Renee Miller designs and creates by hand every gown that leaves her shop. [Abby Laub photo]
Walking into Renee Miller’s opulent Renee’s Bridal Shop in Mt. Sterling is like walking into a cloud—a friendly, purple-hued cloud. “I’ve always loved purple; it’s my color,” said Miller with a charming smile. Her clients walk out the door with dresses in purple garment bags.
It’s just one of the touches she puts on each of her custom wedding and special event gowns. She’s been known to surprise her brides at their weddings to help them get ready. Her charisma and personal touch have landed Miller—a North Carolina native who came to the Bluegrass State by way of Pensacola, Florida—on multiple reality television shows. Her Kentucky-based fiancé, who is in the horse business, is responsible for luring her here. But Miller’s adventures in designing and creating dresses started in 2001 in Pensacola.
“It’s been 17 years of a wonderful adventure,” she mused. “I had to learn; I had to grow. No one taught me the ins and outs of this business, nor did I start out saying, ‘I’m going to have a bridal store.’ I sold jewelry and accessories, and a bride one day asked if I could get her five necklaces, and I didn’t even know she was a bride. She said they were for her bridesmaids, and I remember calling my mom that night and saying, ‘Mama, I know how I’m going to put a roof over my boys’ heads. I’m going to have a bridal store.’ ”
At the time, Miller was a young, single mother of two boys, who are now 19 and 26. They are the motivation for everything she does.
“And my mother, in her wonderful Southern way, said, ‘Well, Renee, how in the world are you going to do that?’ So it was a very humble beginning,” Miller recalled. “Good things come out of people who are poor and in need—if they want good things to come out of that. My ‘why’ and ‘when’ merged together.”
Miller’s adventures in designing and creating dresses started in 2001 in Pensacola. [Abby Laub photo]
This philosophy inspired Miller to establish a fabulous business. She’s now a full-fledged independent designer who creates by hand every gown that leaves her shop. “I design for my individual bride; I don’t carry any national brands in my store,” she said. “They’re all designed by me, but I started out buying from the manufacturers. Then a customer said what she needed, and we put together a gown, and I realized I could do that myself.
“I didn’t know I could until she asked. I had no fear, so I did that, and then I thought, ‘There’s something to this individual custom designing.’ My heart wasn’t really happy until I turned my store fully into an independent, custom-designed wedding store.”
Miller has some hired help, but the work is all hers, and much of it is done right in the front of the store at a little desk in the large window that customers can see from the street.
She got the opportunity to introduce her designs to the world thanks to multiple cable television appearances on TLC and UP TV. It started when the Duggar family of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting heard about Miller through a friend when she was still in Florida.
“It’s just been magical ever since,” Miller said. “Knowing that I do custom designs, and I can give [the Duggar daughters] the dress they’re looking for with the modesty aspect was part of the draw for them. My motto is that whoever walks in my door, I want to give them the desires of their heart.
“So many stores often are driven by what the manufacturers are selling and what they’re saying is hot and what the market needs to be, and [customers] have no choice but to buy those dresses.”
So far, she has completed four wedding dresses for the Duggar family, most recently Jinger’s last November. In December, she completed a wedding gown for Tori Bates of UP TV’s Bringing Up Bates. Miller still has more big TV deals under wraps for this year and “can’t say enough” about the producers she’s worked with so far. “They allowed me to get into my zone and be who I really am,” she said.
Mt. Sterling was buzzing with the celebrity visitors. “They bring a film crew here to the town, and then I get texts, and then we started seeing people circling the square,” she said with a laugh. “We always keep it quiet; then the buzz gets out. The Duggars and Bateses were so generous and kind, visiting the other stores, eating at the restaurants. They truly do care about the town, and I appreciate that.”
Miller has been on national television 10 times and counting and said she’s humbled by it. It’s all a far cry from when she was thinking about providing for her children. “This was hard work and involved tears and many sleepless nights—still some,” Miller said. “My brain is always turning. But it’s definitely been a love journey, because my ‘why’ has always been my two boys.”
Danville native Sarah Hillin is one of many brides to have been part of Miller’s journey of love. It took Miller a year to complete Hillin’s dress—the largest she’s ever made. It featured a 13-foot-long train and weighed 30 pounds.
“This dress, like all of my dresses, was truly a labor of love, but this one took my whole heart, soul, body, mind and anything else I could offer up,” Miller recalled.
