“We got a lot of letters of people who didn’t like them, like my own family who thought they were unnecessary and unpleasant and taking advantage of women in a sad situation – I never saw that. And I think that sometimes, you have to take a risk.”

I wanted to breathe new life into the timeless trend of past, present and future. These unique designs celebrate the bride and groom’s passage through their new life together.

It’s hard to juggle being a businessperson with being a creative person. You have to organize yourself – PR needs me for PR, and the licensing division needs me for licensing, the bridal people need me for bridal.

It’s for all the women who embrace my aesthetic, but can’t afford a Vera Wang dress. If women can get anything out of it – a little bit of me or a lot of me, that’s what’s important.

I was a total fashion insider who became an outsider when I did bridal.

My normal routine is pretty much putting out fires all day.

The key is falling in love with something, anything. If your heart’s attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.

I love a black wedding dress.

I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time. I am amazed I have been able to move beyond it. I had really all but given up trying, but I did it because it was my lifelong dream.

The funny thing is that I’m the girl who no one sees at the beach. Ask anyone who’s traveled with me. Normally, I’m in so many layers, I look like Lawrence of Arabia!

I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.

I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.

I brought color to bridal. There was one whole season of blush. If you think about the bareness, the illusion (fabric), the corsets that I did in bridal, they were trends in ready-to-wear, too.

A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.

A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her clothes.

Just because you’re from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn’t mean you don’t read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what’s going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted.

Just because you’re from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn’t mean you don’t read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what’s going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted.

In Positano, I like the San Pietro Hotel, which is run by a friend whose family has owned the hotel for more than 100 years.

Nothing separates a woman or a family from God’s love. Not death, and certainly not divorce.

I look and there’s our boy from Vietnam and our daughter from Ethiopia, and our girl was born in Namibia, and our son is from Cambodia, and they’re brothers and sisters, man. They’re brothers and sisters and it’s a sight for elation.

I hate the word surrogate, because what does that mean? Like when people talk about I`m my father’s confident, at one point, they were actually saying major newspapers were publicly were writing that I was Vice Presidential candidate. I`m saying no. I`m a daughter.

A family is a risky venture, because the greater the love, the greater the loss. That’s the trade-off. But I’ll take it all.

God, in His wisdom, has so linked the whole human family together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length.

Spare the rod and spoil the child – that is true. But, beside the rod, keep an apple to give him when he has done well.

Drummed into me, above all, by my dad, by the whole family, was that without your good name, you would be nothing.