By Sally Pollak, Burlington Free Press, May 2007

Deb LaFromboise was an 18-year–old Milton girl when she made her first set of bridesmaids’ dresses. A few years later she designed and sewed a wedding gown for one of her best friends. 
   
She had sewed since childhood, learning the craft from her grandmother. She always knew she wanted to design and make clothing. When she stumbled upon bridal wear, she was hooked.
   
“Brides are just great,” said LaFromboise, 44, owner and designer of Sewly Yours/Once Upon A Bride, a bridal shop on the Church Street Marketplace. “Their energy is fantastic. It’s an important day, they enjoy and appreciate being taken care of.
   
“Everyone has their own idea of what they think is beautiful. Being able to help them achieve that is very rewarding.”
   
LaFromboise has had a shop on Church Street for 16 years, six in her current location. She creates a few custom gowns a year, dresses that start at $3,000 and include a $7,000 masterpiece with brown velvet-silk jacket, vintage fur collar, pleated bodice, waves of layered lace and a gold bustier. 
   
But custom work is not LaFromboise’s focus these days. She carries gowns made by U.S. designers whose work she admires, sometimes embellishing a basic gown to meet the taste and style of a particular bride.
   
Bridal fashion, like other elements of style, runs in cycles, LaFromboise said.
   
Sashes are hot. Even hotter are sashes with a dash of color: mocha, sage green, bisque. For destination weddings, some brides choose more vibrant colors – like fuchsia or periwinkle.  For a wedding in Mexico, LaFromboise decorated the gown with a turquoise sash, the color reflecting the bride’s sense of fun and desire to accent the colors of the place.    
Tiara’s are out; hairpins are in. LaFromboise, who scours thrift shops and antique stores for vintage accessories, recently returned from New York where she found big droopy earrings made from a dozen pink and pearl florets strung together. She separated the flowers and made hairpins with them.
   
This satisfies a bride’s desire for flowers in hair, without the hazards of wearing fresh flowers:  they die. Hairpins adorned with small silk or cotton flowers provide the floral look and feel, a spray of color and beauty, without the wilt.
   
Vegan brides are staying away from silk (pity the poor silkworm), in favor of natural fibers.
   
Vintage is in, and the Church Street shop has yards of vintage fabric and spools of vintage lace trim. Some brides opt for a touch of the stuff – embellishing simple shoes with a piece of trim that costs more than $100 a yard.
   
Others re-make and re-use their mother’s or grandmother’s gown, starting with a vintage dress and recreating it for today’s bride. Each year, LaFromboise reconstructs about a dozen family gowns.
   
“People are taking an interest in using pieces of their own history,” she said. LaFromboise is seeing gowns from the ‘60s, with their high neck and long sleeves.  She might minimize the neck and remove the sleeves – “get rid of fullness” – and create a kind of simple sundress from the original material.
   
“Brides who wear vintage are so fun,” LaFromboise said. “The sentimentality of the gown is important.” They tend to be easy to work with, which is important for a collaborative process, LaFromboise said.
   
“There’s a lot of playing with what they want,” she said.
   
Some brides go to the boutique to look for a dress about 2 weeks before their weddings. Most start shopping for a gown about six months before the wedding date.
   
They arrive in jeans and flip-flops, sweat shirts and sneakers – imagining, and finally realizing, a very different kind of costume.