Biography of a bespoke wedding dress maker
I have been sewing professionally for more than 20 years, specialising in bespoke wedding dresses since 2006. In 2004 I graduated from Wimbledon College of Art with a BA(Hons) in Costume design.
My family observes that I'm never seen without a needle. For my work I make beautiful and individual bespoke wedding dresses and on holiday I do cross stitch!
I live with my spouse and three lovely children, working from my studio /shop on Dorking High street.
To see more of my work visit my portfolio of real brides.
Art and Painting
I love painting; with still life of flowers and reflective surfaces being favourite subjects I return to again and again. I actually really dislike figurative work, though faces and portraits interest me. So you’ll notice my dress designs for bespoke wedding dresses are very simple, with no body parts involved!
Board games and computer games
If you’re ‘in’ to board games you will recognise and appreciate my taste for ‘proper games’. I loved Monopoly, Hero Quest and Risk as a child but I’m so glad better games were invented that don’t rely on dice rolling! My favourites include Dominion, Smallworld, Wingspan and Samurai.
I also loved computer games growing up. I played all the way through the ‘Commander Keen’ series and later enjoyed many many games of Civilisation, Theme Hospital and Theme Park on the PC. When I gained a husband and a playstation other games became available to me including Super Monkey Ball and Katamari Damacy.
the other interests of a bespoke wedding dress maker
Language and more
I’m very much a book worm and much prefer the printed page to reading online articles. I have a very high reading speed and devour the written word, both novels and non-fiction.
My mind is a bottomless well for acquiring new and interesting facts. I love connecting with people who can expand my knowledge more into my areas of interest. Or show me new avenues to explore. Linguistics and anthropology are some subjects that interest me particularly. I’ve had passing flirtations with economics and psychology too.
Garden and nature
I love my little garden though I rarely get as much time out there as I would like. My work, making bespoke wedding dresses is very seasonal. So my busiest time crosses over with when the garden needs me most.
My vegetable patch has ebbed and waned with each new baby usurping any spare time I might gain. But I love growing herbs and things to eat as well as flowers. I grow red-currants and make my own jelly.
May is a good time of year in my garden: my happy place.
If you feel a connection with me and my interests enquire today about starting the design process for your bespoke wedding dress.
Aerial Hoop
I started attending aerial hoop classes at a local studio, My Body Rocks in Reigate in 2022. I love gaining strength and flexibility and sometimes learning graceful moves as well!
Below I perform one of the simplest positions, the very first people learn at a beginner class, but with my friend Lauren Croucher on the hoop as well it looks spectacular. It is called a Delilah.
Advancing to moves on the top of the hoop and in the 'strop' shows the progress I have made in three years practice. Below is a 'chest stand' and I am wearing a custom unitard by Shelley of Cirquewear by Shelley
Bright Apple photography
After just nine months at the studio I took part in my first photoshoot with Bright Apple Photography . It's a really good idea to document even the start of your journey as then you can later really see the gains you are making. Below two pictures from the first photoshoot, showing a 'double leg cradle' and a 'clothes-line' poses.
The image cella
The other pictures are from my most recent hoop shoot in July 2024 with the Image Cella. This shoot wasn't the first time I've posed for Simon as he started in wedding photography and has not only taken pictures of some of my client's weddings but also collaborated with me on wedding dress photoshoots.
The Path to making Bespoke Wedding Dresses
Sewing and fashion are threads that run deep into my life history.
My first memory of sewing is at just over four years old, on the floor of my mother's sewing room, making a doll's dress (which I still have). I sewed at home for fun, at Brownies for badges, at school for GSCE and A-level, fashion shows and for my friends' Leavers' Ball dresses.
2004 at the Henley Royal Regatta in a dress and hat I made myself
At the age of fifteen I joined the National Youth Theatre's costume department and sewed through six summer holidays in dusty theatre wardrobes and back stage. While I was at art college my mother and I ran a small shop on Reigate High Street called ‘Lothlorien’. We sold clothes and jewellery we made ourselves and craft items from other local artisans.
above: 'Lothlorien' in Reigate, Surrey 2000-2001
In my early twenties I designed and sewed hundreds of costumes for a Yorkshire based Youth theatre 'Livewire'. At university (Wimbledon School of Art) I purposefully took the design, not sewing, course to push my research and design skills. I felt I could already sew!
