On today’s show, Julie talks with Giselle Ghofrani from Dress Doctor about dress fittings, and things to help if your dress ends up being too big. Some brides change weight as they plan their wedding due to stress, and some just want room to dance, and jump around. Either way, there are ways to have a great fitting dress that will hold its shape and not become unmanageable as the wedding goes on!

• First dress fitting 6-8 weeks before event
• Consultation and come back for 3 fittings
• Know your body, and discuss with the seamstress
• If alterations are more than standard find someone that does more custom alterations
• Waist belts in the dress
• Practice sitting down, and moving around in dress at fittings
• Dress grows with your body as time goes
• Grosgrain, get one inch wide, and what to do with it
• Don’t recommend safety pins inside of the dress
• Strapless dresses
• Felina longline bra’s
• Your fitter should help with what you would need for your dress undergarments

Do you let stress get the best of you when it comes to having your photo taken? Today’s guest will help you navigate looking great in your photographs. As a fine art photographer, he is there to think for you and knows how to capture the perfect photos.

Do you let stress get the best of you when it comes to having your photo taken? Today’s guest will help you navigate looking great in your photographs. As a fine art photographer, he is there to think for you and knows how to capture the perfect photos.

Jose Villa of Jose Villa Photography finds the beauty in everyone and helps brides look and feel amazing on their wedding day. Starting out when he was only 19 years old, he found his passion for photography in high school. Graduating with a degree in photography, Jose knew all along what he wanted in life. Shooting his weddings with only film brings such beautiful images to life. Listen in and hear about his new presets he has been working on as well to help save time!

• Background on Jose’s life and getting into his passion
• The process Jose uses to get familiar with the couples
• Why Jose only shoots film
• What it takes to create great photographs
• Communicating with the couples
• Jose’s secrets on how to look great in a photo
• How intrinsic photo shoots are
• Jose’s take on photoshopping
• Paying attention to setting up the environment for the shoot
• How Jose advises his brides of what photographs best
• How different wedding dress materials are better with different settings
• Advice for people who hate having their photos taken
• Presets Jose is working on right now that save time

Are you a bride who doesn’t want to sacrifice the experience of gown shopping for a designer gown, but also doesn’t want to spend too much on your wedding dress? On today’s show, we find out that you can still walk down the aisle in the perfect couture dress, without breaking the bank. Thanks to Ana and Jacquelyn for coming together and finding out there was a need in the wedding gown industry for pre-owned designer wedding gowns and providing this much needed service.

Ana and Jacquelyn are founders and owners of Our Story Bridal in New York City, a luxury wedding dress consignment and resale boutique. They know that all brides dream of looking their best for the big day, and a discount on high end designer dresses allows more brides to enjoy their dream wedding dress. Ana and Jacquelyn knew that each dress tells its own story, but that a dress can have multiple stories. Listen in to hear more about their boutique, and how it differentiates from other resale boutiques.

• Why and how Ana and Jacquelyn started their boutique
• Three types of brides Ana and Jacquelyn target
• Providing alterations on site in the boutique and why it is so important
• Customizing gowns for brides making each dress their own
• Not sacrificing the experience of gown shopping in order to find a great deal
• Differentiating their boutique from other boutiques
• Evaluating dresses and the process
• Wedding dress trends that are popular right now
• How most dress problems can be fixed
• Selling, and buying back a dress after the wedding
• Accepting dresses from all over the world
• Tips for brides when shopping at their boutique and the average discount they offer
• Benefiting from the resale community right now
• Walking out of the boutique with confidence

If you’ve ever wondered just how far brides will go to have the perfect wedding dress, then today’s show is just for you! Styling a bride goes far beyond the dress choice and there’s no one more capable of sharing her best practices for building a successful business styling brides than Beth Chapman.

If you’ve ever wondered just how far brides will go to have the perfect wedding dress, then today’s show is just for you! Styling a bride goes far beyond the dress choice and there’s no one more capable of sharing her best practices for building a successful business styling brides than Beth Chapman.

Beth Chapman founded The White Dress by the Shore bridal boutique and has set the standard for what a great dress shopping experience should be. Beth has also branched out to create a consulting business around helping other bridal boutique owners have a successful business. Beth has truly raised the bar for the level of service that she provides to brides, and that’s one of her keys to success. Listen in to hear more about the current trends that Beth is seeing in bridal fashion.

• How Beth started her boutique
• Why Beth started a consulting business to help other bridal salon owners
• Key to success that have helped Beth’s business grow
• The Princess effect and how it’s changed her business
• Wedding dress trends that are popular right now
• Customizing gowns can provide creative alternative to “off the rack”
• Brands of gowns that are currently popular

On today’s show, Julie talks with Shelley Brown, the fashion editor of The Knot Magazine. We will get to hear all about what they saw at Bridal Market last week. Trends, things that Shelley loved, and all of the new designs brides need to pay attention to is what Julie and Shelley are discussing today!

On today’s show, Julie talks with Shelley Brown, the fashion editor of The Knot Magazine. We will get to hear all about what they saw at Bridal Market last week. Trends, things that Shelley loved, and all of the new designs brides need to pay attention to is what Julie and Shelley are discussing today!

• Background on Shelley and how she got into bridal
• What Shelley loves about Bridal
• What Shelley does as at the Magazine
• Shelley does about a dozen a year of fashion shoots
• How Bridal Market plays into Shelley’s Job
• Trends that Shelley saw emerge from this market last week
• Trends coming from the Wedding from Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank
• Having convertible dresses save time during weddings
• Color was in the market, such as colorful embellishments showing up in collections
• Botanical designs this season
• Reem Acra collection and shows
• Some Collections Shelley loved
• Accessories at the Bridal Market
• Shelley’s next photo shoot
• One dress can inform a whole story for a photo shoot
• Having the photo shoots be aspirational but still relatable

We’re on the cusp of COUTURE NYC Bridal Market, and we have so much to talk about in preparation for the show. It’s Julie’s 27th market, and she still can’t wait for it to get started!

