Archive for the ‘Donations’ Category
Thanks so all our friends, family and BRIDES!!! we put together a team for Relay 2011 and raised a total of $26,015 for the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay for Life this year. This puts our total donations for 2011 at over $46,000 only half way through the year. Our goal is $60,000, but we sincerely hope to be overachievers.
And… holy smokes! We more than doubled what we raised for Relay for Life in 2010, and we are, for the second year in a row, the #1 fundraising team for the Toronto Central event.
Our thanks go to the brides who have bought or donated a dress here ( or even just provided us a donation in thanks for a great experience), our volunteers who run the shop to assist those brides, our other participants who raised extra funds and took part; and our friends and family who sponsored us in the event. Your contributions are all very important and made this possible.
Here’s a preliminary picture of our crew at the event… we hope to post more because we have a couple who are missing from this picture!
This weekend we were very fortunate with dress donations, including a Vera Wang and this stunning San Patrick dress. Emma and I are so in love with this piece that we’ve hidden it in a closet, and can only be bribed with chocolate to let someone try it on! Thanks so much Erica for parting with it, and giving another bride the opportunity to delight in this dress! (Photo credit il gruppo digitale in Tulum, Mexico)
Ladies, we have a gorgeous Size 8 Sottero Badgley in the house. Would you take a look at that train! Today’s featured gown is white and hemmed to fit 5’5″, courtesy of a very generous donor. Make an appointment to try it on!
Yahoo! Thanks to the generosity of Kim Ironmonger at Valencienne, we have received some stunning new silk dresses that are luxurious! Her designs illustrate the true meaning of ‘couture’, and matched with terrific fabrics, each and every one is a masterpiece.
Also, for a really interesting read and some designer sketches of Kate Middleton inspired dresses, check out her blog. I’m SO in love with Kim’s own Kate inspired dress!
Below is my favourite from the dresses we received… it’s cute, fun and flirty! Come on in to see the others!
Kelly recently donated her wedding dress to The Brides’ Project. It’s in the shop now — make an appointment to try it on!
Thanks for your generosity, Kelly, congratulations to you and your hubby!
This size 6 ivory Justin Alex gown is bursting with romance to make your groom sigh and topped with lots of sweetness to make your mama cry. Lace and beadwork in the bodice and skirt grace both the front and back of the dress.
And, speaking of mama, Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas out there! We wouldn’t be here without you! 
This lovely frock was donated by a generous lady who was also kind enough to have it drycleaned as well! The bodice has very flattering ruching at the front and gorgeous button detailing at the back. The pickups in the skirt and no beads/designs to contend with make it a breeze for hemming (just take up/down as necessary). This one won’t last long at the shop, make an appointment to try it on!
We are ever so grateful to our generous donors who provide us with dresses to make another bride happy on her wedding day. Our beneficiaries also thank our donors, who help in our fundraising efforts to beat cancer.
Congratulations Carolyn and David on your summer 2010 wedding! We wish you a lifetime of happiness
Photo credit: Vicky Brahos
Click on photos to view larger. Don’t forget to make an appointment to try on dresses!
Thanks to recent publicity, we have new arrivals at the shop! Photos will be posted over the coming days, stay tuned for more…
For now, feast your eyes on this sizzling Sophia Tolli in Size 6. It’s diamond white with a corset back and vine-style beadwork that continue into the train. The lines in the bodice are fluid and graceful.
Thank you to the generous donor who gave us this gorgeous frock! Make an appointment to try it on before it leaves the shop. Our donated gowns tend to sell very quickly!
In celebration of spring, we will be accepting ALL your colourful bridesmaid and mother of the bride dresses for the month of April.
We normally don’t take these items, but the timing is very specific; the schools are all putting on plays before the end of the school year and prom groups also need dresses! It’s a great chance to clean out your closets and send the dresses off to be re-purposed!
You can drop dresses off any time during business hours or leave them hanging from the hook on the front door outside those hours. Let your friends know too! Doesn’t everyone have a bridesmaid dress lurking in the back of their closet?!
We had the delight of meeting Lorraine on the weekend, who brought us her stunning Sofia Tolli “Anne” dress. Thanks so much to the beautiful bride for her kindness and generosity in donating this spectacular piece! She also sent in these great pics taken my family and friends so that we could share this arrival with you! Congratulations Lorraine – we’re quite sure your dress will find a new home VERY quickly!
