Ailsa Munro Dressmaker

Beautiful Molly in the coolest dress I made this year- the fabric absolutely sings in the bias cut billowing sleeves and slim skirt with a sweep length train 😍 major thanks to for taking such gorgeous photos, these portraits look like a wedding blog put together a "hygge winter wedding inspo" shoot 😍😍

Happy new year to all my wonderful 2024 nearlyweds! So happy to be working on all your dresses, next up is the most beautiful elopement dress and then something special for a cathedral wedding!

A gorgeous sequin and beaded wrap gown for Sam. I am obsessed with the fawn colour of the silk on the sand.
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When we're talking about fabrics I like to think of "roast potatoes"- one word tells you how it's being served and the other tells you what the content is. The word "satin" is a tricky in the bridal market because it is often used as a selling point, but it doesn't necessarily indicate anything about the content. So you can have beautiful silk satins or stiff polyester satins. I'm seeing a movement towards shinier silk satins for 2024/25 brides and it's been really fun to use the softest ones I can find to fit my floaty whimsical aesthetic.

The evolution of my labels 🏷❤️
(Pics 2 &3) When I graduated in 2016 my labels featured the Birth Of Venus by Botticelli. I still absolutely love these labels, and I love the attention to detail I put into sewing them in with cute hand embroidered details and cute backings.
My first collection of wedding dresses also had these labels, before I really established my bridal brand identity, pic 4 is of the Elin dress with the label sewn in with a backing of liberty silk.
I got woven labels at some point in my first few years of running the business but I never really enjoyed using them- the edges are scratchy and I have pretty strong feelings about scratchy labels in my clothes.
(Pic 5) In 2020 I had an idea, probably because the wedding industry was temporarily on pause. I saw a picture of a couture gown for a Kardashian (let's not get into how we feel about the Kardashians here) which had her name hand embroidered onto a petersham ribbon and I thought it was just such a beautiful high end detail that I started doing the same, with a calligraphic version of the brides name and my name.
(Pic 1&6) Sometime later I took this a step further and started embroidering the label directly into the lining of the gown. I currently do this in every dress if possible, I only miss it when it would be visible from the outside!

Beautiful Jess in her whimsical fairytale wedding 🥰 I shared a close up of this gown on my reels the other day and the sketch, it's so lovely to see it on the wedding day photographed by

A sketch from last year, with the fabric I made the dress from. A big part of making couture wedding dresses is communicating what the bride is going to end up with as we go- lots of us have never had clothes made for us and therefore don't necessarily know what to expect and can find the process quite daunting. I take extra care to explain as we go along, and draw my sketches as clearly and explicitly as possible. It's not about creating a really beautiful illustration, it's about making sure you know what you're getting.

Queen Victoria broadly gets credited for starting the White Wedding Dress trend, and she definitely popularised it- even now the white fitted bodice and big skirt is the predominant wedding dress style- but did you know that white was already a fashion among upper class ladies at the time? Royal brides traditionally wore silver, but Victoria didn't want to be Queen on her wedding day, she just wanted to be a normal bride marrying her sweetheart so she followed the fashion for upper class women at the time and wore white. Photos of her in her white wedding dress then travelled all over the world and it became a long lasting tradition.

Stunning Samantha in the heaviest gown I've made 😂 we were all about getting as much movement as we could into the dress and it worked

Loved this shoot with the cutest couple

Another lovely bride ❤

https://www.lovemydress.net/blog/2022/04/nature-inspired-tipi-wedding-devon.html

A Nature-Inspired Tipi Wedding On The South Devon Coast Ishbel and Tom tied the knot on the beautiful Devon coast, surrounded by friends and family, and celebrated in a tipi overlooking the sea.

Gorgeous Sarah, Jon and Lyra on Love My Dress

Arthur Rackham Fairytale & Renaissance Inspired Woodland Wedding in Cornwall Arthur Rackham Fairytale & Renaissance Inspired Woodland Wedding in Cornwall

An all-time favourite real bride with a the best subtle lace detailing 😍 I loved making this cowl neck line and square sleeve combo.
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My lovely friend Sarah from &moth frames every photo like it's a classical painting. This shoot had such pastoral baroque vibes and I loved making this Linen wedding gown, so excited to be making linen gowns for brides in 2022.

A small selection from a very special Period Drama inspired shoot this summer with &moth in my tulle gown with Juliette sleeves

Ailsa Munro Dressmaker updated their business hours.

When my big sister got married 8 years ago she wanted something sweet and simple with sleeves that she could ceilidh dance in. That was pretty much her whole list of requirements, and still we COULD NOT find a dress that fitted them. We went to pretty much every wedding dress shop in Edinburgh. Then in Glasgow. My sister is not especially into shopping and wedding dress shopping can be a particularly demoralising and stressful experience so she was pretty much ready to give in and buy something- ANYTHING- by the end of this.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I think that experience was so formative for me deciding to get into bridal design so that I could start my own business making simple, sweet wedding dresses that you can ceilidh dance in.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Happy Anniversary E & O⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
What a year, I mean WHAT a year. Working on this dress was sheer delight. Hope you're celebrating, getting back into your wedding dress maybe and having a glass of fizz!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Throwback to M & D who got married a few years ago in a gorgeous country wedding! I love garden weddings so much, did any of you get married at home? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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So excited to be planning new shoots with my sweet friend ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Happy Birthday to my business! 5 years old today. I'm proud of the work I've done, and it has been an absolute honor to get to work with so many wonderful women as they prepare for their weddings. I really really love what I do, and I'm glad we get to do more of it this year 😍😍

I moved from Scotland down to England just over 5 years ago now. While I feel like I've made a new home here, a part of my soul will always be in the highlands of Scotland. If you haven't read Corrag by Susan Fletcher, it's like a holiday to Scotland pressed inside a paperback.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
B & D eloped to Skye last summer (unfortunately the weather didn't get the 'summer' memo) and the photos are an absolute dream. It was a real treat to make this pine linen gown.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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