me how you identify, what you were assigned at birth or whether that differs now, whom, how many – or even whether – you’re marrying. If there’s consent in your relationship, there’s no judgment, kink-shaming or awkward questions here.
Oversharers are always welcome (hello, kindred spirits!) and the only things I ask all my customers to tell me relate purely to the tasks of designing something you will love and making sure it fits you perfectly:
1. Are you anticipating changing your weight, shape or size before you wear what I’m making you? These don’t make it impossible, but need to be factored in. For example, are/will you be:
Pregnant or trying to conceive?
Breastfeeding?
Undergoing surgery?
Taking medication such as hormones or steroid therapies?
Dieting?
Body-building?
2. What else will you be wearing? Bring everything to fittings that changes your shape, size or height including:
Padded bras, cups or inserts (I have a well-stocked basket of boobs you can try if you don’t have your own);
Padded pants;
Shape-wear, corsetry, binder, etc;
Prosthetics;
Shoes.
*I use the term bridalwear as loosely as possible because not all of my customers identify as brides. I try to use more inclusive terms where I can. I specialise in dresses and the traditionally more feminine styles of weddingwear such as dresses, veils, jumpsuits and separates rather than men’s suiting and tailoring and I’m still answerable to the SEO gods – I need people to find me! As language, attitudes and social mores evolve, this will change of course. In the meantime, I’m always happy to learn and stand corrected if I’m saying or doing something deplorable.
Perhaps we should be rivals, but we don’t see it that way. There’s plenty of work to go around and we need to know who we can recommend when we’re fully booked. And you can’t work in weddings and not have at least one back-up plan if something takes you out of action in peak season; last year for example, just as I recovered from Covid, I broke my arm. The year before, I’d picked up brides when a dressmaker friend broke her leg.
We have Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups and Christmas parties. We celebrate each other’s new shop openings, dress designs, birthdays and business anniversaries.
More tellingly, we are open and vulnerable with each other. We ask for advice and help. We admit when we don’t know the technique for something or have never used a particular machine or stitch.
Even better, within minutes usually, someone provides the answer and willingly, voluntarily, steps in to teach what we need to know.
Last month, I wanted to know how to do a delicate edging stitch I’d seen at the V&A’s Chanel exhibition. Unfortunately in that case, it turned out I would need two new machines: a picot hemming machine and a time machine, because picot hemming machines haven’t been manufactured for a century, BUT it was dressmakers in my network who told me this.
Anyway. I’m going to go against the sisterhood grain here and call someone out, albeit not by name.
I’d made a veil a bride not local to me who was having her dress altered by someone else. I’d made her friend’s wedding dress a few years back and included a bustle hook as standard, and she asked her seamstress to add one to her dress. She even described quite specifically the type she wanted (there are several).
When she went to pick her dress up, there was no bustle hook. Instead, the seamstress handed her these three safety pins.
This is not a bustle hook. “Just use these,” my bride was told.
There are bustle pins you can buy, but I’ve never recommended them. Figuring out which bits of many layers to attach them to, usually at the point of the wedding when most people have had a few sherberts, is not simple. Worse, they make holes in the fabric, and my bride asked whether this would happen.
“Yes,” was the response, “but hopefully no-one will see them.”
Pick. My. Jaw. Off. The. Floor.
I want to give the seamstress the benefit of the doubt. We all have off days. Maybe she forgot. Maybe she was rushed. Maybe she didn’t actually know how to bustle this dress but she’a a professional seamstress workong with a bridal boutique. Maybe there was a reason she couldn’t do it that hasn’t occurred to me, because I can’t fathom why she recommended this.
I’m not local or available in time so couldn’t do it myself but, predictably, someone from my needle ninja network stepped in within hours to add the bustle hook (thank you again, Tina).
A member of our Facebook group said of she found out the safety pin seamstress was a member, she’d be kicked out.
Another customer, a tattoo artist, was in awe when I told her about how supportive dressmakers are, and was rightly envious. She told me that her industry was rife with rivalry and bitchiness.
We are so passionate about what we do and seeing it done well. Keep your safety pins for emergencies, not your bustles.
A marriage based on a lie is not likely to end well, so it’s startling to see a purported wedding expert recommending starting a relationship with a lie. OK, not quite a relationship with someone you’re marrying, but Bridebook has just been caught advising couples to approach wedding suppliers by saying they’re having a party, not a wedding.
Screenshot of Bridebook’s advice to engaged couples
Lie to your suppliers? Where’s that going to get you? There’s a reason wedding-related services often cost more: they ARE more. You GET more.
What’s especially galling for vendors – on whom Bridebook relies to fill its own coffers – is that it’s annual wedding report published in the last few weeks extolls the importance of trust, connection and price transparency.
Bridebook’s ‘This you?’ moment
In my case as a bridalwear designer and dressmaker, the very fact that that is all I do tells you everything you need to know about how specialised it is. So actually, if you come to me for asking for a party dress, I’m not your woman and the answer will be no. Tell me then it’s actually a wedding dress you want and you just didn’t trust me to price it fairly, and how keen do you expect me to be to work with you?
