Buying new season wedding dresses is always one of the best bits of our job, especially this year, because it’s the first time at Harrogate with Kaye, Jo and Tracy, who have recently joined our team. The boss, Haley, although at home with family commitments, worked with us every day via Facetime and together, we chose the most gorgeous wedding dress for our 2023 & 24 brides.
First stop – Essense of Australia. As always, Martine and her team have produced a stunning new collection. Totally spoilt for choice we came away from the stand buzzing with excitement. The collection is a closely guarded secret for now, so no sneak peaks just yet, but we will share the images as soon as these gorgeous gowns arrive at Limelight.
Just time to grab a coffee and a quick catch up with Adele @Bridal Perfect Fit – over lunch. Adele and Rita are our brilliant seamstresses who work so hard to make sure Limelight brides wear wedding dresses that fit them like a glove. The show gives them the chance to check out the latest fabrics, sewing machines and all things technical as well as the dresses they will be working on next season. It also gives Claire a chance to get up close and personal with inspirational tulles, laces and sparkly bits for her 2023 @Tulle & Flo accessories collection, which you can buy or order bespoke at Limelight.
Then it was on to see the lovely and talented Kaye who helps us put together our The Girls Love private collection. Here we mix and match fabrics, bodices and skirts and create unique dresses to present to our brides. Kaye is an amazing couture designer, and having created costumes for Strictly Come Dancing, she set up @Angel Couture designing The Perfect Bridal Collection for this season, which we were thrilled to see showcased on the catwalk at Harrogate.

Leaving Kaye, we just had time to run up to see Neil and Karen at Arianna Tiaras and Linzi Jay before the fashion show started … but Jo spied refreshments…
This is thirsty work and we’d been working hard … it would be rude not to … we rescheduled tiaras for the next day.
Black wedding dresses are on all the international catwalks this season. We are proud to say that Millie, following in her Mum’s footsteps, joined us on Facetime and chose the fabric, beading and silhouette to create a gorgeous black wedding dress for our The Girls Love collection. We can’t wait to see Limelight brides wear it on our own catwalk. Look out for an equally unique veil from @Tulle & Flo to coordinate with it.

After a Facetime breakfast meeting with Haley, final decisions were made and orders for our new wedding dress collections were placed. After a quick pick & mix stop at Essense, we resisted the gin bar, headed straight for Arianna and called Haley again. We are all suckers for shiny things and the new Arianna tiara collection is gorgeous. Our latest selection can be ordered on our online store as well as in the boutique.
Running out of time, we sprinted on to choose new Mother of the Bride and Groom outfits with Liz and Paul at Lizabella.
Another lovely collection ordered for our Mums, we were congratulating ourselves on getting everything done when the boss rang. She’d heard about an interesting new label and wanted us to go over and check it out. Needless to say to it was in the furthest hall away from where we were. Feet throbbing, off we set. The new label is gorgeous and, with five minutes to go, finding it was the perfect way to end the show … exciting times ahead … now for a well earned cuppa!
