FAO Pandora II

[SapphireLover]

Hi Pandora- hope you see this message!

I was just looking at pics of your dress and was wondering who made it for you? Is it somebody who does period pieces or somebody who specialises in bridal wear? Do they have a website? I''m in Manchester and thinking of having a wedding dress made!

Hope you and baby are doing well!

Jo

 

[Pandora II]

Date: 8/3/2009 3:43:06 AM
Author:SapphireLover
Hi Pandora- hope you see this message!

I was just looking at pics of your dress and was wondering who made it for you? Is it somebody who does period pieces or somebody who specialises in bridal wear? Do they have a website? I''m in Manchester and thinking of having a wedding dress made!

Hope you and baby are doing well!

Jo

Hi Jo,

The girl who made mine is called Mary Morris - I think she''s actually based in Manchester now, she was certainly there when I was doing my dress.

DH and I designed my dress together and the fabric was made by a friend of mine in Italy. I supplied the pearls which were all real and sourced from ebay. Mary and I then tweaked the design and collaborated a lot on the technical stuff (my degree is in fashion and textiles, as is hers). She supplied all the other stuff - linings, inter-linings etc

Even though she''s young (26 I think) she has a lot of experience in bridal wear and her speciality is corsets. She doesn''t do it as a main job though, just in her spare time, so you will need to work with that time-wise and fit round her schedule. She does everything herself so you''ll need to contact her well in advance as she may be doing things for other people - we started on my dress nearly a year before the wedding.

She also doesn''t take all commissions - when I contacted her she had stopped doing wedding dresses as people just wanted her to copy existing dresses and she was fed up with not doing original ideas. She was also fed up with people insisting that she use certain fabrics even though she had told them that it wouldn''t work - and then they were upset when (like she had warned them) it looked awful. So, if you do use her, definitely listen to her advice because she really does know fabrics and what they can and can''t do. Somethings also need to be functional rather than beautiful - the corset under my dress was in calico as it needed to be really strong but not bulky - works amazingly well, but it''s not something I''d wear on it''s own. She can do amazing external corsets though.

I think she''s fantastic and incredibly talented - but she doesn''t work in the way that a bridal shop might. Fittings were done in her parent''s spare bedroom with a mirror propped against the wall - as far as I was concerned I was paying for someone''s talent not for a ''bridal experience'' with champagne and my mother in tears type thing!

She does have a website, but it''s very basic and doesn''t really show the range of her skills - just google Mary Morris Couture...she did tell me that she was thinking of going back to doing dresses again, so it''s worth giving her a call - evenings might be best as she''s normally at work during the day.

Hope that helps!

P

 

[SapphireLover]

Thanks for the reply. Her prices are more than reasonable. I am quite open to ideas about how the dress will look. I love the Christian Dior New Look style and have ordered some books for inspiration. I''d love somebody to guide me through the types of fabric etc that would fit the design.

I do wonder if she is still in Manchester though, as her website is now called Mary Morris London. There is plenty of time to contact her- my wedding isn''t until 1st August 2010!

Thanks again,

Jo x

 

[Pandora II]

Date: 8/3/2009 6:51:36 AM
Author: SapphireLover
Thanks for the reply. Her prices are more than reasonable. I am quite open to ideas about how the dress will look. I love the Christian Dior New Look style and have ordered some books for inspiration. I''d love somebody to guide me through the types of fabric etc that would fit the design.

I do wonder if she is still in Manchester though, as her website is now called Mary Morris London. There is plenty of time to contact her- my wedding isn''t until 1st August 2010!

Thanks again,

Jo x

Nope - that is the old website (there isn''t a new one) - she moved to Manchester from London.

Just to give you a guide-line, my dress was the upper-end of the pricescale and that was not including fabric costs as I supplied them. So for the cost of a high-street dress I got a made-to-measure one-off design to exactly my specifications... I was VERY happy!

I love the CD New Look - you could do a fantastic dress with that inspiration. Mary is definitely up for making the process a collaboration and has great ideas for things.

I''d give her a call asap - if she can''t do it, she''ll probably know someone who can!

 

[SapphireLover]

Awesome- I''ve emailed her but not heard back (she might be on holiday etc, so I''m not stressed!). I''ve had another Google and discovered that we got guzzumped on a house off her street. She lives less than half a mile from my house