Bridebook also seems to forget that vendors have often planned their own weddings at some point too. I swore when I started my business that I would never charge extra for my services just because the dress was white. But I will charge accordingly for additional structure, delicate fabrics, intricate embroidery and beaded details, all the additional layers and the complexity of the design. Because all that is more work and takes more time. Beautiful, enjoyable time in which I’m in my element but I can’t do it for nothing.
Keep asking my husband though, because his business is going well and apparently this time next year, we’ll be millionaires.
This time next year, Rodney
Although he has been saying that for nearly four years now. Oh shit, was that a lie?
Specialthanks to Plaits & Pin Curls, Bex Brides, Magpie Wedding and Rock n Roll Bride for bringing this to my attention and for all you do to actually support our wedding world.
Update: Bridebook has apparently now removed the article from its website.
I’ve just come out of a wedding dress fitting with a bride who loved her dress bit now wants me to restyle the neckline of her dress because the priest (Catholic, if it’s relevant) conducting her church ceremony asked her:
Not my actual bride in question, just another badass.
“How revealing is your dress?”
Consequently, she has gone from loving her dress and feeling confident with the V-neck illusion panel (ie skin-toned translucent tulle) to being paranoid and wanting to add approx 4″ of lace to conceal her cleavage.
I’m not religious so wanted to get perspective(s) on whether I’m right to be feeling angry on her behalf. I feel the priest is policing her body, was sexist to ask her this (he didn’t ask the groom) and what she chooses to show of her own body at her own wedding is no concern of anyone else.
If it even makes a modicum of difference to the priest, should he even be a bloody priest? If he’s worried about what other people think, that’s irrelevant. If he’s worried about being distracted himself, or having “impure” thoughts provoked, that’s a him problem, not a neckline issue.
If he’s concerned about some epidermis causing a distraction, I’ve offered to dance at the back in a bikini.
I realise this is technically none of my business either but I’m feeling invested now after seeing the effect his probing has had on the bride.
Me: Always choose a couture bridal specialist to work on your wedding dress. The skills they have over your aunt’s friend or your own DIY efforts if you’re not a pro are worth every penny.
Also me: I’m not spending £8 – eight whole pounds – on that Hobbycraft kit when I can make one myself for my children’s birthdays.
Have you ever been asked to work for no/less money? How did you respond and how did you feel afterwards?
The Un-Wedding posted this on Instagram today, and it chimed with some recent conversations with fellow designer-dressmakers who have been asked for discounts, or even to work free in exchange for “exposure”.
I’m either not famous enough or too scary looking to have ever been asked to work for nothing by an influencer or celebrity, and the vast majority of people do recognise the value of what I do. (Actually, one influencer didn’t even tell me about her YouTube channel until after she’d booked me).
Who even does that?
However, on the odd occasion I’ve been asked for a discount, it’s been for wedding dress alterations. This tends to be the last thing to be paid for when planning a wedding, because alterations typically happen as close to the big day as possible so your body is the size and shape it will be on the day.
I’ve become a lot stricter – nay, assertive – about discounts, because every single time I’ve agreed, I’ve resented the customer, hated the work, and gnashed my teeth with every stitch. I’m not out to rip anyone off or obsessed with making as much money as possible; I’d have stayed in corporate PR if I were.
I’ve become more assertive about discounts. Sorry, not sorry.
I usually do put in a lot more work than agreed for the sheer fun of it, and on the odd occasion I’ve even waived my fee entirely just because I wanted to.
Top ‘reasons’ people have expected a discount
Below are the reasons I’ve been given for why I should agree to a discount and my response to each:
1. “We’ve overspent on everything else and run out of money.” (Three instances of this)
Think back to before you booked a single thing. Would you have called me – a stranger – and asked me to buy, say, your cake, or pay for the extra flower arches? Because that’s effectively what you’re asking me to do now.
2. “The alterations are costing more than half what I paid for the dress!”
Your dress was an absolute steal but is three sizes too big for you, eight inches too long and will need to have most of the lace removed, replaced and re-beaded by hand.
3. “If I pay that much, I will cry.” (Actually the same person as 2, above)
The work you need will take me around three days in my busiest month of the year when im already starting work at 5.30am and finishing around midnight, and if two of those daysare unpaid, I will show you bloody crying.
4. Calling me after the fitting: “Can we round it down to £xxx if I give you cash?”
Err, oh. OK. I was caught off, in a flap and acquiesced. But why should cash necessitate a discount? It actually creates work for me because I have to make a trip to a real-life bank to pay it in. Plus I’m far too socialist to not declare any income on my tax return.
This particular person had also given me an unwashed dress to take in that she had worn clubbing and needed for her hen do (lots of fiddly work to the underarm section) and was condescending to her lovely sister in every appointment.
She also spent one fitting on the phone boasting about how much money she’d got another supplier to come down by. I agreed to the discount but hers was the only name I’ve ever made a mental note of to never work for again.