It is International Women’s Day today, and we’d like to celebrate all the wonderful women who make this shop hum throughout the year and to whom we owe much gratitude for its continued success in fundraising for cancer charities:
- Helen and all the volunteers
- the women who donate to us in the form of dresses, accessories, participation in charity events, and their time
- the women who buy from a social enterprise like ours to make a difference in the community
- the women who support us in other ways, such as spreading the word of what we do through social networks
Our house of dresses at Victor and Broadview raised over $40,000 for our beneficiaries in 2010, and this year we are well on our way to reaching our fundraising goal of $60,000 in 2011. Thank you, ladies, for making it happen!
And, while we are thanking people, we’d like to thank our recent bride, Asha (above), for generously donating her gorgeous wedding gown, too. Congratulations and thank you, Asha!
With our thanks to all the salons, designers and brides who have donated dresses, and the lovely new brides-to-be who have found those treasures here, we have again exceeded our fundraising goal for the first quarter.
This year we added Gilda’s Club to our list of beneficiaries. You can learn more about Gilda’s Club on our Beneficiaries page.
Here is what they say about our contribution:
Gilda’s Club Greater Toronto is grateful for the support we have received from the The Brides’ Project. Thanks to their support we are able to open our doors to even more families touched by cancer – offering support and networking groups, lectures, workshops and social activities. By supporting us, The Brides’ Project is on the leading edge in solving a critical gap in care for people living with cancer. Thank you Brides’ Project for supporting our commitment to provide the best practices of social and emotional support to all people living with cancer, along with their families and friends.
And, for the 6th year in a row, we continue to support Camp Quality to help children and their families. The Executive Director came buy to pick up a cheque for $15,000, which our fearless leader gladly handed over! This donation will allow 30 children affected by cancer to enjoy the camp experience this summer.
As we always say, dresses arrive pretty much daily – some come in during business hours, others are dropped off so that I have lovely gifts waiting for me on the porch, and let’s not forget that we keep our Canada Postman very very busy! He seems to be under the misguided impression that we offer brides in addition to bridal wear… but that’s okay as long as the dresses keep coming Below are a couple of the ones that have arrived, and just a sampling of the generosity of our donors. Thank you! Your dress not only helps us raise tons of bucks for cancer charities, but also makes another bride’s dreams come true. Both are great ways to make your wedding day memorable in the long term.
Congratulations and THANK YOU to the many brides who have brought us dresses, and here are a few examples:
Natale came to visit us on Feb 5th with an absolutely exquisite San Patrick “Edimburgo”. Va va voooooom! She sent some fabulous pics in, thanks to the Storybook Gallery, and I picked my favourite of her and Andrew walking back down the aisle. Gotta love these smiles
Natale brought her friend Joanna, who brought an equally sexy but classic gown. Photo credits to Stefan… here’s a preliminary view for you! Thanks Natale and Joanna for your amazing gowns which will disappear in record time!
Now if you want a dress that is so versatile that you can hop on a motorcycle and zoom away with your hubby, that’s exactly what Kathrin brought us last weekend (although she does look a little reluctant…) Photo credit to Jesse Kinos-Goodin.
Amanda dropped by and managed to part with her delicious La Sposa “Frigata”. This dress won’t last long…
Teresa recently donated her very very beautiful dress, and send us some pictures to enjoy. She looks stunning and so happy, and so could you in this charming and classic dress!
(Photo credits to Brian Tao at Luxography)
The partial corset on this dress makes it easy to fit, and it already has a bustle built in! Here’s the front:
We LOVE the mums who come here, and finally have some incredible Marisa Baratelli silk suits/outfits for them!
These pieces are absolutely stunning, and rather than a shapeless dress with sequins, these pieces will allow your Mum to look fabulous. They’d also be appropriate for someone just wanting something a little different as a bride. They’re all teeny (size 6-8), but check out the colour and fabric!! See more under Shopping.
We have a (bridal) size 6/8 pink Joli gown in the house, courtesy of a generous individual donor. It has a corset back, which means alterations are probably not required, with beadwork accents in the design. Click on the thumbnails for a closer look and make an appointment! Our busy season is coming up soon, and dresses like this won’t last long at the shop.
Thanks to a generous donation from the lovely Katie, we now have a Monique L’Huillier gown called “Celestine” available for the next lucky bride. This gown retails close to $10,000, and is made of a deliciously soft and flowy silk tulle. It was originally a size 2, with the bust altered down to about a zero and the hip fits about a 2-4. Make an appointment to come and try it on! (Serious shoppers only please!)
Here’s the runway picture:
And here’s a much better picture… of the gorgeous bride Katie enjoying it (photo credit Storey Wilkins Photography).
As you all know, while some donations are from designers and salons, many dresses (and top sellers!) come from individual brides. Now these dresses are EXTRA special, and come with the great karma of a wonderful wedding and a happy bride, often with notes attached to wish you well!
