The wedding dress industry and its depictions of brides have been stuck in the past. It ascribes to an old-fashioned view of what women want in their weddings, a wedding dress, and the experience of shopping for one. Since childhood, most women have been bombarded with every form of media telling them to dream about when they are to get married, subconsciously given a template and conditioned into living up to the stereotypical image.
As a fashion designer and creative director, Janice Lee is a staunch believer that brides should not feel they have to dress in a cookie-cutter princess dress or traditional bridal trousseau to commemorate any sort of love. The brides should do what makes them feel the most beautiful and celebrate in a way that’s most uniquely empowering to them.
Admired for her innate sense of style, leading fashion designer Janice pays special attention to detail which is prevalent throughout her collections. She aims to design exquisite couture-like ensembles that pays homage to supreme craftsmanship while keeping sustainability and reusability in view.
She is the founder and creative head of Beyond the Ceremony. Smashing the stereotypes of boring princess dresses, the brand is exclusively crafting bridal outfits that genuinely express and represent the 21st-century woman. Revealing her journey of how the business came into existence, Janice says,
‘I was a one-woman show for the entire two years of starting my business. Besides just creating the designs, I also executed every step there is to do production, operations, website, graphic design, packaging design, marketing, shipping & receiving, sourcing, tech-design, data analytics, and accounting… all while working design jobs and picking up more gigs to purchase materials & create more samples.’
After months and years of hard work, Janice has turned her passion into a lucrative profession as her business has gained prominence. Today, she works with many other artisans, contractors and production houses, and has found incredible mentors and memorable clients. Coupling her decades’ worth of experience in designing professionally for couture bridal houses and prominent designer labels, she is ensuring that each woman feels like a total goddess at her wedding.
What truly sets Janice’s business apart is not the customization of the bride’s wedding look. That’s old news. Janice takes it one step further and customizes that dress for the second use so that the client can wear their unique piece again in a different form and relive that magical moment in their lives.
Buying a “traditional” wedding gown can cost thousands of dollars for what a bride would wear for only a few hours, and it then creates a storage burden by taking up space in a house, never to be seen again. Luckily, Janice is the unsung hero who can save the day and the dress by customizing your wedding look twice.
Click on the following link to learn about Janice’s labor of love, Beyond the Ceremony.
