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Meet the Afolabis: The Dress & The Suit

Brianna Kozlarek / Thursday March 1, 2018

One thing we’ve really learned in the wedding process so far is while it’s so important to carry family and friends along, and consider everyone’s various views and expectations, it’s so key to not forget the things that are important to you as an individual and as a couple. So starting in February, the search to sort out our various wedding outfits begun! For both of us, fashion has always been an important to us and even from the weddings we’ve attended, looking on point has always been something we’ve tried to do so the pressure really is on for the wedding events lol!

 

 

The Wedding Dress

Over the last few months I’ve gone from having a very clear idea of what I wanted in a wedding dress to having no clue.I switched between wanting to go with an established designer to wanting the freedom to create something completely bespoke with an upcoming designer. I’ve poured over pinterest, Instagram and celebrity weddings to get an idea over what could suit me. In and amongst all the day dreaming, at the start of January I woke up in a cold sweat realising time was ticking and I haven’t even booked a single appointment!

One thing I didn’t realise about the process of finding a dress is how expensive it is as there’s a fee for every wedding appointment you make. I also didn’t realise what a trunk show was in regards to the wedding journey and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed.

For my first appointment, I wanted to go on my own. I have an incredible mother and bridal party but in the end I felt it was best to go and not have any other opinions as I tried on the first dresses. It was a surreal and magical experience and actually quite emotional. Especially when they’d put the veil onto each dress it started to dawn on me that from being the little girl who had always dreamed of my wedding day, I was now becoming a woman who would soon start this next phase of life.

Following on from that, I then had my second appointment with one of London’s most luxury bridal companies Brown’s Brides and this time I went with a friend as I wanted another opinion. What really made the difference was the incredible assistant who was patient with me as I tried on over 12 over two hours! One thing I did realise though, is that as much as I love this experience, it can be exhausting. While I haven’t had my ‘this is it’ moment (and not sure yet if that is a myth) I’m definitely on the way to narrowing down my style and designer which is good news in an amongst the rest of the wedding stress!

 

The Making of the Suit

So if you were to ask anybody who knows me they will tell you that I’m a bit of a “fashionisto” (I know Ruth is eye-rolling at this!) and yes I do say this tongue in cheek. I love fashion. Given as a groom your views recede into irrelevance when placed against the views of the bride, the one thing that I know I’ll have full control over is what I’ll be decked out in on the big day. So this actually presents a huge opportunity for me to express myself. The first thing I wanted out of this experience was to come up with something that would be true to me and very unique and so because of this, the bespoke route was the one and only option for me.

There are so many talented designers out there and to find the needle in the haystack requires a bit of patience. I very much know what I want and while speaking to different designers, I found that one of the things I’ll really contend with was me having to compete with their vision of what I should look like. While obviously I’m open to contributions I’m not open to be turned into a mannequin! And so finding somebody that understood me in all my quirkiness. When I sent my initial concepts to my chosen designer, his response was emphatic which convinced me that I’d chosen the right person to work with. I can’t wait to crack the (measuring) tape and kickstart the process of creating the perfect groom’s suit!

 

While we can’t give too much away (especially as we want to surprise each other), we’re definitely excited to get in shape for our wedding dress and suit and can’t wait to show you guys what we decide on.

Until next month.

Love,
Ayo and Ruth

Catch up on their whole journey here