Hillin, who is a legal research consultant at Lexis Nexis in Ohio, is married to Air Force Staff Sgt. Nathan Hillin and found Miller when she was still in Pensacola. She searched far and wide before finding Miller and knew they’d be a perfect fit. At the time, Miller was already dating her Kentucky boyfriend, so she and Hillin had the state in common.
“Renee was fantastic,” said Hillin, who was married in June 2016. “When we sat down with her, she said, ‘I don’t have the dress you want, but I can make you one.’ From there on out, it was perfect, and we found out we had so much in common.”
She said until she met Renee, all of the wedding dresses she tried on “looked like prom dresses that happened to be white” and that she wanted a “big poofy” dress elaborately decorated with beads and crystals. It was a match made in heaven for Miller, who said she’s a fan of all things “lace, feathers, tulle, taffeta, beads, sequins, crystals and ruffles.”
“It was the ultimate dress … It’s everything I could have asked for and more,” Hillin said. “To have it all come to life and to have that relationship with Renee was very special.”
Soon after, Miller was in Kentucky full time. She said her West Main Street shop previously was abandoned for 20 years, and she noticed it the first time her now-fiancé brought her to Mt. Sterling.
“It’s all been so nice and different,” Miller said. “I was nervous because, any time you make a business move like that, you don’t make those decisions lightly. But I also knew that the area needed a bridal store and a formal wear store. We’ve truly been blessed. The community has opened their arms wide for us. It’s a great town.”
Miller feels the TV appearances have given her business a boost, but many of her brides were already traveling to work with her. Just this spring, she had people contact her from the United Kingdom and Australia.
Mt. Sterling Chamber of Commerce Director Sandy Romenesko said that the city is excited to have Renee’s Bridal in town.
“We’ve been working on downtown revitalization for a few years now, and Renee’s shop and window just adds beauty to downtown,” she said. “Also, she’s brought a lot of attention from outsiders to downtown, so we’re thrilled that she chose to come to Mt. Sterling and help beautify our community.”
Miller said she is humbled and has to “pinch herself” from the attention. She said she just tries to be her true self when dealing with her clients.
“I’m really real,” she said. “I’m really real with my brides, whoever’s in front of me, and I really feel that that is what they’re looking for. I’m someone who is going to be honest with them, and I’m excited. It never gets old seeing their face and the hush that comes over the crowd when they put their dress on.”
After doing TV shows, Miller said she had a bride call and thank her for giving her the exact same attention and care that she gave to her TV brides.
“That was huge to me—I almost started crying,” she said. “That meant a lot to me because I put a lot of heart into my dresses.”
Miller’s design process is simple: Follow the lead of the brides. Some of her dresses have premade parts, like skirts or bodices that can be interchanged to make custom creations more efficiently.
“We always sit down and have a chat first,” Miller said. “This is when I get to know the bride and hear her heart, and her heart will lead me to the right dress and right style for her. It’s one-on-one. I have one bride at a time in my store. We’re creating right there in that moment, and my bride is my design board.”
Her own personal style is full-on feminine, she said. “Ever since I was 5 years old, I liked pretty things. I’ve always liked dressing up. I used to make my Ken and Barbie get married every Saturday, so it’s just fitting that I’m in this business. I’d make Barbie an outfit with my daddy’s handkerchief. Maybe this was God’s ideal plan for me.”
Now, most of her dresses take about two months to make, but she prefers four to six months to work on each creation.
Miller said she’s seeing a lot of different trends this year, including a movement away from traditional white and ivory. “I still feel lace is strong; lace is still a strong component to all dresses, but right now I’m seeing a lot of rose gold colors in the dresses—almost like blush pink, but rose gold just sounds more luscious. And I have done some ice blue—heavenly blue.”
Miller is designing her own wedding dress now. “It’s a dress I’ve always wanted to make that I haven’t made yet for any of my brides,” she said. “The hardest part is that I love everything, from ostrich feathers to heavy crystals to lace to ruffles. I love all of it; I’m not kidding. They all have a purpose, but not all in one dress.
“I never really truly dreamed I would marry again, but I always have had a love for this style of gown, so it’s going to be beautiful, and I hope everyone else enjoys it.”
Renee’s Bridal
10 West Main Street
Mt. Sterling, (850) 291-2174