The Wedding Dress Maker
We noticed the popularity of Star Wars costumes on eBay and I thought I can do that, she said. And she did. Before even making a stitch she sold 50 Jedi robes at $100 each on eBay. I got a crash course in buying fabric wholesale and gathered any family and friends who could sew, Mulligan chuckled. She also started sewing dresses for the Renaissance Festival crowd and then they came to her to do their Renaissance wedding gowns. It seemed natural for her to make a business out of her hobby.
Mulligan and her husband moved in December to Springville from Kanosh. Living in a small town the market isn t there a lot, she said. A lot of girls come up here to buy dresses because there is shopping. Both she and her husband work full time on the sewing business. He is in charge of the Internet sales and shipping. She also hired five women in Kanosh who help cut the patterns of the Star Wars costumes she continues to sell on eBay. It gets to a point where I can t do everything, she said.
I m glad that I can provide some income for stay-at-home moms. Mulligan has been sewing since she was 12 years old, when her mother taught her. She taught me how to look at 1960s and 70s patterns to find the lines and compare them to the 1980s and 1990s fashions of then, she said. Because of those studying sessions, Mulligan can simply see a photograph of a dress and re-create it sans pattern. She watched her mother fix wedding dresses for all of her friends when they were getting married.
They came to my mom for help to fix dresses that were cut too low, she said. Sometimes Mulligan makes a dress without ever meeting the bride, using body measurements that have been e-mailed to her. But most customers come to her with pictures of their dream dress from bridal magazines, disappointed that they aren t temple ready. Some bring pictures of dresses that they just can t afford.