Page 98 - South Mississippi Living - February, 2021

DRESS
Design
In May 2020, Layla Jones graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor
of Science in fashion design and merchandising from Mississippi State University. By August 2020, Jones had created her own wedding gown.
BY
Bride Brings Her Vision to Life
ROMANCE & WEDDING
story by Victoria Snyder photos courtesy of Layla Jones
Thanks to a job with couture designer Suzanne St. Paul in New Orleans, the chance for Jones to make her wedding dress was possible. After the 2020 Mardi Gras season, the team realized that there was an extra satin base cut and assembled for one of the queens. “Suzanne told me that if I did not take and do something with this satin gown that it would have to be thrown out, so there was the base for my wedding dress already. I had always dreamed of designing and creating my own dress, but I never thought it would just fall into my lap the way it did,” Jones recounts.
Jones took this opportunity to make her wedding dress because she couldn’t nd a dress that perfectly t her vision. “I wanted my dress to be a re ection of me, and as an artist, the only true re ection of me is my work,” Jones explains.
Jones’s husband, Garret, adored the dress. “He burst into tears when he saw me during our rst look on our wedding day,” she reveals. While Jones says that she is her own harshest critic, her husband is her biggest cheerleader and never doubted that she would create something stunning.
preserve her bouquet. She began to research and discovered the art of ower pressing. She tried pressing her bouquet and can now cherish it forever. She posted pictures to her personal social media, which led people to comment on how they loved it and wished they had pressed their bouquets. “People’s reactions got me thinking. Why can’t I do this for other people? I decided
it was worth a shot to see if people would be willing to allow me to do this for them.”
The answer to that is yes, and that is how Blooming Press was born in October 2020. Since then, Jones has preserved 10 bridal bouquets
and is getting more clients every day. She describes it as a “labor of love,” but is glad that she discovered ower pressing. “It has become something so important to me that I never
even knew I would be doing.”
After her wedding, Jones wanted to
Facebook @bloomingpress. oral.art
98 | February 2021
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