Our Bespoke Lace Veils

Bespoke lace veil designs are something we really enjoy creating for our brides! There’s just something about a lace veil, isn’t there? I mean, they’re completely timeless for a start. They can look ultra-modern or totally vintage depending on the pattern and application. Typically, I find the more geometric the lace — think long straight lines, diamond shapes and crosshatching — the more modern and edgy it looks. And then there are the florals and scrolling shapes which look much more traditional.

Stand out from the crowd

Lace veils are also the boldest and most “photogenic” type of veil. Compared to a beaded design, for example, whose details can often get lost in the photographer’s lens, a lace design will always show up in pictures. They can be used to add drama and a sense of grandeur and even to visually extend the train of a wedding dress.

They’re just awesome, basically. And as head designer, it’s my job to create and sew each lace veil we make. A process that I thought I’d let you in on in this post, just in case any of you were nervous to order or just want to know what to expect before you approach us.

And as you can see, we’ve also sprinkled in a few pictures of past lace veils we’ve made for you to enjoy and be inspired by.

So how does the bespoke lace veil process work?

Well, we usually begin by email. This is probably the best method of contact in this situation. As much as we love to natter to our brides on the phone, there are lots of pictures to send back and forth during the design process, so it always ends up switching to email anyway!

The Q&A section

In this email back and forth, we try to ask questions to find out what kind of bespoke lace veil you’ve got in mind. To see if perhaps there’s one you’ve seen on Pinterest/Instagram etc that you want to show us. We then take a look at the dress pictures to see what we’re matching to. From here we should now have a good idea of the type of lace veil you’re after, the approximate size and shape of lace we need to find, and we can start hunting it down.

Looking for lace

We work with a few lace suppliers and between them all there has to be well over 1000 different edgings and appliques to choose from. These can be either beaded (usually a mix of sequins, seed beads and/or pearls) or plain, corded/textured or lightweight and soft, and even with metallic silver or gold highlights. So many choices! Because there are so many, we usually do the hunting for you and bring back what we think are the best options, but if you’d rather look through them all for yourself, we can send you a link to them as well.

Piecing it all together

From this stage, once we’ve picked the lace(s), we’ll often do a computer mock-up of it for you to see how it would look. The only exception to this is usually if it’s just a simple lace edge trim going all the way around. Most brides can usually visualise this easily just from seeing the lace pictures and/or receiving samples of them in the post. But more elaborate designs with pieced-together appliques, like in the example below, usually require a mock-up both for the bride and for us so we can figure out how much lace will be required.

Finishing touches

At this stage, we would be able to give a quote for the veil now that we know how many metres/pieces of lace are required. And assuming you’re happy with everything, we’re pretty much done designing!

How much are bespoke lace veils?

I know this answer is totally annoying when people give it, but, it depends.

Sorry! lol.

You see, there’s not really any way we can give a “rough price” for a veil before we’ve established which lace (and how much of it) you’re going to need as that’s the biggest determining factor along with the length, width and layers. It could be one applique on each side at the bottom, or it could be a full lace edge plus 16 appliques in the centre, and there’s probably a price difference of around £100 between those two.

As a very rough guide, our set style lace veils range from around £80 to £180, but equally, we’ve done more elaborate custom veils for brides at over £300, so it kinda, um, depends. 🙂

And, just to add to that; we totally understand that brides have budgets to work to and although we’re often way less expensive than bridal shops already, there may be ways, usually by changing the lace, that we could bring the price down for you even more, so don’t be afraid to ask

We made it!

There, that wasn’t too painful was it? Just a few emails, a few pictures, and your dream veil could be made a reality. I’d hate to think of any bride settling for an off-the-peg veil just because the bespoke lace veil option seemed like it might be a hassle, so I hope you can now see it’s actually not all that bad. 🙂

I’m going to leave you now with a few more lace designs we’ve completed. You never know, they could become a starting point for your own design. If you do see anything you like, feel free to screen shot it and send it over, and we look forward to talking to you about your own design very soon!

Special thanks to our bride Cathryn and her wedding photographer John Woodward Photography for the beautiful image from Cathryn’s Big Day featured at the top of this post. A fitting end to that veil’s creation story

Contact us about your own bespoke veil today!

Email: sales@theweddingveilshop.co.uk or call 01253 365740