Sheila Burnett – The Bridal Department

Simon: How did the shops in Southampton compare with, at the same time compare with Pack and Cullifords?

Sheila: Very often I came back with nothing, which now leads me on to the next thing, my daughter’s wedding dress (laughs).

Simon: Definitely want to explore that, yeah.

Sheila: That was 1988, and we looked for the wedding dress. My daughter says, “You have it in your loft.”

Simon: This is her wanting your wedding dress?

Sheila: This is my daughter’s wedding dress in 1988. And it came from Packs because this is where I was saying we shop on the Mainland and probably came back with very little and found something on the Island. And this is exactly what happened to her.

Off she went with her friend, “We must go to Southampton.” “No, we didn’t find anything.” “We’re going to Bournemouth.” “No, we didn’t really find anything.” Yes, there were dresses that were absolutely exorbitant price, but even then were they any better design as what she wanted. She couldn’t find anything. And she had refused to go to Packs. That was Island wasn’t it?

And I had a little chat with Molly and we looked at some wedding dresses, unknown to my daughter. We looked at some wedding dresses and I said, “Oh, I do like that” and it was slightly off-white and it was very Edwardian.

I said, “Oh I like that” so anyway I got my daughter to go with me and she looked at some other wedding dresses and Molly said, “Well I have got a couple of others but I don’t know whether you’d be interested” and brought this one out. “Oh, I like that” says my daughter, tries it on. “Oh, this is what I’m going to have.” (laughs).

So, obviously it went from there. What was so nice was, Mrs Pack got involved and in the end my daughter got everything from Packs, the veil, everything.