Gillian Million is an Atelier of the most exquisite and luxurious wedding accessories all designed to order by her extremely talented creative team who design and create to perfection. Gillian creates bespoke pieces for brides all over the world including celebrity and royal clients. Today we share an exclusive interview to give you top tips on selecting your wedding accessories.
5 Star Weddings: When designing new collections for brides-to-be, what are the main factors you take into consideration?
Gillian Million: There are a few elements I take into account when designing new collections for our bridal customers. These include responding to what our recent customer are asking us for whether it be coming into the boutique asking for accessories in a particular colour, design or material or placing a bespoke order with us based on a completely unique design they have in mind. I also take inspiration from the catwalks and current trends in wedding dress designs and tailor our new collections to complement current trends. Finally, destination weddings are becoming increasingly popular, so we work with a bride on helping her find the right accessories for her destination wedding, and take into account things like the country she is marrying, climate, time of year, local traditions and so on.
5 Star Weddings: What are today’s brides-to-be wanting from their wedding accessories and jewellery?
Gillian Million: Our bridal customers demand accessories that are comfortable and affordable. Comfort is key; you shouldn’t have to suffer for the sake of style especially on your wedding day. For example, if a bride-to-be wants quite a detailed hairpiece with lots of embellishments and jewels we ensure the final piece is not too heavy and will work well in her chosen wedding hairstyle.
After the wedding day, many of our clients want to be able to still wear their special piece of jewellery, so we work with our brides to convert their piece(s) into another piece of jewellery they can wear for another special occasion.
Above all, brides today are looking for a first class customer experience, they want to be made to feel special and we take huge delight in getting to know each of our brides and love nothing more when a customer shares her wedding day plans with us, we feel honoured to be part of her special journey to the alter. Personalisation is also really important to today’s bride and we can deliver this by offering our bespoke design service to our customers, the piece of jewellery they buy with us at Gillian Million is individual to them and made specifically with that bride in mind.
5 Star Weddings: If you have one golden piece of advice for a bride-to-be about to choose her wedding accessories to complete her bridal look what advice would you give and why.
Gillian Million: What you have in your hair will be seen in every photograph. 70% of all photographs of a bride on her wedding day are of her head and shoulders, so a bride can appear very naked on her wedding day without something beautiful in her hair to complete her look. Wear something that creates a synergy with the wedding dress.
5 Star Weddings: Are brides-to-be becoming more experimental and opting for bespoke, made to order pieces for themselves or do brides prefer to stick to ready-to-buy pieces, which they can see in front of their eyes in the boutique?
Gillian Million: My brides enjoy the opportunity to view and try on a 16-year collection giving them different ideas and ultimately creating a piece that is individual and unique to them whilst not charging bespoke prices.
5 Star Weddings: What are the biggest challenges a bride to be faces do you feel when starting her journey into finding her wedding dress and accessories.
Gillian Million: The overwhelming amount of choice on the Internet, which can be confusing, and online imagery can often be deceiving in its quality and detail resulting in disappointing, spontaneous purchases. At Gillian Million, our brides and touch and feel exactly what they will be getting or what will be created for them via our 1:1 private, hour long consultations.
5 Star Weddings: How long does a custom piece of jewellery take you and your team and how involved can a bride be in the creative process.
Gillian Million: We work without brides in an hour consultation and we can send images or they can pop back to view their bespoke items at the half way stage. All we want is happy brides and they can be as involved as they wish to be.
5 Star Weddings: What trend predictions do you a forecast for the year ahead in terms of bridal accessories and jewellery?
Gillian Million: Simple dresses and dramatic styling in the hair. Brides like to create their own personal touch to the wedding dresses available today by adding their bespoke detailing to their hair and jewellery.
5 Star Wedding: Who is your role model and why.
Gillian Million: My customers are my role models as they bring their own ideas and creations in their heads to be interpreted in the Gillian Million studio enabling us to come up with new ideas and designs every day.
5 Star Weddings: Where do you get your design inspiration from when working on new designs for your brides?
Gillian Million: We get inspiration direct from our brides, as they come to us with their own unique ideas about what they want their wedding accessories to look like. We help our customers through the design process if we need to by offering ideas and suggestions if a bride needs our creative input. Inspiration is all around us, whether it is through fashion, travel, art, culture or nature.
5 Star Weddings: What makes a 5-star wedding in your opinion?
Gillian Million: Love for the right reasons, individual creativity and the support of loving families. The ability and confidence to be a little different.