We’re on the cusp of COUTURE NYC Bridal Market, and we have so much to talk about in preparation for the show. It’s Julie’s 27th market, and she still can’t wait for it to get started! On today’s show, Julie talks with Alexandra Macon from Over the Moon. We get to hear how her career got started to how Alexandra built Over the Moon. Alexandra shares with us her favorite bridal fashion trends and what she hopes to see more of at the Market!

• Where Alexandra started her career
• How Alexandra decided she wanted to be a managing editor
• Working with Vogue
• Alexandra talks about Vogue.com
• How Alexandra built “Over the Moon”
• How to submit your wedding
• Real time weddings
• Heavy fashion presence on Vogue.com
• Over the Moon is more “couple next door”
• Social Media is very important today
• Featuring collections on Over the Moon
• What Alexandra would like to see more of
• Alexandra would like to see more unexpected things on fashion
• Creating instagramable moments

On today’s show, Julie talks with Mark Ingram of Mark Ingram Atelier. Mark has one of the best eyes in the industry for selecting dresses. The topic of today’s show is trunk shows. They can be critical in finding your dress, and some brides don’t even know what they are.

On today’s show, Julie talks with Giselle Ghofrani about your wedding dress bustle. Most designers do not design the wedding dress to be bustled. The designers do not think about the dancing sitting, or jumping around – they only care about walking down the aisle and that you will look amazing.

On today’s show, Julie talks with Giselle Ghofrani, from the Dress Doctor, about your wedding dress bustle. Most designers do not design the wedding dress to be bustled. The designers do not think about the dancing sitting, or jumping around – they only care about walking down the aisle and that you will look amazing. Bustles are not meant to be tucked or folded giving the seamstress a big challenge. Listen to today’s episode to learn how to keep handle the bustle and how to be prepared when the inevitable happens!

• Do not recommend bustling layers together
• Dresses are bustled almost 50% of the time you’re in it
• Almost everything done for a wedding dress bustle is done by hand
• Bustles hold a lot of weight
• Expect your wedding dress bustle to break
• Types of Bustles: American Bustle, French Bustle, Fold under Bustle, Double French bustle
• Step off the riser when you are trying on your dress
• Every dress bustles differently for every person
• Dancing loop for before until bustling the dress
• Bustle the dress to be off the ground
• At a fitting try to dance, and sit in your dress
• Do not let your groom pick you up – resist the urge
• Make sure the weight is distributed on the bustle evenly
• Recommend having tons of safety pins
• How to fix bustle with safety pins

Julie really wants to hear from you, so if you have questions or comments, please reach out to her so you can be sure you are dressed, styled and down the aisle!

On today’s show, Julie talks about how to transport your wedding dress to where it needs to be with the least amount of stress and hassle. You will need to ascertain your threshold of dealing with uncertainty. How the dress is packed plays a big part in the condition it arrives in. She will talk about the pros and cons of shipping vs. carrying the dress with you, as well as tips for the best practices.

On today’s show, Julie talks about how to transport your wedding dress to where it needs to be with the least amount of stress and hassle. You will need to ascertain your threshold of dealing with uncertainty. How the dress is packed plays a big part in the condition it arrives in. She will talk about the pros and cons of shipping vs. carrying the dress with you, as well as tips for the best practices.

• After final fitting, and alterations, they will steam and pack your dress
• Make sure they pack the dress properly
• Bodice stuffed with cardboard and tissue paper
• A Layer of plastic over the dress before it goes into the bag
• If not packed properly you can take to a dry cleaner and ask them to pack it properly
• Pros and Cons of Shipping vs carrying the dress with you
• Taking the dress with you best for brides who are nervous to have the dress out of sight
• Size of the dress the garment bag can be huge
• Want to lay dress down flat in vehicle
• More complicated if flying with your dress
• Logistics when flying with your dress (Carrying it, going through security, more handling of the dress)
• How susceptible your dress is to becoming wrinkled
• Where to put it on the plane
• Call ahead to airlines for carrying on a dress
• Purchase an extra seat for the dress on the plane
• You can check the dress onto a plane
• Keep in mind luggage gets lost
• Make sure who is shipping uses express overnight with a tracking number
• Keep the dress in a box as little time as possible
• Don’t forget weekends can change shipping time frames
• International shipping, pay attention to filling out the Customs forms
• Using a service you need someone on the other end to sign to receive a package

On today’s show, Julie will talk about what every bride worries about, and every planner has had to deal with. What to do when your wedding dress is wrinkled. Julie will interview an expert with fabric, Giselle Ghofrani. She will help with tips on how to handle wrinkles on your wedding dress.

• Some background on Giselle Ghofrani
• Hiring a professional, having someone there
• Empowering women to do it on their own
• Being prepared in advance
• Ask the person who was working on the dress what they did for wrinkles
• Buying a portable steamer & tips on it
• Don’t recommend laying it down, hang dress once arrives at highest point in room
• Be careful where you hang the dress
• What not to do, to un-wrinkle your dress
• If the wrinkles are not that bad, leave them alone
• If you do not see wrinkles in a photo it should be fine
• Troubleshooting the wrinkles per fabric
• Some dresses should not be steamed
• Don’t burn yourself
• Practice steaming first

Julie really wants to hear from you, so if you have questions or comments, please reach out to her so you can be sure you are dressed, styled and down the aisle!