About The Gown Journal
The Gown Journal is an editorial guide to wedding dresses. It was started in 2026 out of a simple frustration: a bride who begins to look for a dress is handed thousands of photographs and almost no explanation. What is the difference between a trumpet and a mermaid? Why does one lace dress cost four times another? How many fittings are normal? What do you ask in a salon without feeling foolish?
The answers exist. They live in the heads of designers, pattern cutters and seamstresses, and they rarely make it onto the page, because most of what is written about wedding dresses is written to sell one.
Who publishes it
The Journal is published by the team behind Lace & Love, the made-to-measure bridal studio of designer Shany Sasson, based in Hod Hasharon, Israel, and working with brides internationally. We are saying this at the top rather than in a footer because it is the kind of thing a reader should know before trusting a guide.
What it means in practice: the people checking these guides are the people who cut, fit and sew dresses every week, and that is where the detail comes from. Where a guide points to one of the studio's own pages (a measurement guide, a collection that shows a fabric on a finished dress), it says so in the sentence. The guides themselves are written to be useful whether or not you ever visit the studio, and most readers never will.
What you will find here
Long-form guides, each on a single subject, organised into six topics: silhouettes, fabrics and lace, style, planning, accessories, and care. Every guide is written to be read by someone hearing the word tulle for the first time, and to still be useful to someone on her third fitting.
What you will not find here
- Prices. They vary by country, designer, fabric and year. Any figure we printed would be wrong for someone. Each guide instead lists the questions that tell you what is included in what you are offered.
- Rankings of salons or designers. We do not review or rate other businesses, and we do not write about competitors.
- Affiliate links or third-party sponsorship. No guide earns a commission, and no outside company pays for placement. If that ever changes, the page in question will say so at the top.
The author
Every guide on the Journal is published under the name of Shany Sasson, bridal designer and founder of Lace & Love. She is a third-generation designer; her studio in Hod Hasharon, Israel, makes dresses to measure for brides locally and, through the online studio, in the United States and Europe. She checks every guide against what she sees at fittings each week: which silhouettes brides regret, which laces snag, where measurements go wrong when taken at home.
The writing itself is done with the Journal's editors, and outside professionals are consulted where a subject falls beyond made-to-measure work (dry cleaning, for example). Where professionals disagree, the guide says so rather than picking a side.
You can find her at shanysasson.com, on Instagram, on Pinterest, and in the Lace & Love shop on Etsy, where the studio's customer reviews are held.
How guides are written
Guides start from the questions brides actually ask at consultations and in messages to the studio. A draft is written, checked by the designer against real fittings, and edited for plain English. Guides carry a publication date and an update date when revised.
Our editorial policy explains how guides are researched, reviewed and updated.
In Hebrew
A companion journal in Hebrew, with its own guides written for brides in Israel, is at מגזין הכלה.
Contact
Corrections, questions and suggestions for future guides are welcome. See the contact page.