Katie Hubbard of My Wedding Wardrobe | Bridal Styling, Wedding Day Disasters & Why You Need a Stylist There | Texas Wedding Podcast
Katie Hubbard of My Wedding Wardrobe, a Dallas bridal stylist, joins Kevin Cochran on the Texas Wedding Podcast to talk about building an online styling business during COVID, nearly losing it during a difficult pregnancy, and the wedding day disasters most guests never find out happened.
Katie walks through the lipstick catastrophe she quietly fixed in under a minute at a wedding Kevin filmed alongside her, twelve seconds after the bride's dress went on, before a single photo had been taken. She also shares the story of cutting a bride's grandmother's vintage Christian Dior slip into a see-through backup dress with minutes to spare, and just how often first-dance bustles break without a single guest ever noticing. Katie and Kevin also talk through styling wedding vendors for their own client meetings and conferences, and what makes Dallas bridal style unlike anywhere else in the country.
Follow My Wedding Wardrobe on Instagram, and hear more from the people shaping the Texas wedding market on the Texas Wedding Podcast.
Heather of EPOCH Co. gave Katie a shout out by name in her own episode, so pair this one with Heather's episode to hear it.
The Texas Wedding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Cochran of 718 Creative, a Texas wedding videographer.
Full Transcript (condensed)
Meet Katie Hubbard
Katie Hubbard: My Wedding Wardrobe was founded in 2020, which everyone laughs about because I started a company during COVID. For me, it was actually the perfect time. Everyone was shifting away from traditional large weddings into smaller backyard weddings and courthouse ceremonies, and I wanted an online platform where I could style brides for everything but the wedding dress, since that's such an in-person experience you do with your family. Social media had people worrying about their bridal showers, engagement photos, and bachelorette looks in a way they hadn't before, so I took that online instead. It grew a lot more than I expected, and I've since worked with brides all over the country. We build custom lookbooks that are click-to-shop, and we stay in constant communication, if something arrives and the color looks different than online, we'll swap the shoes, whatever it takes.
Building a Business During COVID, Then Nearly Losing It
Katie Hubbard: If you'd told me two years ago this is where I'd be, I wouldn't have believed you. We were at our highest point in the business, really peaking, when I got extremely sick during my pregnancy and basically had to shut things down. That broke me. I'd worked so hard to get there, and the person helping me at the time quit and went somewhere else, so I was handing my own clients off to competitors. It was heartbreaking, and after I had the baby, I genuinely didn't know where the business would go from there.
Then Grace reached out. She'd been my very first intern at My Wedding Wardrobe six years earlier, and she just happened to ask if I was hiring. I said yes immediately. She's really running the show now, doing the lookbooks with clients, which has let me spend most of my time with my daughter. I work during nap times and after she goes to bed, and I'm with her the rest of the time. It's worked so far. I feel incredibly lucky, and since Grace already knew the basics from interning with me, I barely had to retrain her.
Two Sides of the Business
Katie Hubbard: Most of our brides come to us right after getting engaged and want us through every event of their engagement season, and a lot of those end up asking us for the wedding day too. But we also get one-off bookings, just the bridesmaids, just the mom, just one specific event someone's struggling with. Sometimes we're hired for day-of styling on a wedding where we never worked on any of the bride's looks beforehand, which is trickier, since we're walking in blind. That was actually the case the first time I worked with Kevin. I asked the planner, Luke, if I could call the bride ahead of time just to understand what she'd be wearing so I could come prepared.
The Lipstick Disaster
Kevin: I noticed during prep that y'all weren't just sitting around waiting for something to go wrong, you were actively setting things up before problems happened. But the moment that got me was right after the bride put her dress on. She went to put on lipstick before first portraits, and it broke and streaked red down the entire front of the dress, top to bottom. The dress had been on for maybe twelve seconds. No photos had happened yet, no ceremony, nothing.
Katie Hubbard: That is exactly the one thing you don't want to happen at the very start of the day. I'd honestly rather a strap break than red lipstick down a dress. Internally I was panicking a little, that had genuinely never happened to me before, but the most important thing in a moment like that is to show zero panic, because if the bride sees that you're not worried, she won't be either. We got her distracted talking to her friends and family, and within about forty-five seconds it was handled and we were back to normal. I actually haven't told Luke or Emily this ever happened. This might be the first time they hear about it.
The Grandmother's Christian Dior Slip
Katie Hubbard: At a different wedding, also one of Luke's, the bride had bought a random backup dress off Revolve for her exit, nothing fancy, just something more comfortable. The morning of, I pulled it out to prep it and realized it was completely see-through. I didn't think she knew, so I quietly found her sister and asked if the bride had anything to wear underneath. She didn't. The sister went to the grandmother, who they were getting ready with, and asked if she had a slip we could use. She came back with a vintage Christian Dior slip. I told her straight up, I'm going to cut this and sew it into the dress, you will not get it back. She said shred it, honey, go for it. So I did, cut it down and tacked it into the inside of the dress so it would flow right. She wore it for her exit under flash photography and it was perfect. Had she had nothing under there, it would have been a disaster. I've had that exact situation, a see-through backup dress bought last minute, happen twice now. I pack extra nude slips in our emergency bag permanently because of it.
Invisible Saves: Bustles and More
Katie Hubbard: One thing that happens constantly that people don't realize: bustles break during the first dance, all the time. It happened at my own wedding. A lot of brides just end up carrying the extra fabric because they don't know what else to do. When we're there, we're underneath the table during dinner sewing it back together, and nobody even knows we were under there. That's the hard sell of this job, people assume those things don't happen because they've never seen them happen, when really it's because someone like us was there keeping it invisible. If we're not there, you'd actually know it happened.
Styling Vendors, Not Just Brides
Katie Hubbard: We joke that we could build an entire second business just styling vendors for Engage. People panic about their conference outfits constantly. We've also gone in with teams directly, we did a presentation for Pop Parties here in Dallas on how to dress for a venue walkthrough with a client versus a travel day versus the wedding day itself, cocktail versus black tie, all of it. That was styling their team, not their clients, though the goal is always that they'll think of us when a client needs the same thing.
Shifts in the Industry
Katie Hubbard: Social media has changed everything, people care about having a look for every single event now in a way they didn't before. What people spend money on has shifted too. When I got married, not everyone even hired a videographer. Now it feels like what are you even doing if you skip it. I tell people all the time, I love my wedding photos, but video is real life, you see the movement and the people. Content creators have become a bigger part of that too. We've actually talked about offering that as a service ourselves, since we're already capturing so much behind-the-scenes content just by being there with the bride all day.
On Dallas Style
Katie Hubbard: People don't always think of Texas as a major fashion market, but it really is, just different from New York or LA or Miami. Dallas bridal style is more classic, more traditional, more conservative, but it's not boring. It's timeless, and people find fun in the details, a statement shoe, a fun bag. What I love about working here is that our brides tend to be classic brides who'll look back and still love their looks years later. And honestly, the people here are so kind and have that Southern warmth. I can't really imagine doing this anywhere else.
Connect with Katie My Wedding Wardrobe: https://www.myweddingwardrobe.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myweddingwardrobe
Connect with Kevin // 718 Creative https://718creative.com | https://www.instagram.com/718.creative
Connect with the Podcast https://www.texasweddingpodcast.com | https://www.instagram.com/texasweddingpodcast