During the Movember campaign and today as well, they keep coming in. We’re incredibly grateful to the brides who give up their cherished gowns so that they can be enjoyed again. Just today I had a chat with a bride who was sad that the dress she had loved so much was sitting in a storage box and she agreed that the greatest compliment about her gown is someone loving it just as she did!
Without further ado… here are some recent additions… just a taste of what has arrived:
Jubilant Julia in her lovely Pronovias piece: (this is a VERY popular gown… we have others in sizes 0-8 that are very similar). Photo credits to Mike from mcm photography
The lovely Nicole in her silk dress (about size 16-18): Photo credit to Neil Gislason of Bright Star Photography
The joyous Jacqui: Photo credit Heather Bunt of Xero Digital Photography
She says:
I bought my dress from the Brides Project in April of this year and got married on August 28th, and I’m happy that someone else – both bride and whoever benefits from the proceeds- will get to enjoy it again. My sister’s boyfriend, who was so helpful on my wedding day that he was essentially an extra bridesmaid, had cancer as a child and volunteers at Camp Quality every summer. It’s nice knowing that just by getting married I’m able to do a small part in helping kids like him or other people suffering from such a terrible disease.
The fabulous Kelly: photo credit to Mark Ridout ( www.ridoutphotography.com)
Kelly says:
It was so nice to meet you this afternoon when I dropped off my dress, I love the whole idea of The Brides’ Project and was so happy to be able to donate my dress. I felt like a princess and it was the perfect dress for me. Hopefully there’s another bride out there who will feel the same way!
Kelly… we have no doubt that someone will love this dress as much as you… it’s stunning, and so are you SOLD
And… we’d like to introduce Amy. Here’s just a snippet of things we discussed and would love to share more of in the future:
My name is Amy and my husband Doug and I dropped off my wedding dress and the dress I wore in my friends wedding on Saturday and had a nice tour of your space and a great chat with you. I’m the one who recommended the Conscious Bride. And I am a relationship coach who wants to work with more people before or as they are preparing to be married. As we talked about that can be a tough time for couples to truly focus on their relationship with so much going on around them.
Amy’s right… and check out The Conscious Bride.
This dress is designed by Jim of Hoax Couture. The lace is absolutely incredible, and it’s a lovely, comfortable yet stylish piece!
Well, with our extremely successful Movember campaign now completed, we can get back to girly things… like dresses!!! I loved our MO-vember intiative and inviting the fellas to take part, but I also missed having space for dresses, and more dresses, and MANY more dresses!
Here’s the scoop. We receive an average of one dress every day that we put on the racks that is absolutely fantastic. And then we have days like Thursday, when designer Catherine Langlois comes by and gives us 26 dresses with a retail value of over $55,000.
Several of these dresses are still on her website, and we’ll try to take some pics over the next while to show off more of them. They’re all sizes 8/10, and all silk, ranging in retail from about $2000-$3200. We decided to just offer them all at $1000/each. Here are some pics:
Photo credits to Robert Jagodkin (416.652.9587).
Hey folks! It’s everyone’s favourite month of the year when the fellas have a great excuse to growth a mustache (aka MO) and throw the razor away. The Movember Foundation donates funds raised from this program to Prostate Cancer Canada, and it’s a great way to show public support in the fight against cancer. And it’s a hoot seeing the ‘caterpillars’ appear and blossom on occasion to a full handle-bar ‘stache.
Being proud supporters of Movember, we have a challenge for YOU!
Send us a pic of your boyfriend/hubby/significant other’s MO, including the link to their donation page, and we’ll pledge $100 and post those pics online to encourage others to pledge him as well.
And for the ladies… hey… if you want to participate by using a magic marker to sport your MO, we’ll consider that fair game.
(Fine print… 1 donation per person to a $5000 total maximum, entries end November 30th, 2010.)
So get out the cameras, encourage your guy to grow a MO and help put an end to Prostate Cancer! Click here for the Movember website to join in the Moscapade!!
Entry #1: Kaylene submitted her hubby Gareth’s MO pic and says,
I wanted to say that I’m very proud of my husband for what he has committed to do for Prostate Cancer awareness. He has downloaded an app for his iPhone which allows him to take a picture a day and upload it to his Facebook & Twitter, he is not the hairiest of gentlemen so his Mo has a distinctly Spanish look to it but still very cute.
We’re proud of him too and think his MO is coming along very nicely
Scroll down the page for the mo’ gallery! We’re keeping a running tally of all submissions, and it’s the first 50 mo’s that get sponsored. Spread the word!
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