While at university I got the bug for bridal wear by working part time for a wedding dress shop in Reigate as their alterations lady. After graduating I worked briefly in film and television before concentrating on making bespoke wedding dresses.
above: on my last day at 'Amante' wedding dress shop in Reigate 2008, with Liz the owner who has been so supportive and encouraging during my career and is still a dear friend.
Moving into new premises
I have been working from home for most of my working life, but in 2021 we decided as a family we needed more space. With three children and my business (as well as ourselves) our three bedroom home was beginning to feel quite tight! We considered moving house but with the children settled at school it seemed a better idea to look to move my business to a new space.
Fittings in my previous space took place in our living room, with a lovely big mirror.
My sewing room was quite small, and difficult to keep tidy when I was busy.
Photography by @thealtweddingco and @rachelmillsphotography
I got the keys to my new shop premises on Dorking High Street in April 2022 and moved in six months later after extensive renovations.
I gained so much space. Not only a workshop area four times the size of my old workroom at home, but also a retail area with seating for consultations, two fitting rooms and a huge basement area where I keep my pride and joy, a 4m long cutting out table!
The same big mirror from my home is now in pride of place in my main fitting room. The mirror used to belong to my grandmother. She as a professional dancer and used it for dance practice at home.
Below: my new sewing room where I create all your beautiful dresses.
home, work and family life
I live in Surrey with my wonderful and supportive spouse who is a computer programmer. We have three delightful children who were trained young to bring me the pins they find all around the house. They are all very patient with my work making bespoke wedding dresses. With many fittings at weekends and in the evening it’s tricky sometimes to balance work and family life.
My splendid family. A portrait taken in 2018 with baby just 2 months old!
Photo by Kevin Day
costume history
My fascination with costume history began when colouring in photocopied pages from my mother’s costume history books. Books she’d enjoyed herself as a child. My mother made many historical costumes for her large collection of Barbie dolls, which my sister and I gained access to when we successively turned eight. My mother’s miniature Elizabethan and Tudor creations were truly exquisite. And the 1950’s and 60’s commercial doll’s clothes that came to us were so much more beautiful and well made than those sold in the shops at the time.
Historical barbie costumes made by my mother when she was a child. They are Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth I
above: 18th century costume designs for 'Our Country's Good', a university project.
The award winning and well known costume designer, Jenny Beavan is a family friend. I was lucky enough to live with her for 4 summers in my teenage years, while I worked at the National Youth theatre. I watched her work on designs for the films ‘Ever After’ and ‘Possession’ while I lived at her house in London. She kindly tempered my youthful arrogance with wise words of advice. Jenny helped me to think about my possible career in costume optimistically but with realism. And she has been supportive ever since!
theatre
My love of theatre extends far beyond the costumes. I love to watch plays and feel very lucky to live so close to the culture epicentre that is London. I am a member of a small but very prolific local amateur theatre in the nearby town of Horley. The Archway Theatre, built under the arches of Horley station’s railway bridge, produces 10+ productions a year on two stages. I have designed and made costumes on occasion but mostly participate on stage.
My favourite roles with Archway, and at other theatres, have included Elaine in ‘The Graduate’, ‘Lotty’ in ‘Enchanted April’ and Sybil in ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’. I also regularly appear in Shakespeare plays with The Polesden Lacy Shakespeare Company. Until 2019 they produced outdoor, traditional but groundbreaking productions of well loved Shakespeare plays.
Below you can see me in
Home I'm Darling -as Judy 2024 Archway Theatre
Sunset at Villa Thalia -as Charlotte 2022 Archway Theatre
Love's Labour's Lost -as Moth 2019 Polesden Lacy Shakespeare
Enchanted April -as Lottie 2017 - Archway Theatre
The Winter's Tale -as Paulina 2012 Archway Theatre
The Taming of the Shrew -as Biana 2010 Polesden Lacy Shakespeare
Passing out Parade -as Jenkins 2009 Archway Theatre
A Midsummer's Night's Dream' -as a fairy. 2009 Polesden Lacy Shakespeare
Lord Arthur Saville's crime -as Sybil 2008 KADDS, Kingswood
Saucy Jack and the space vixens
In 2023 I directed 'Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens' at the Archway Theatre. This is a musical I saw in one of it's original productions at tne Edinburgh festival in the late 1990's. I fell in love with it's sexiness and vibrant score. It was a wonderful fulfilment to bring my own version to life and to have such a wonderful cast and crew help me do so.
