Meet Ly Cecilia Nguyen and Tori Watley of Leigh & Siena

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ly Cecilia Nguyen and Tori Watley.

Ly and Tori, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Tori and I have been friends for six years; we met as bridesmaids to a dear friend of ours. When Tori was engaged last year, she quickly realized that it would cheaper for her to fly to Vietnam and get a custom dress made than to buy an off-the-rack dress in the U.S. I happened to be in Vietnam at the time so we coordinated a hiking trip in Sapa together. We talked about how outdated the industry is and how inconvenient and expensive wedding dress shopping can be. On that rainy hiking day, we knew we wanted to do something to innovate this experience for all brides – we want to make wedding dress shopping fun, personalized, and affordable. That’s how Leigh & Siena, a custom wedding dress e-commerce brand, was born.

We get asked a lot about how we chose the name, Leigh & Siena. We went through hundreds of names. The domain name was either not available or it didn’t reflect our values and mission. While I almost gave in to any so-so name, Tori said “what if we do something with our mother’s name? Both are amazing female leaders who inspire us.” It became the easiest decision to-date.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been quite a roller coaster since Day 1. Disrupting an industry comes with many curve balls! During our fundraising phase, we received daily rejections from investors before getting a yes from our lead investor; the quickest rejection was after 12 min of pitching!

Conversely, at one of the first customer’s appointments, the bride turned to us and said: “This is it. This is the dress for me. How do I pay you?” Tori and I looked at each other, trying to contain our excitement as she was our first customer, then realized we didn’t have a payment system set up… I said “Congratulations on saying ‘yes’ to the dress! Don’t worry about payment right now, we’ll email you instructions later.” We set up a payment system that evening!

We have so many other stories e.g. chasing a truck as we were shipping our limited inventory between LA and SF, getting lost trying to find a factory… all these stories are part of our journey to building Leigh & Siena.

Please tell us about Leigh & Siena.
We are replicating the wedding dress shopping experience in-home, making it convenient, fun and personalized for the modern bride. Leigh & Siena provides custom wedding dresses that women can try-on at home with a Design Box. Our wedding dress samples come in separate tops and skirts allowing brides to mix and match and create their own unique custom-designed dress. Our samples also come in multiple sizes because we serve women of all shapes and sizes. Brides choose their favorite top style, skirt style, materials, and train length. Leigh & Siena will then turn it into a designer-quality one-piece dress made to their measurements. Good-bye standard sizing, let’s celebrate every woman’s individual curves!

We are proud of building a body-inclusive fashion brand. Our mission is to make women of all shapes, sizes, and skin tones feel beautiful and confident; not just on your wedding day, but also, during the whole shopping experience.

What makes us different? Where else can you customize your wedding dress, try it on first before making a purchase, and spend less than $2,000?

The role of luck What role has luck (good luck or bad luck) played in your life and business?
Luck is involved in everyone’s story. We are lucky to have been born to women who serve as amazing role models and to be a part of a generation who has had the benefit of so many women leaders who paved the way before them. However, we believe true success can’t be created from luck alone, but is luck coupled with relentless determination and not being deterred by obstacles.

Tori and I know that the best decision we made is choosing each other as co-founder. Fun tidbit: we are like an old married couple, as we have the same personality as the other person’s spouse. We joke that creating this start-up will help us with our individual marriages because we use the same tools to resolve conflicts in our marriage as in our start-up 

Another element that we do not leave up to luck is understanding the women we serve. Even though we were brides ourselves, we don’t pretend to know what they want. We listen to the customer’s needs and preferences. That’s how Leigh & Siena makes women feel fabulous, beautiful and confident in the shopping experience and on their wedding day.

Pricing:

• Our custom-designed, made-to-measure wedding dresses are between $900 and $2,000
• Get your Wedding Dress Design Box for $20 with code VoyageLA

Contact Info:

• Website: www.leighsiena.com
• Email: info@leighsiena.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leighsiena/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leighsiena

Image Credit:
Colleen Bies & LR Creative

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