Stop buying blah bridesmaids dresses —Name of Love offers wedding bliss

Weddings are wonderful celebrations of friends, family and love. But there are a few things that can go wrong when it comes to the planning. Merrill Moskal and longtime friend Simona Popvassilev looked to change one aspect of that when they created their brand Name of Love: the dress. The other dresses, that is.

Moskal chatted with Postmedia News about their mission, their own experiences as bridesmaids and why getting dressed often proves to be one of the worst parts of a wedding. Q When and why did you start your brand Name of Love? A Simona and I had been bridesmaids in a few different weddings and had the same expe- rience every time. The dresses were either expensive or cheap and either way, none of them ever felt like us. The brides were always stressed out about dressing four to six of their friends, and some even described it as the most stressful part of their wedding. So we got together and started brainstorming about how we would want the experience to be if we had the choice. Q How did that experience influence the collection? A The first thought was that we wouldn’t all squish ourselves into one dress — a one-style-fitsall bridesmaid dress is kind of a mean proposition. So when it came to creating our collection, we wanted every style to be available in all eight of our colours so that each girl could find something that worked with her body type without compromising the bride’s colour story or theme. Q What was your mission for the styles? A Design was incredibly important to us — ensuring our silhouettes are clean, sleek and true to what the modern girl wants, something she’d want to wear again and again. A key piece to this is our fabric, which we spent a lot of time sourcing. From our heavyweight crepe to our satin-back crepe and our signature lace, all of our fabrics are of designer-level quality and the antithesis to the chiffon variety we’re used to seeing in bridesmaids dresses.

We also know that nowadays, a lot of friend groups live in different cities, stay in touch digitally — and the days of six women going to the bridal salon are mostly over. Convenience had to be queen, so we built a sleek digital platform which makes it easy for the girls to collaborate online. Q Did you have a history in fashion, or was this just something you were passionate about? A Both of us went to Ryerson University in Toronto for fashion communications. We learned a lot of skills and planning when it came to the fashion industry there, but more importantly, that’s where we met each other. Q Who is your target customer? A Our target customer is the girl who is design-aware but not trendy and appreciates that elegance is in the subtle details. She appreciates great value for her money because she’s informed — and she works hard for it! Q Where can people check out your collection? A Our collection is available online at nameoflove.com.