Photos below by Mark Dobson
Costume design
Though I actively prefer treading the boards myself as my main hobby, I am occasionally persuaded to help design and make costumes for shows I am involved with. Below are a few creations worn by wonderful characters from shows across the years. These include, Dracula, Hamlet (In Japan), Much Ado ABout Nothing, The Importance of Being Ernest, Private Lives, King Arthur, Pride and Prejudice and Twelfth Night.
teaching
In 2016 I taught a summer course at London School of Fashion. The project was run by ‘The Muslin Trust’ a charity seeking to raise the profile of traditionally woven cotton muslin fabrics called ‘Jamdani’ from Bangladesh. The course ran for 10 weeks with young people aged 15-21 learning about the history of Regency fashion, historical construction techniques and the continuing production of the muslin fabrics. The students designed and produced, entirely by hand, two Regency dresses using Jamdani fabrics. The dresses were showcased and exhibited around the world.
In 2017 I started running small sewing classes with colleagues Sarah Fenn and Beth Moody. Under the name ‘Reigate School of Sewing’ we run 6-8 week dressmaking courses for beginners and improvers. We also run stand alone ‘Learn to use a Sewing Machine’ classes for total newbies and for those needing to gain confidence again after some time away from sewing.
If you're new to dressmaking and looking to buy a suitable sewing machine check out my blog post on 'Sewing Machines for Beginners'
From these two small forays into teaching I find I have a real love of, and some skill at, imparting my own knowledge to others. I hope one day to take on an apprentice and be able to pass on my knowledge of making bespoke wedding dresses.
teaching
In 2016 I taught a summer course at London School of Fashion. The project was run by ‘The Muslin Trust’ a charity seeking to raise the profile of traditionally woven cotton muslin fabrics called ‘Jamdani’ from Bangladesh. The course ran for 10 weeks with young people aged 15-21 learning about the history of Regency fashion, historical construction techniques and the continuing production of the muslin fabrics. The students designed and produced, entirely by hand, two Regency dresses using Jamdani fabrics. The dresses were showcased and exhibited around the world.
In 2017 I started running small sewing classes with colleagues Sarah Fenn and Beth Moody. Under the name ‘Reigate School of Sewing’ we run 6-8 week dressmaking courses for beginners and improvers. We also run stand alone ‘Learn to use a Sewing Machine’ classes for total newbies and for those needing to gain confidence again after some time away from sewing.
If you're new to dressmaking and looking to buy a suitable sewing machine check out my blog post on 'Sewing Machines for Beginners'
From these two small forays into teaching I find I have a real love of, and some skill at, imparting my own knowledge to others. I hope one day to take on an apprentice and be able to pass on my knowledge of making bespoke wedding dresses.
Early connections with the Wedding Industry
I grew up with parents who changed jobs and moved house every 3-5 years throughout my childhood. Though we were always living in and around the Reigate/ Horley/ Gatwick area. My father loves setting up new businesses and making plans, but not so much the everyday slog of running them. So there was always a new project on the horizon and another reason to move on!
The Parks Young family in 1991, I am bottom right.
One of their enterprises was running a country house hotel, just outside Charlwood, in Surrey. The 16 bedroom house was owned by my grandfather, and had been built by his grandfather, truly a family mansion. My parents started out running the house as a bed and breakfast but quickly progressed to hoteling. They found weddings were the best way to make the house financially viable.
Stanhill Court in the snow 1987. My bedroom was the third upstairs window from the right which was always traditionally the nursery.
Unfortunately this discovery could not prevent the 1991 financial crash from pulling the rug from under their feet. As a result the business collapsed and the house was sold out of the family.
above: Inside Stanhill Court when I lived there, view from above the stairs to the minstrels gallery
But the years I spent from age four to nine in a big, beautiful house, surrounded by English woodland and handing round cake at weekend weddings, were very formative. You can still visit my family house, Stanhill Court (Hotel) in Charlwood. It is still a hotel and wedding venue, though now much changed and modernised by the current owners. Very occasionally I make a bespoke wedding dress for someone who is going to be married there and that always brings me much happiness.
If you feel a connection with me and my interests enquire today about starting the design process for your bespoke wedding dress.
After Rebecca decided I was the right person for the job of making her wedding outfit, I began work on this gorgeous, floaty dream of a wedding dress.
