LOVE in the Time of Covid

LOVE in the time of COVID
Emma Draper

By Emma Draper

22 January 2021

While the New Year hasn’t brought the grand reopening of our gorgeous LOVE just yet…we’re hopeful that we’ll have some greater clarity about exactly when we can re-open when the Government makes its latest announcement in mid-February.

In the meantime, LOVE waits for no man, or woman! So we’re putting some plans in place to ensure a safe and smooth re-opening for our brand-new brides, and our very patient current brides.

Here’s all the details you need to know:

New to LOVE Brides

We’re so excited to be taking new, private appointment bookings from March 2021, right NOW. All a ‘new to LOVE’ bride needs to do is email us at hello@lovebridalboutique.co.uk and let us know some more information about your wedding and when you are looking to book in with us.

While emails from our current brides will understandably be given priority at the moment, we will get back to you as soon as we are able to, in order to confirm an appointment. We’re so grateful for your patience!

For a seamless wedding dress experience, we recommend purchasing your gown a minimum of seven to twelve months before your wedding date. This gives us plenty of time for the ordering process, the making of your dress, delivery to our store (usually from overseas) and your seamstress fittings, which usually begin around twelve weeks before the wedding.

We understand that the current situation may mean that your wedding date is less than seven months away by the time we are allowed to reopen. However, please don’t panic. We have fantastic relationships with our designers, and a couple of our designers can sometimes offer a ‘rush order’ option for an additional fee which means that your dress would be made within a shorter time frame. Please remember that we are still navigating our way through a pandemic and each individual order request would just need to be assessed at the time, so we will be able to give you more information about this when we are able to reopen and have discussed your timings with our designers.

We also have a number of stunning sample dresses, available to buy ‘off the peg’ that can be altered to fit you, and this is perfect if you are a little short on time. If you are interested in this option, please advise when you email us, so we can send over more details and book you in for a specific ‘Sample Sale’ appointment with us.

For brides who have already visited us and found a dress they loved, had their measurements taken, but haven’t yet said ‘Yes to the dress!’, then we can still take your order at this time, so please get in touch at hello@lovebridalboutique.co.uk as soon as you can.

We don’t usually take appointment bookings more than 18 months in advance of a wedding date, and with the current situation in mind, we would encourage brides who are getting married after July 2022 to get in touch after we have reopened. We also tend to book appointments no more than eight weeks in advance, so if you’re looking to visit us after April, then do get in touch with us around eight weeks in advance of a preferred appointment date, just so we can ensure that brides with imminent wedding dates can choose their dress without delay.

While we know you’ll be itching to get going, now is the perfect time to do your research. You can see which gowns we currently have available to try in the boutique from all designers here, plus a selection of our sample sale gowns here.

Current LOVE Brides

First of all, our hearts go out to you if you have had to re-arrange or postpone your wedding, some even numerous times. We really do hope that this year will be the year your much anticipated wedding gets to take place.

To help support you during this uncertain time, here are a few things you need to know:

Please keep in touch with us if you have to move your wedding date. We’ll help you in any way we can, and the more notice we have of this, the easier it will be for us to help take some of the strain away from you. Even if it’s just to release some stress and ask for our advice, our inbox is always open for you.

If you have taken the sad decision to postpone your wedding already then please get in touch with us to discuss how best to store your dress. We are recommending that if there is a long time between your dress arriving and your wedding date, that your dress is packed and stored in an acid free storage box to protect and preserve your dress. We can advise and assist with this process so please get in touch for more information.

For brides who have their fittings booked imminently, we will be in touch very soon (if we haven’t already!) to make plans for, or potentially to rearrange your ‘Styling Appointment’ before that super exciting ‘First Fitting’ with our seamstress!

This enforced downtime is an excellent opportunity to get your finishing touch accessories sorted. Don’t forget that you will need your wedding shoes for your First Fitting to ensure that your gown can be tailored to perfection at that first try-on!

For brides who have their dress but still want to order a veil, we are taking orders for these now, so please do get in touch. It is best to allow a minimum of 16 weeks for delivery of veils. Depending on the veil designer we can sometimes turn this around quicker. However, we would recommend not leaving this until the last minute, particularly if you would like your veil in time for your fitting appointments.

neon sign

All that’s left to say is…happy wedding planning and dress shopping! We can’t wait to see you!

Lots of love, Emma xo