2017 Wedding dress bookings, timescales & info

It's already the last day of February! Where has that time gone? I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year!

I thought I'd start this year's (delayed) blog post with some talk about 'time'. It fits in with several practical notes I want to discuss with you about my service. I hope you find this helpful if you're thinking of getting in touch or commissioning a custom made dress. It's a bit stream of conciousness, but hey, that's how things are around here!

I am incredibly busy in the studio making dresses for 2017 weddings, and am already almost booked up for this year! This is great on many levels and yet not so great having to turn away potential customers. So I'm sorry if I couldn't book you in this year, I hate turning away brides, but I have to be realistic about what can be done and loyal to the brides already booked.

This is a constant battle that I have. I'm sure many of you are managing 'time'. There's just never enough of it in my opinion. If I could get hold of Hermione Granger's time turner, that would be useful at times. Sometimes just to double the amount of hours in a day.... not everyday....just when needed.

For your info, as I type, I have space for weddings with a date from September onward this year, so if you're interested, please don't leave it too long to get in touch. I only take on what I can effectively manage and when I'm full up, that's it. Realistically this is going to be about 4 bookings remaining for 2017, but it could be more, or it could be less, depending on what the bookings turn out to be. That's the beauty of this work - I don't know what someone is going to request next!

Going back to turning people away. I feel quite a lot of guilt about this sometimes and beat myself up about not running a 'proper' business. In other words I feel a pressure from myself to expand the business. But on the other hand, this small business is what, from feedback, my clients seem to like, and what I can currently cope with. It wouldn't be what it is, if it were a bigger enterprise.

Making the dresses as I do takes many hours. I do have some help, but it's mainly me, making patterns, toiles, fitting and sewing for you. So the dresses (or outfits) I make are made here. Many people would like to know about prices beforehand. I can only give a huge price range because it depends on what you require, but almost all the wedding dresses I make fall somewhere between £1000-£3000. A few are more, a few are less than this, it just depends on the design. The best thing is to ask.

So as I'm busy creating, I'm a nightmare when it comes to answering the phone. I'm sorry about this, I am trying to balance making very labour intensive items with endless junk and sales calls, interspersed with the odd genuine enquiry. Due to the delicate and intricate nature of making some parts of the dresses, sometimes I literally cannot put down what I'm working on without having to redo part of it when I pick it up again. I'm not a shop - I am a design/sewing studio, so we're actually making what we sell. This is part of the service. If you leave me a message I will call back - just please don't forget to leave your phone number, your name and what your enquiry is about! If you keep ringing and not leaving a message, I will assume you're a junk call. Better still - send me an e-mail! You'll get a much quicker response from me that way, and your information is written down for me. It's a win/win situation!

So now you have this information, what do you do next? Send me an email enquiry (or ring, leave a message and I'll call back) with as much information on it as possible about what you think you'd like and when your wedding is. Information about your average dress size and height is also useful if you want me to give you a price. The earlier the better. I'm happy to give price estimates for ideas. Please don't be scared to ask. I will give you a final precise quote when we have met and discussed ideas in detail.

Phew! I think that's all for today. I will aim to compile some more FAQs, when time allows! :-) xx