A Greenwich fashion designer who plays a crucial role in making clients’ weddings perfect fell in love with designing bridal gowns after doing the near-impossible for her own wedding day.

Amid the typical busyness of wedding planning, and just a few months after opening her store, Katie Fong crafted her wedding dress and made the gowns for her bridal party, mother and mother-in-law.

“I decided after my wedding that this is where my heart belonged,” Fong said about bridal fashion.

A slate of recent bridal shows, including one last Sunday at the Delamar Greenwich Harbor, heralds the start of wedding season, which lasts from the summer into October, according to Fong.

Greenwich native Katie Fong shows trendy bridalwear for the upcoming wedding season at her couture gown and dress shop in Greenwich, Conn. Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017. Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media / Greenwich Time
The winter holidays form a popular engagement backdrop, so many couples look to use the favorable summer and autumn weather for their wedding days. The time needed for ordering, altering and customizing wedding gowns means March is the beginning of “the crazy season” for designers like Fong, who owns a storefront downtown on Lewis Street.

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Like fashion broadly, bridal gowns go through trends, and a couple Fong said are defining the season include off-the-shoulder dresses and those with illusion necklines and sheer lace applique.

“Silk faille and ostrich feathers are also becoming really popular,” she added.

Fong said trends affect brides less than the overall fashion industry.

“Trends are great to look at, but people don’t necessarily buy them,” she said. For example, she’s made two-piece wedding gowns that have been worn for fashion magazines, but they are rarely bought by customers.

Many popular bridal gown styles, such as a strapless ballgown, will always be in style, according to Fong, but a popular trend that’s recently re-emerged is wedding dresses with sleeves.

The impending busy season involves much more than just helping brides find their dream dresses, Fong said.

Everyone who’s walking down the aisle deserves to feel special, she said, so Fong often works with the entire bridal party to make their gowns. This often includes mothers of brides and grooms, because “most of what’s available is too over the top or too matronly,” Fong said she hears from customers. “I come into play to solve the dress dilemma.”

Mothers frequently tell Fong they want to refrain from taking attention from the bride with what they choose to wear. One of Fong’s tricks to making these dresses “appropriate but beautiful” is by focusing on the back, she said. Details there help the mothers feel special without distracting from the bride.

Whether for the bride or for their friends and family in the procession, some of Fong’s favorite ways to customize gowns include lace applique and beading, she said, adding she personally does many of those extras.

“A dress without anything on it is like a palette for art,” Fong said.

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