At Especially For You we are always trying to find ways of
making the day a little bit more special for you (and you wonder how we came up
with our business name!). We already ensure that everything we do for you as a
bride is perfect, priding ourselves on our customer service and the time and
effort we put into making sure your dream day goes that little bit smoother.
The one thing we could never figure out was how to add a
final finishing touch to your dress in order to personalise it a step further
(without anyone else having to know). We’ve always sewn little blue ribbon bows
onto the inside of the dress if people have asked, some brides have wanted a
little pouch in the skirts to hold a string of pearls from their grandmother. Then, a breakthrough.
Why don’t we add a ribbon label into the dresses with your name,
ours and the wedding date? We knew it had to be done carefully, and look
professional (not tacky!) because this is a dress that is going to stay with
you for a long time, maybe forever, and the last thing we wanted to do was ruin
it. We sketched the design out on paper first, trying to work out the
dimensions needed for the ribbon not to be noticeable on the outside, because
if too big it would be bulky and show through. For that matter, we needed to
know where we were going to sew it in the dress. Luckily, Carole had
that covered; suggesting the best place would be at the back of the dress just
to the side of the fastening up the back. On the sketching front, it took a few
attempts to get the scale right, you can easily tell if you look at this attempt
and then the real one just below.
After deciding that the ribbon should be about 4" by
1.5", we needed to work out which kind of ribbon to use. As a sewing amateur
at the best of times, I had just presumed we would sew straight onto the shiny
stuff, and all would be well. Apparently not. A local business has a special
sewing machine which can stitch our design onto the first kind of ribbon,
and looked at the result. It had all pulled, the ribbon no longer just a
rectangular shape. Obviously, with the needles pushing through the ribbon and pulling
the threads tight, the ribbon had become misshapen, not really the chic look we
were going for.
Obviously the ribbon we used would have to be a bit stiffer,
less shiny so that the sewing machine would find it easy to sew our pattern on.
Carole came up with an ivory grosgrain ribbon, quite a ridged one which would keep its
shape. And it worked, see the results for yourself, I have to say we’re quite
proud of ourselves (not that I contributed really – blaming the amateur sewing skill again!).
Do you like what we’ve done with the labels, or is there
something we could change about them? We are always open to suggestions, and
would love to hear what you think. Comment down below, or tweet us
@especiallybride . Thanks for reading, until the next #weddingwednesday.
Emma at Especially For You x