Mrs Fray opens its doors to Canberra’s minimalist brides in Campbell – The Canberra Times

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When Amy Farrell and Andi O’Day went wedding dress shopping they found the whole experience quite underwhelming. It’s a day that can come with so much external pressure from family, friends and even bridal magazines and websites, all in the name of finding the perfect dress. But it’s for this reason why they want their newly opened Mrs Fray to be a safe haven for brides. “Even if brides don’t walk away buying one of our gowns, we don’t want them to walk away from it going wedding dress shopping is the worst,” O’Day says. “When people wanted to take photos of themselves in the dress, we were like go for your life. And they were like are you sure? “We’re not here to be stuffy or put any more pressure. There’s already enough pressure.” The Campbell concept store is for brides who don’t want the traditional wedding dress. In fact the store doesn’t stock a lot of “boofy” dresses and only has two veils. It’s for a place for those who want a minimalist and contemporary dress, and may want to wear boots – which the store also stocks – with it. “[It’s for] someone on the frays of society, which I guess is where our name Mrs Fray comes from,” Farrell says. “Something unique, something with a bit of an edge, but something that reflects her personality.” Farrell and O’Day are both wedding photographers – which is where the journey to Mrs Fray began. The pair have seen a myriad ways people have worn wedding dresses and O’Day noticed that whenever a Canberra bride had a “really cool” dress, they had gone to Sydney or Melbourne to get it. “I started investigating what was actually here and I didn’t see much. And I thought, ‘Why?’,” O’Day says. “Canberra has so many up-and-coming everythings and for some reason it hadn’t hit the bridal world yet. “So I brought it to my fashion-forward friend Amy and said what do you reckon? And she said well if you want to try out a bridal store in Canberra, start with a pop-up model, to gauge interest in people.” The pair planned to hold three pop-up stores as a trial but after the second the need for a permanent home was clear. Now located on Provan Street, the Campbell store is a gallery-inspired space that avoids the “appointment-only” policy that a lot of bridal stores have and allows people to “flow and wonder” through the racks, whether they are a bride or not. “We’re not just a bridal store. Our hope is that the community who likes [the nearby cafe] Intra so much, feels free to come in with their coffees and browse all of the other wares that we have got going on,” O’Day says. “We’re not wanting to have that inaccessibility going on.” And when it does come to the wedding gowns, all are Australian designed and many made in Australia. “We do feel like we have created something quite different so people are excited to be a part of that,” Farrell says. “And I think it’s also been important for us to support Australian designers as well.”

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