Archive for the ‘Dresses’ Category
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!
Helen and Vanessa
Well, we try to describe it as best we can on our “For Brides … What to Expect” page, but it’s even better to get the perspective from a client. Especially a client with a camera!
Lizz came armed and ready with the bride… her sister Monica. We’re happy to report that neither were sent to the boiler room, and we had a terrific time helping Monica say “YES!” to her beautiful Brides’ Project dress.
Read more here!
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!
Recently we worked with Melissa Nowakowski who is the Creative Director of Et Lofte Events (wedding planning). We let her borrow a couple of really unique dresses to use for the shoot, and she was generous enough to let us show you the pictures. All photo credit to Et Lofte Events.
The first dress was redesigned by a faculty member at Ryerson, and is completely elegant. The second is a fun ‘n’ fluffy piece. BOTH are still in the shop!
We would all like to congratulate Michelle and Kyle on their Jan 30th wedding.
It was a day that dreams were made of… at Madsen’s Greenhouse in Newmarket and the beautiful flowers inside made it look and feel like summer in the middle of winter!
As you can tell by Michelle’s incredible smile… she had an amazing day in her dress from The Brides’ Project, and could enjoy it knowing it made a lasting contribution.
Thank you Michelle for taking part. We wish you and Kyle a lifetime of bliss.
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!
We received a heartwarming email earlier this year from a very proud mama who watched her daughter have the wedding of her dreams last year, wearing a dress purchased from The Brides’ Project.
From the virtual mailbag:
Hello to the friendly staff at the Bride’s Project!
We wanted to share our beautiful results with you, and hopefully with the original bride who donated the dress we chose. We had a storybook day for our princess bride and could not be more pleased with our purchase there! We added a couple of loops and formed a bustle so Shannon could dance freely, but otherwise a few tucks to shorten it and hemming the underskirt were all the alterations required!
Thanks for your patience, friendliness and helpfulness!
Sincerely Sandra (Mother of the Bride) and Shannon (Bride)
Our congratulations go out to the lovely Shannon and her family, and many thanks for sharing your photos with us! (Photo credits to the parents of the newlyweds.)
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).
Brrrrr!! It’s become very cold in Toronto lately, and if you’re outside of the city you probably got snow recently. Winter is definitely at the doorstep, if not arriving a wee bit early. (Although, by this time last year I seem to recall one proper snowfall already.)
Perhaps a winter wedding isn’t your thing. Maybe you’d like to reduce your guest list in the easiest way possible. Combining the wedding and the honeymoon is looking more and more like a good idea. Or you’d just like to make it a small getaway and bring your nearest and dearest with you. In any case, you’ve got a destination in mind, maybe in southern hemisphere where it’s summer or a tropical island where you have to bring only one layer of clothing instead of two or three.
This salon-donated dress is begging to go into your suitcase:
I’m light!
No bulky crinoline!
I have just a little train!
I have straps, but they’re sexy!
The style of this dress is on the retro side, yet modern, thanks to the cut and detailing:
If you’re a size 10 in bridal (size 8 street size), make an appointment and try it on!
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).
On Saturday we had a lovely visit from Carolyn Cornford, who brought with her a gorgeous dress for a new bride to enjoy! As you can see from the picture below, it’s stunning, and Carolyn had extra length added to the gown. So if you’re one of those lucky folks who can reach the high cupboard shelves, we have the perfect gown just for you!
Congratulations on your marriage Carolyn, and thank you so much for your generosity and kindness!
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