Woman creates custom wedding dress at ‘bridal lab’

Les Aimants is a New York-based bridal brand

Jazmin Sagastiverza and Jean Franco Vergaray have an untraditional love story. That continued when the two got engaged and Sagastiverza began to go wedding dress shopping.

The couple originally met in 2015 when Sagastivera went to a dance class with a different date and Vergaray was the one teaching it. She said they hit it off quickly and have been together ever since. They got engaged in September 2021 and were married on 1 April 2023.

"We had a lot of little jokes on the invite [about the date]," Sagastiverza told Insider. "We were like, ‘And this is not an April fools’ joke, so if you’re coming, please RSVP.

The wedding had around 50 guests in attendance as the pair wanted something “really intimate.” It was a destination wedding in Baja California, Mexico, at the Villa Santa Cruz. "We keep describing it as a beachy fever dream," Sagastiverza said. "It was just very, very chill."

One aspect that wasn’t very chill was wedding dress shopping. Originally, Sagastiverza didn’t have an idea regarding what type of dress she wanted and remained open-minded by trying on everything. "I had so many different options," she said. “The only thing she was convinced couldn’t work was a slip dress because she didn’t think she was tall enough. “You have to be, like, 5’9,” she said.

The situation improved after she had an appointment at Les Aimants, a New York-based bridal brand. This “bridal lab” allows brides to pick and choose specific pieces from various wedding dresses to be combined into one custom wedding dress in eight to 12 weeks. To ensure the dress fits the bride perfectly, its founder, Manon Martin uses 3-D rendering software in addition to 3-D body measuring to create renderings that allow brides to customise their dresses as they are made.

Sagastiverza showed up at the Greenpoint, Brooklyn, studio after failed attempts looking in Manhattan. She sat down with Martin over a glass of champagne to figure out what type of dress she wanted. Martin suggested she partially customise her dress by taking the top and bottom from two different gowns. As skeptical as Sagastiverza was about trying on a slip dress, she trusted Martin’s opinion and it was almost perfect.

The gown had spaghetti straps and a V-neckline with triangular detailing on the bodice with a simple skirt. But she still felt something was missing until Martin brought out a detachable train that had flowers embroidered on it which sealed the deal for her. The entire back of the dress was customized to become backless so the train sat at her waist. "I just felt like it was really tailored to me, which was the thing that set her apart from every other place that I went to," Sagastiverza said.

Throughout the process, she was able to see what the dress looked like on a 3-D rendering of her body measurements to make sure she loved it. "I put it on, and I was like, ‘I feel so expensive,’" she said. "It’s crazy because you compare it to other places, and it was actually really affordable.” In total the dress cost approximately $2,700.