08/03/2026
🌸🪻International Women's Day 🪻🌸
Happy IWD to all my fellow independent ladies!
On Friday I had the honour of speaking at the DG Chamber IWD Lunch which was held the stunning The Cairndale Hotel & Spa and hosted by the amazing, as always, Andrea, editor of the Dumfries and Galloway Life As promised my these were my words of wisdom;
What began in the early 20th century as a movement demanding fair wage, safer working conditions, and the right to vote has grown into a Global Day of Recognition, reflection, and renewed commitment. International Women’s Day marks an extraordinary milestone: 115 years of collective action, advocacy, and progress toward gender equality.
So what do I talk about? What would you like to know? Am I an Independent Woman? Yes I am and when writing this speech, it has been a time to majorly reflect on how far I have actually come. Sometimes life moves so fast that you don’t stop to look back and when you finally do, you realise just how much you’ve grown, survived, built, and become. And honestly… it’s been quite a journey.
Since I was a wee girl, I’ve always wanted to work in a wedding dress shop. In nursery, aged just three, I made my playgroup leader marry me and one of the boys called Ian. With a piece of white material for a veil poor Ian didn’t stand a chance!
Now, I’ll be honest, I did change my mind a few times growing up. At one point I wanted to be a hairdresser, then I fancied myself as a secondary school teacher… until my university honours year placement in the Home Economics department at Stranraer Academy. Let’s just say that experience made it very clear that teaching was not my calling. The pupils survived, I survived, but the dream did not.
People often ask how Galloway Bridal began and they expect some glamorous story, maybe a moment of inspiration. My own wedding perhaps. But no. It was a chance conversation in Lidl… over the vegetables. I happened to say, completely off‑hand, “Oh, it’s my dream job to sell wedding dresses.” And that was it. That comment, in the middle of the fruit and veg aisle, somehow set everything in motion. Life is funny like that opportunities come along when you least expect it and sometimes, they happen next to the aubergines and mange tout.
When I started Galloway Bridal in 2012, I started with just 10 dresses and 6 veils. That was it. My entire collection could have fit in the back of the family car with room to spare! I started with sample sales in local hotels, then rented a room in a shop in town for a bit before being offered a space on the outskirts of town at the price of just £25 per week. It was an old auction room with bits of off cut carpet with a bit of a foosty smell but that didn’t matter it was my first proper shop. Brides would gasp as they entered my wee Alladins cave of all things wedding dresses.
In April 2016 I moved into Stranraer town centre and opened 14 Bridge Street!
Now I have over 250 dresses and around 60 veils — the last time I counted anyway. At this point, counting them is basically a workout. Sometimes I look around the shop and think, “Where did all of these come from? And you really must stop buying stuff!”
So April this year, I will have been in Bridge Street for a whole 10 years — and boy, has that gone in quick! A decade of dresses, fittings, laughter, tears, and more mother in laws to be with “advice” than anyone can imagine. If I could bottle that feeling of saying yes to the dress and sell it, I would be a millionaire. It really is such an honour to help brides find their dream dress and over the years, I’ve had the privilege of helping brides who struggle with body dysmorphia — women who look in the mirror and can’t see what everyone else sees. And I can’t even put into words what it means to help someone truly see themselves… to see their beauty, their strength, their softness, their worth. It’s not just about finding a dress. It’s about helping them recognise themselves in the way that we all do.
Even now, after all this time, I STILL pinch myself that Galloway Bridal is really mine. That this little dream I carried from playgroup became a reality.
All of this was happening while I was working two days for the NHS, raising my two children, going through separation from their dad, making memories and watching them grow into the young adults they are now. It’s been one of the greatest joys of my life, but it came with its challenges. Whoever said that toddlers and the terrible two is hard work has never owned a teenager! I have two of them and one of each flavour. I used to look at other families and wonder how they always seemed so together, so organised, so perfect. Meanwhile, in my house, we were doing well if everyone had had breakfast, I’d brushed my hair and teeth, and we didn’t have any melt downs because their feet felt strange in their socks. True story! Eventually I realised the truth: most families are just doing their best behind the scenes, and the “perfect family” is usually just a very well timed photograph.
May I just add my now ex husband told me that opening a bridal shop wasn’t a good idea and that I wouldn’t make any money. Well… nothing motivates a woman quite like being told she can’t do something. In hindsight, that comment might have been the most unintentionally inspiring thing anyone has ever said to me.
Now I have added another two working days with the NHS as my pink flavoured teenager is at Glasgow Caledonia University and I couldn’t be prouder. However, she’s not quite grasping the idea that she is a student and should be living on a diet of Campbells condensed soup with pasta and super noodles like I did many moons ago!
Then just when you think life is finally getting back to some sort of normality… boom peri‑menopause hits. Crikey gee! Nobody warned me about this! Tiktok did though. It knew what my algorithm was. Forty something, single mother of two that overthinks and needs the latest Halara work trousers and Be Perfect Fake Tan and makeup. Diagnosis by social media! One minute you’re fine, the next minute you’re crying because you forgot to put the grey wheelie bin out and it doesn’t get emptied for another goodness knows how many weeks, sweating like I’ve just run a marathon but I’ve actually just climbed the stairs to get something and I have no idea what. But we survive it. We adapt. We laugh. We take our medication, our supplements that promise us longer thicker hair, better sleep and less brain fog! And we carry on, because that’s what us women do.
And as if I didn’t already have enough to do running a business, raising teenagers, working four days a week for the NHS, navigating peri‑menopause, and trying to remember where I left my glasses or ear pods. I have now decided to train as a Funeral and Wedding celebrant with the Humanist Society Scotland. Because apparently, I thought, “You know what my life needs? More responsibility.” I’ve spent over a decade helping brides find the dress of their dreams, and now I will get to help couples create the ceremony of their dreams too. This is also the reason why I volunteered to speak today. I must be mad but what was it former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said? “do one thing every day that scares you” So I guess today - tick!
I am very blessed to have so many amazing women in my life who I now consider as my amazing friends. They also run their own businesses. They understand the chaos, the pressure, the juggling, the doubts, the lows and the wins. Without them, I would be absolutely lost. Their support, their advice, their honesty, and the laughs we have together means so much more than they will ever know.
International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate women in all our forms. The strong ones, the tired ones, the loud ones, the quiet ones, the ones who are smashing it, and the ones who are just holding it together with coffee and dry shampoo. Every single one of us deserves to be here.
International Women’s Day isn’t just about big achievements or fancy titles. It’s about the everyday strength of women who keep going, even when life throws curveballs. Women who juggle families, work, hormones, heartbreak, dreams, doubts, and everything in between. Women who lift each other up. Women who say, “I’ve got you.” Women who say, “You can do this.” And women who say, “Ach, 🦆it — go for it.”
And what else have I learned? I have learned:
• It’s okay not to be okay. None of us have it together all the time.
• You should wear SPF every single day. Yes! Even in Scotland.
• Compliment someone once a day. It costs nothing, and it might lift someone’s whole mood.
• Always go with your gut.
• You’re stronger than you think
So International Women’s Day, I want to say this:
To every woman who’s ever doubted herself, questioned herself, compared herself or underestimated herself you are doing better than you think. You are braver than you realise and you are allowed to chase the life you want, even if it starts with a chance conversation in Lidl.
Thank you. xx
