Meg Ziems

How did the Grace Loves Lace story begin?

When my husband Wade and I were engaged and planning our wedding, I was quickly disillusioned with the traditional bridal “uniform.” I had grown up working in mum’s business handmaking women’s clothing, so I knew what good quality looked like – and most wedding dresses (no matter the price) weren’t well made. The designs were very standard, and the gowns felt very rigid and structured. So, in 2010, I set out to change the bridal industry, making unique dresses for women of style, substance, and passion. I wanted my designs to feel effortless and luxurious so the women who chose them would feel confident and empowered, and most importantly, like themselves on one of the most important days of their lives.

What were the early growth days like?

I started selling my handmade-to-order designs online, triple-checking each dress and package in my kitchen before shipping to brides all over the world. But I realized that for such a special purchase, most women wanted to try dresses on before buying. For a while, I invited local brides to come try on samples in my living room, until we finally opened our first physical showroom in my hometown of the Gold Coast, Australia, in 2015. It attracted brides from all over Australia and the world. I brought in Wade as CEO, and we decided to open two more showrooms… in two new continents. Both Los Angeles and London were hugely successful. We knew we had a business that didn’t just work – it was a category killer. In fact, one of my early gowns was the most pinned wedding dress in the world. But we were reinvesting all our cash flow to keep up with growth. It felt like the right time to take on a partner who understood my vision for the brand and could help us scale the business faster and smarter.

Why did you partner with Seidler?

We knew Seidler was the right partner for us when we met the team in early 2018. They backed my vision that the best way to build brand value was to double down on owning the customer experience end-to-end (which required investment and time), rather than selling my designs wholesale (which could have resulted in faster revenue growth). And, I wanted to really win share in the U.S. market, so Seidler’s roots in the U.S. and growing presence in Australia were a great fit for my business goals. While still in the two-way diligence phase, we were aligned with Seidler on strategy and priorities, and we trusted that their experience helping businesses scale globally would enable us to create an industry-leading structure while remaining true to our values.

What has the partnership accomplished?

I was obsessed with providing the best possible experience to my customers, so I wanted to control their experience from design to delivery, selling exclusively direct-to-consumer on our website and in our own showroom network. Our top two goals were to bring production capabilities in-house so we could control quality, and to accelerate our global showroom rollout so we could better serve our brides. In the first two years of our partnership, we completed the highly strategic acquisition of our external captive manufacturer, and more than tripled our showroom count.

Grace Loves Lace now has over 25 showrooms in four countries, supported by a team of over 200 incredible women and men. Every showroom has been successful, even through the global pandemic, which validated our shared growth thesis. Our growth has been rapid, and we’ve invested in building blocks to ensure that trajectory is sustainable. We’ve done this by attracting and retaining an incredible leadership team supported by a robust global organisational structure, closely analysing important financial and operational metrics, and developing a state-of-the-art design and production studio in the Gold Coast. With so many significant decisions on growth avenues and resource allocation, Seidler’s advice and willingness to work shoulder-to-shoulder with us has made a huge difference for us.