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The making of a custom wedding veil

Harriett Falvey is a creator of couture keepsakes. She designs and constructs the delicate, time-honored accessory that a bride wears right before walking down the aisle: the wedding veil.

Falvey, 38, began designing custom veils in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, switching from creating wedding gowns and bridal party outfits. The idea of wearing a wedding veil is often misunderstood as an outdated tradition, she said, but “it’s a form of self-expression and personal style.”

“It’s one of the most important and transformative items that offers an instant finishing touch,” said Falvey, a native of New Zealand. “It’s the last piece a bride puts on that completes her outfit.” Falvey hopes to reestablish the veil as a hero piece for the modern bride.

She runs a one-woman, bespoke wedding-veil business from her studio, which is designed like a bridal sanctuary — complete with a sweeping garden of plum trees, white orchids, lilies and clivia plants. Her studio is attached to her home in Auckland that she shares with her fianc?, Alistair Gillies, 39, a freelance concept artist for films and television, and their two children: Albert, 7, and Florence, 6.

Falvey’s standard veils — simple tulles attached to a metal comb — start at $200. A classic, two-tiered layer blusher, featuring one layer that covers the face and one that cascades over the bride’s hair, costs about $400. Adding gold embroidery, ornate lace, luxury pearl edging, hand-stitched embellishments or intricately designed flowers can increase the price to $2,000 or more.

“Bridal fashion is constantly evolving,” said Falvey, who works with 50 to 60 brides on their veils every year. Part of the allure in conceptualizing your own veil, down to the embroidery, she said, is that “not everyone can afford a designer wedding dress or afford to design their own, but they can afford to design a veil.”

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Falvey, who spoke with The New York Times on the phone from her studio, discussed the intimacy of veil design, the significance of the accessory and one of her most popular veils. (Hint: It’s blue.) This interview has been edited and condensed.

Q: For years, you designed wedding gowns, dresses for bridesmaids and mothers of the bride, and outfits for bachelorette parties and receptions. What made you decide to focus solely on veils?

A: Wedding dresses involved many different fittings and customizing to a person’s body — there was a tremendous amount of work, which was hard to keep up with. When COVID happened, in-person fittings were not permitted. That changed my business. Fittings aren’t needed with veils, and that allowed me to work easily with international brides, which I was unable to do before.

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Q: You have referred to your designing process as intimate. How do you create and sustain that intimacy when almost all of your interactions with clients take place over video?

A: Brides got very used to video shopping during lockdown. Creating a custom veil is an intimate and unique experience where the bride and I are designing together. Depending on how involved the bride wants to get, we can have up to five FaceTime video chats. I virtually show them around my studio while discussing their veil wishes, and I sketch and place lace over the mannequin so they can see their veil come to life. I send videos of me making the veil, and I show the bride the veil before I box it up and send it off. It’s as intimate, if not more so, than a physical fitting.

Q: Does the veil actually play a role or have meaning?

A: Traditionally, the purpose of the veil is to wrap the bride from head to toe, shielding her from “bad spirits” and presenting her as modest. Nowadays, the significance varies. For some brides, veils serve a practical purpose, like adding a blusher to cover themselves while they walk down the aisle if they feel nervous about being the center of attention. For others, it holds sentimental value and symbolizes the transformation into a bride, evoking emotions of excitement and adrenaline while elevating a wedding dress.

Q: One of the most popular veils that brides are buying from you is blue. Why are people gravitating toward something so untraditional?

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A: Brides search for imagery that inspires them and for alternative wedding options. Many are looking for couture accouterments to be the “wow” moment. I created the blue veil accidentally when I draped a bride in blue tulle, and I realized it could be a unique take on an old tradition.

People are wearing them with their white dresses as memorable statement pieces. It’s about being different and making your wedding attire your own.

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