Same same but different
There are some inquiries that might sound or feel like asking for a discount but aren’t, so please don’t feel afraid to ask (and vendors, please don’t feel offended of you encounter them). Asking for a starting price or rough estimate isn’t rude and neither is surprise when finding out the cost.
Not many people have ever bought anything wedding-related before they plan their own so it’s not reasonable to expect anyone to know what things cost.
Manners for makers
A discount means a compromise on fabrics, my time or both, and you can’t do that with couture. Moreover, I’m not willing to do any of those and still put my name to the result.
Even MORE-over, asking for a discount is rude. Either you value my work or you don’t.
Aah, that was cathartic. Therapy I didn’t know I needed.
My brides and dresses are all so different. Do I even have a typical customer?
What do a pink glittery ballgown, a satin ivory shift mini-dress, and a two-piece embroidered lehenga have in common? Or a backless, barely-there lace dress with a long-sleeved, high-necked, satin-twill number?
Some of my 2021 brides in their bespoke gowns on their wedding days. L-R: Emma, Steffi, Gemma, Isobel and Immi
I mean aside from the obvious, that they are all wedding dresses. And made by me.
The answer is in why I made them. Or rather why I had to.
UK brides are spoiled for choice whatever their budget with independent bridal boutiques, concessions in Harrods and Selfridges, chain stores like Wed2b and David’s Bridal, second-hand dresses and hell, even Asos is getting in on the bridal scene. If, and that’s a big if, they want a traditional ivory dress.
Not all brides do. Some don’t want ivory. Some don’t want a dress.
The very variety of styles I’ve made in the last year might suggest I don’t have a typical customer. But I have found that my brides tend to have some common traits:
1. All of my brides have a strong personal style. They know what works for them, what looks dynamite, and what doesn’t;
2. They know exactly what they’re looking for. Some had mood boards, others had lists of elements such as neckline, silhouette, embroidery details, etc, some had even produced sketches.
3. They couldn’t find what they were looking for ready-made in any shop. It didn’t exist.
That’s when they looked into going bespoke and found me.
So, do I have a typical customer? Yes and no. Do the traits above sound familiar to you?
One of the top ten most read BBC News stories this morning concerns Elle Seline, a contestant in Miss GB, who plans to appear without make-up at this year’s competition. Ms Seline, who was bullied about her appearance in her teens (as I was), says she is doing this to challenge patriarchal standards of beauty and to empower other women and girls.
But does it? And why does it have anything to do with me, or weddings?
What I find more interesting than the story itself is that a woman choosing not to wear make-up on a particular day is such big news. I often don’t wear make up; when I’m working, I usually end up inside wedding dresses between layers and don’t want to leave marks. Sometimes I just don’t want to wear it. Hardly hold-the-front-page stuff though, right?
The difference is of course the context, i.e. an event at which a woman would be expected to wear make-up. Weddings, specifically being The Bride, are another example. So here’s the relevance to us.
Some brides (like me, a natural extrovert) relish the attention on their wedding days while they, as tradition dictates, look their best. But this pressure to look “your best”, what your best self actually looks like, AND being the centre of attention makes many – maybe most, in my experience – feel very vulnerable. Judged. Absolutely bloody terrified.
So I believe Ms Seline’s message for brides is empowering: (with apologies to my make-up artist friends), you can go without make-up when you’re expected to wear it and still be beautiful. Your best self. Stick THAT to the patriarchy.
However, let’s not get carried too far away from the feminist track. Ms Seline is taking control of her own narrative to stick one to her former bullies, yes. However, entering a competition that judges and ranks women on their appearance, whatever standard employed, is a massive self own in this narrative. It says: how women look is still the best way to judge us.
You don’t defeat bullies who think you’re ugly by changing their minds into thinking you’re beautiful; you slay them by demonstrably not giving a shit what they think of your appearance. And that can’t include entering a competition to be judged on just that. So her message is NOT empowering for women and girls generally.
For brides, wear the make-up, don’t wear the make-up. Just know you are giving your best self to the person you love the most, whatever that looks like.
Weddings in the UK are officially back ON, from 8 March with maximum six people. Hurrah for my bride planning to elope with her intended!
Unfortunately, I can’t reopen for in-person appointments – including fittings – until 12 April. So how’s she supposed to get her dress altered.
She even suggested doing her fitting outdoors, hoping we’d be within the rules when two people can meet outdoors for food or drinks. Sadly not the case and besides, my two children will be back at school and exposed to 180 people daily by then so I’m not as isolated as I could be. It’s just not worth the risk.
But we’ve struck upon a solution. We’ll do her fitting via videocall, with me guiding her mum (whom she lives with) on where to stick the pins and which bits to measure. Then we can exchange the dress contact-free and I’ll alter it for her.
And she’s back. (If you missed the first two blog posts on my first troll experience, I have deeply upset a bride to be by charging more than $100 for my veils.) Below is her return volley to my explanation of how I arrive at the prices for my work.
