“Ask The Experts” Julie Sabatino the Stylish Bride {Part 1}

Julie Sabatino is both the Stylish Bride and the Stylish Dresser. The Stylish Bride was started in 2004 is a service where I find all of the fashion elements of the wedding and coordinate them with the bride so that it evokes her personal style and matches the style of wedding she is having. The Stylish Dresser is a wedding day service where we come in, prepare the bride, bridesmaids, and the wedding party. We organize, press, steam, hand hold. In essence, we are their “Ladies in Waiting” for the day of the wedding. The “Original Wedding Fashion Stylist” was gracious enough to provide some expert insights that I will share with you. Julie gave me so much great insight I am creating two parts to this interview. Check out Part 1 now.

When should a bride start wedding dress shopping?
In my opinion, a bride should not start wedding dress shopping until she has a couple of key factors figured out. The first one is she needs her venue, she absolutely needs to know where she’s getting married. She also needs to have a date and she needs to know the formality of the event. I think that all of these things combine to create the overall feeling. Even if you haven’t figured out what the decor is going to be or haven’t spent hours on Pinterest figuring out your look these very basic things will be important when it comes to selecting a dress. Even if you are having a wedding in a ballroom in New York City there are many different variations of what that can mean and how it looks and the dress should be suited for that as well as your personality.

A piece of advice for brides.
If I had to give a bride a piece of advice as she starts on her journey for the perfect dress it’s to spend a lot of time in advance thinking about her personal style and what she really wants to look like on her wedding day. What I have found over the years is what she thinks she wants and what she loves in photos isn’t really always what she likes. Brides sometimes have trouble merging the vision to the reality and going in with an open mind to your dress appointment is great, but spend a little time thinking about yourself and what you really want to look like on your wedding day and what makes you feel good.

3 Cool Trends in the wedding industry:
1. Wedding dresses don’t change all that much, they are long white, ivory blush gowns, but there are subtle nuances and trends that come and go in the industry. I’ve been in it for twelve years so I’ve seen many different things. What I’m loving right now are detachable skirts. The gown underneath is slim and you put an overskirt on it sometimes that you can see through and other times not so that going down the aisle you have one look which is more of a traditional bride when you think of it and then you get to take it off for the party. This is really kind of fun because you don’t have to change and you get a second look. The same thing goes with the detachable half skirt sometimes you see dresses where you get the slim line in front and you just get to detach the back of it which is really fun.

2. I’m definitely seeing a lot of sleeves which has been a trend over the past couple of years, but I think that brides are starting to wear it whereas in the beginning brides were thinking about it and thinking they would like it but didn’t actually pull the plug on buying it.

3. Color is one that has been coming and going for a long time. I find brides today more open to the idea of a pale blush or a champagne color. No one has gone into the blue and greens out of my clients yet, but it’s great. As the industry evolves and we are seeing many new designers, particularly Israeli designers come onto the scene it’s changing the look of fashion and what brides are looking for and they have more options than ever before.