Girl Crush // Molly Guy of Stone Fox Bride
Molly Guy is the super cool, down to earth, mega babe Creative Director of Stone Fox Bride. The bridal haven is the answer for all those laid back brides who want their wedding to feel personal and intimate, and they carry a beautiful selection of bridal gowns, veils, headpieces, and rings for the wedding you've actually always dreamed of (you can thank me later!). Molly's candid, courageous and humorous way of expressing her life is so refreshing. This makes her and the brand she has built relatable, endearing and oh-so-fun. It's like you want to be a part of her club. We've been majorly girl crushing on this multi-talented women and I guarantee you will too when you read our interview with the ballsy and carefree Molly Guy.
Tell us a little bit about the journey from uninspired bridal shopper to bridal shop owner. What is it like being at the helm of this super cool "anti-bridezilla" movement?
Ha! Of all things to be at the helm of... I never thought it would be the anti-bridezilla movement. I moved to New York City to change the world in 1999. I studied english in college and taught a lot of creative writing classes to innercity teenage girls and felt really passionate about the arts and public education. I fancied that my career path would be a little bit Jane Adams, a little bit Jane Goodall, a tad Joan Didion, you get the idea. Anyway, years of strange job choices mixed with late twenties hubris and an extremely torpid saturn return landed me, at the age of 33, totally on my ass. I could not get a job to save my life and I was like WTF. Anyway this whole period of time coincided with me getting engaged. A couple weeks after my wedding I mentioned to a friend over dinner what a bummer it was that all the wedding boutiques I went to felt very stuffy and very inauthentic. One conversation lead to another and then next thing you know....
Everything about your company feels very personal and special, like your best friend is helping you find the best wedding dress ever. Has that always been the intention?
Um, absolutely not. The whole best friend thing stems from an utter inability to behave like a professional in the work place. Listen, I'm a pisces, an English major, a dreamer, whatever you want to call it. I worked a super corporate job for three months once where I wasn't allowed to wear jeans to the office and it was my personal form of hell. Truthfully the one thing I think I'm pretty good at is being a lazy, uber-casual, boundary-less good for nothing who just wants to talk about boys, clothes and feelings. I guess that comes across in all things SFB...
I read that you did a little bit of an "Eat, Pray, Love" quest in India. What did you learn on this journey that you've applied in your life and business?
This is probably not the answer you were looking for, but I took a break from the spiritual stuff while I was there and did a little snooping around the city of Jaipur, hub of gems and textiles. Spending a few days rooting through raw diamonds, sapphires and rubies, observing the jewelry artisans and combing sewing rooms for the perfect soft cottons and silks was intoxicating. The first time it ever occurred to me that I could possibly one day conceive of doing something similar for a living.
Because we just experienced the annual Valentine's Day frenzy, if you were planning a Valentine's inspired wedding, what would it be like and, more importantly, what dress would you wear?
I really want to remake our Glenda dress in a hand-dyed dusky sunset rose. I guess I would go barefoot and have a loose wild bouquet of languid roses, peonies, anemones, wild leaves and ranunculus. I would have a super teeny intimate, almost shamanic ceremony with lots of buddhist blessings and beatnik poetry. I would make my husband serenade me Bob Dylan's "Standing In The Doorway" then everyone would feast on an amazing banquet featuring all kinds of dishes in heart-healthy, antioxidant packed deep crimson colorful hippie dishes: lots of beets, pomegranate seeds, cherries, raspberries, dark chocolates, moroccan tagines, blood orange juice with fresh mint and more.
If you had an inspiration board (and maybe you do!), what would we currently find on it?
Pics taken by Jurgen Teller, Nan Goldin, Cass Bird and Tim Walker. A letter my mom wrote for me to read when I was in active labor. My daughter's first band-aid, a picture of my husband on the beach in Maine cooking a lobster bake, a few photo strips of me and my best girlfriends in the photo booth at Wax Trax in Chicago in 1988. A blue feather Kathryn Bentley gave me, the ashtanga yoga series chart, a doily from the time I had coffee with Camille Nickerson at St. Ambrouse. The Jack Gilbert poem "Bring In The Gods", a letter my Nana wrote me when I was in college, and a photo of my best high school friend Dennis sitting on my parents porch in Chicago in 1995, blurry and black-and-white, wearing a Salvation Army ski sweater and smoking an American Spirit cigarette.
We follow you on Instagram and love your #stonefoxrings posts! What is your proposal story?
Would you believe I don't really have one? My husband asked me to marry him in bed one night while we were making out. He didn't have a ring, he didn't ask my dad beforehand, nothing. It was totally spur of the moment and so him and I loved it. The next week he was writing a story about Karl Edwards the NASCAR driver and they stopped into a pawn shop in Daytona and picked out a two hundred dollar piece of crap high prong monstrosity with a teeny little dull poppy seed of a diamond chip. I was like "oh, baby, so sweet" — then I threw it in my underwear drawer and designed my own ring. Honestly I don't think he's ever noticed....
Your wedding shop style is to die for. Who are some of your personal style icons and can you describe your day-to-day look?
Day to day look: Jerry Hall meets Jerry Garcia.
Style Icons: Grace Slick, Grace Jones, Grace Kelly.
There is definitely a vintage vibe to your designs. If you could take a time machine back to a certain era, which one would it be and why?
Hmm.. tough one. Maybe to 1984 so I could attend the wedding of Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner?
When we first emailed you about participating in our 'Girl Crush' series, you mentioned you were "obsessed with Toronto". Can you tell us a little bit about this obsession? Any favourite shops/restuarants/areas/etc.?
Well.... the hottest guy I ever hooked up with in my 20s was from Toronto. And my great friend Piper Perabo lives there, and the cool kids from The Coveteur are headquartered there as well! I'm a fourth generation Chicago girl, and I really appreciate a good, well-rounded, down-to-earth city with good style, a strong art scene and overall thriving cultural landscape. Toronto seems to fit the bill on all counts.
And what about New York and Brooklyn? What do you love most about the city and do you have any secret haunts you're willing to share with our readers?
New York is like that boyfriend who just can't break up with, no matter how many times he leaves the toilet seat up and says mean things about your mom. I've tried to move like 400 times, but I always end up right back in the thick of it. For almost 20 years now. I know I'm an idiot for still living here — most of my friends have homes with backyards and two car garages filled with COSTCO goods and I'm like, squashed shoulder to shoulder on the L train every morning, buying my groceries from the bodega. etc. Still, there's nothing like NYC: definitely recommend The Shala Union Square for yoga, Cafe Gitane for avocado toast, Nighthawk CInema for movies, Five Leaves for cheeseburgers, Bergdoffs for chopped salads, Mociun store for gems, McCaren Park ice skating rink for Sunday afternoons with the fam, PS1 for a quick food and art fix, the list goes on...
At Bicyclette, magic and inspiration are two things we hold very important. What does magic mean to you?
It's just that special thing. Either you got it or you don't. Flies off your fingers, can't be put into words. You know it when you see it.
[photos via Stone Fox Bride, Refinery29, The Coveteur + Cool Hunting]