However, we had an additional challenge to overcome...Rebecca lives in Germany. (there`s something about me and German brides - we just get along. This is my second bespoke order from Germany!) But we found a system that really worked for us during this process.
So if you`re an overseas bride, looking for the complete bespoke experience (as opposed to `made to measure` which is what we do if you can`t visit for fittings), take note.
The dress was made over the course of six months. Rebecca first visited in May for 4 days, during which we had three separate fittings. Then I worked on the dress, including the intricate dye techniques required to achieve this pastel rainbow. In September she visited for another three days (three weeks before her wedding), with a fitting every day. After the final fitting, she took the dress back to Germany with her.
I`ve had many other overseas brides, and they often choose made-to-measure: where I make the dress according to their measurements (following my strict instructions on how to take those measurements). This process leaves less space for changing the design, and always requires some additional work from a seamstress once it has been sent.
For Rebecca, having the full bespoke experience was absolutely the right choice. During our fittings she changed her mind on a few design elements - including removing the sleeves - meaning that by the time it was finished, it was exactly what she wanted.
You just can`t beat bespoke 💜
~
Photography - @pesto_fotografie
"The dress got so many compliments and it was so nice to be able to wear something that felt so much more like a reflection of who I am."
Look at this beauty!
I`ve made a lot of custom dip dye wedding dresses, and many of them have been the Phoenix colourway. But somehow Jess made it feel brand new when she asked me to add blue to the bottom, and lower the saturation on the colours.
So instead of bright sunflower yellow, we went with a buttery pastel yellow. Instead of vibrant orange, we chose a warm coral. Followed by dusky pinks and muted purples, right down to that faded navy.
The effect turned out looking like like watercolours 🖌️ I love how it turned out and I`m so glad Jess did too 💜
Photography - Craig Foreman Photography
It`s not everyone who gets to say that part of their job is hand-sewing a delicate, beaded spider`s web, finished with Swarovski crystal dew drops.
It`s only because my brides have such brilliant and beautiful imaginations that I get to make such wonderful things.
Happy Halloween, everyone 🕷️🕸️
Destination Vegas. Rockabilly bride. Halloween vibes.
Sounds like the perfect wedding.
Gorgeous goth Ellie got married in Las Vegas on Halloween. She wanted something alternative, retro and a little spooky. She realised she was never going to find that with an off-the-rack wedding dress. That`s where I came in.
I designed and made her white and purple wedding dress with a wonderful blend of 1950’s and 90`s shapes, modern styling and subtle Halloween Vixen detail. Harkening back to when Halloween was a little more stylish - perfect for this gothic bombshell. Below the boned bodice, I ruched and layered white satin over sumptuous shot black/purple taffeta and layers and layers of white net. The white satin was spangled all over with hand sewn crystals, ready to sparkle under the Vegas lights.
My favourite detail? The hand beaded spider web made from Swarovski crystals. Spooky but subtle.
As a seamstress there are certain things that give me the ick. Usually they`re pretty specific and unless you`re also a dressmaker it might be something you`re completely unaware of.
I`ve always had a ‘thing’ about language generally. I find it really interesting. I`ve noticed how strong a reaction I can have to people using language differently to what I’m used to. And when I notice that I often go on a bit of a deep dive to understand where that difference stems from. I think coming from a historical costuming background also means I love to know the history of things (and despite my instinctive language-conservative leanings, I do actively work on being accepting and open minded, trying celebrate the differences).
That said, please don’t say your dress has a trail!
Snails have trails - dresses have trains! 🐌
Have you ever dreamed of getting married somewhere beautiful, gothic and very Scottish?
Richelle got married in Edinburgh and wanted a bespoke wedding dress that could compete with one of the most iconic cities in the world.
We had to go structural, to echo the beautiful architecture of Edinburgh Castle (where she got married), as well as the rest of the atmospheric city`s layers of winding lanes, stacked stone buildings and hidden tunnels. So I designed her a pink and silver waterfall skirt wedding dress in organza, silk and lace.
I also included lots of versatility in the outfit, by making several removable pieces. These included a medieval-inspired bolero with waterfall sleeves, and a 1950s skirt for London part of her wedding (scroll to the end of the photos to see).
Oh, and her wedding reception was museum of Scotland. What a dreamy wedding 😍
Photography - @LinaandTom
