Two years before ‘brand’ Miss Bush’s 30th Birthday I had a plan. I had a clear idea that I would create a film a month to show a year in the life of a bridal shop. Yet only three shoots happened. I flew Ashleigh (Ash Videography) to Barcelona to film me doing a spot of international buying. I sent all the old wedding photos that had accumulated in a plastic crate over the years to get scanned off site. I planned to write the seminal work on the last 30 years of bridal fashion… I planned to create a beautiful, thoughtful and thankful celebration of a family business that in its own small way has become a disrupter for our industry.
I wanted to show how bridal shops run on passion, determination and female-first philosophies that allow people to bring their kids, their mental health issues, their age, anxieties, their skill and their vulnerability to the workplace.
Ah, the best laid plans…
Given my fondness for the macabre, the dramatic and the overstated I scribbled a quick illustration and sent it over to Leah.
It shows the calm swan of Miss Bush; the increasingly iconic exterior of The Chapel gliding effortlessly on the bright, shiny aspirational waters of success.
The treacherous, murky depths of the last two years; the battles, the struggles, the sheer effort of will to keep putting one foot in front of the other lay, barely, beneath the surface. Sleep has only been optional, a balanced diet of grape based liquids too easy, time off impossible.
My mind map would have Hieronymus Bosch wondering where he went wrong…
From the Brexit Referendum onward, the Universe of Bush lurched wildly. From the flooding of The Chapel and the out-of-the-blue announcement that The Chapel was going on the market to mental health interventions, deaths and shock resignations. This doesn’t even begin to mention the Public Health Warnings issued for the financial health of the High Street. Even Storm Doris ripped off one of our yellow logo squares from The Chapel exterior. I vowed not to replace it until/if the building was secured.
This has not been the easiest couple of years to achieve a work/life balance let alone celebrate work milestones when you are locked in an existential struggle with both the natural and business universe for its survival.
Some of the viler, lying, immoral, unappealing characters can be left out of the narrative by name. There are, though, vast legions of ‘business professionals’ that are nothing of the sort. Insurance companies, solicitors, some surveyors, most banks and, surprisingly, at least one charity that behave with an unscrupulous ruthlessness and yet, weirdly, all clock off on the dot of 5pm.
I have been offered mortgages that a payday loan company would think were a bit steep. I have had to fight a litigation battle, with several ‘notices to quit’ being served, while all the while continuing to be a model tenant.
Every bride and her squad that loved the Chapel and exclaimed out loud that it was a very special place turned the screw on my tightened neck strain of Globus Hystericus. “What if it all goes???”
It looked very possible that rather than organizing a pearl themed 30th Anniversary that Miss Bush could be Chapel-less, and could I face another move? Would a lock-up shop ever seem the same?
If the future of retail is a leisure inspired, multi-disciplinary experience then where could be better than The Chapel?
I bought in my most tenacious friend to battle the insurance claim. I wrote, fought and argued for an affordable mortgage. My beloved Leah removed the most ranty Insta posts, keeping the online swan-a-swimming beautifully. Corinne, Rosie and Jo along with Senior Bush and Megan are simply the finest team we have had at Miss Bush. The domestic God that is The Lovely Marshy has kept the homes fires burning and the range cooker hot.
Famously I hate paperwork. Bureaucracy bores me. Its not that I can’t do it, but I can find a million other displacement activities that I prefer. I would far rather have been planning perfectly pearly 3D balloon explosions by Bubblegum Balloons, designing pearlescent cocktails with Tattams Bar or riffing on Audrey Hepburn for a shoot using the ton of gathered vintage stringed pearls I have collected.
The choice was elemental and theatrical. The show must go on… The Chapel must be bought, brides must have no clue and Anniversary parties can wait. Instead, the cleaners went, the sample buying contracted, and I saved, paid myself a basic wage and learned to read the small print.
Insurmountable deposit amounts, Stamp Duty and legal fees had to be found. Via the heaven-sent, business angel Alison Kettle from Nat West, a mortgage was pushed over the line almost as the clock struck its fairy tale midnight chimes…
Through the rising swamp gas the sun battled through. Now on the verge of brand Miss Bush turning 31 my team, family and ‘significant others’ have achieved far more than a convenient round number. We have endured and overcome. The party is still not in the diary. Much like other ‘forced fun’ nights; NYE, Prom, even your very own wedding night, for example; sometimes, the best times take you by surprise and can’t be planned. My own 30th birthday was spent admirably slim yet hollowed out by post-natal depression.
Miss Bush is neither the birthday girl or the bride. But our party goes on…
Emma x