Celebrity wedding veils · 30 September 2019 · Somerset Chapel, South Carolina
Hailey Bieber's Wedding Veil: The Words That Started a Movement — and How to Get the Look
Some veils are remembered for their lace, some for their length. Hailey Bieber's is remembered for a sentence. When she married Justin Bieber at the Somerset Chapel at Montage Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, she wore a custom Off-White gown by Virgil Abloh, and behind her, along the edge of a cathedral-length tulle veil, ran four embroidered words:
“TILL DEATH DO US PART” — embroidered along the edge of the veil, Off-White by Virgil Abloh
We've made wedding veils by hand in Bath since 2007, and we watched that one change what brides ask of us. Words on tulle went from a couture one-off to a genre almost overnight. This is the story of the veil that did it, and of how we embroider your own words, your date, even your handwriting, onto a veil made for you.
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The verified facts
The wedding, the gown, the words
- The date and venue
- 30 September 2019, at the Somerset Chapel at Montage Palmetto Bluff in South Carolina, a year after the couple's quiet legal ceremony in New York.
- The designer
- Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White and artistic director at Louis Vuitton, designed both the gown and the veil. It remains his most famous bridal commission.
- The veil
- Cathedral-length tulle, sweeping well past the train of the gown, with “TILL DEATH DO US PART” embroidered along the edge.
- The words
- The traditional vow line, set in Off-White's own typographic style: the printed word, translated into thread.
- The reveal
- Hailey shared the photographs herself on Instagram in October 2019. The veil, not the gown, became the image everyone remembered.
- The legacy
- After Virgil Abloh's death in 2021, Hailey posted the wedding photographs again in tribute. The veil remains the reference point for embroidered bridal veils.
View Hailey Bieber’s wedding post on Instagram
Why it mattered
The veil that started the embroidered-veil movement
Virgil Abloh built Off-White on the power of the printed word — labels, quotation marks, plain language placed where fashion least expected it. For Hailey's wedding he did the same thing to the most traditional garment a woman ever wears. Where couture convention would have reached for lace, he reached for a sentence, and had the oldest vow in the English marriage service embroidered into three metres of tulle.
It worked because a veil is the one part of a bridal look that follows the bride. Guests read the words as she walked away down the aisle; the photographs read them draped across the chapel floor. The message faced the congregation, not the bride — a private promise made public in thread.
In our workshop the effect was immediate. Within weeks, brides who had never considered embroidery were asking whether words could be sewn into tulle: a vow, a date, a line the couple say to each other every day. Nearly seven years on the requests haven't stopped, and “wedding veil with words” has become a bridal genre of its own. Hailey's veil is where it began, though the idea was never really about her wedding. It is about yours.
Make it yours · One
Any phrase, embroidered
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This is the genuine recreation of the idea. Choose any veil we make, then choose your words: a line from your vows, the phrase you say to each other every day, the date you met, or the same four words Hailey chose. Our embroiderers sew them in our Bath workshop, into the tulle of a veil made for you.
Because every Britten veil is made to order, the words are planned with the veil rather than added to it as an afterthought. Tell us the phrase and we place it where it will be seen as the veil trails behind you, just as the world read Hailey's. No two are ever the same, because no two couples would choose the same sentence.
Make it yours · Two
Your date and initials
The quietest version of the idea is, for many brides, the most enduring one: your two sets of initials and your wedding date, embroidered into the veil. A monogram for the marriage itself, it reads as tradition rather than statement, something a great-grandmother might have done.
Years from now, the date in the thread does something photographs cannot. A veil is one of the very few pieces of a wedding that survives the day intact, and an embroidered date turns it into an heirloom with its provenance sewn in, ready to be lent, inherited and worn again.
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Make it yours · Three
Discreet initials and a heart
Personalise with Initials & Heart →
Hailey's veil made its message the headline. This is the opposite instinct, and just as romantic: your initials joined by a tiny embroidered heart, tucked into the tulle where most guests will never spot it. You'll know it is there all day, and a photographer who finds it tends to make it one of the best detail shots of the wedding.
It is the choice for brides who love the sentiment of an embroidered veil but want the fabric itself to stay the whole story: a secret in the thread rather than a sentence on the hem.
Make it yours · Four
Your own handwriting
Here is the most personal version of the idea, and the one no couture house has matched. Send us a photograph of real handwriting, and we recreate it in embroidery thread on your veil: your partner's proposal note in their own hand, a line from a mother's or grandmother's letter, your own vows exactly as you drafted them.
Handwriting is the closest thing to a signature a veil can carry. Where a typeset phrase says something about style, a handwritten one says something about the people — the loops and slants that belong to one hand only, preserved in stitches that will outlast the paper they came from.
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Keep the words forever
A veil with your words sewn into it becomes an heirloom, and an heirloom deserves better than a box in the loft after the wedding. Our embroidered tulle veil keepsake bag is made in the same workshop and personalised the same way: a resting place for the veil, and the words, for good.
The Veil Keepsake BagYour questions, answered
What did Hailey Bieber's veil say?
Hailey Bieber's wedding veil was embroidered with the words “TILL DEATH DO US PART” along its edge: the traditional vow line, stitched into a cathedral-length tulle veil designed by Virgil Abloh for Off-White. She wore it to marry Justin Bieber on 30 September 2019, and shared the photographs herself on Instagram.
Who made Hailey Bieber's wedding veil?
The veil, and the gown it crowned, were designed by Virgil Abloh for Off-White, his most famous bridal commission. Hailey wore them for her wedding ceremony at the Somerset Chapel at Montage Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, on 30 September 2019. After Abloh's death in 2021, Hailey shared the wedding photographs again in tribute to him.
Can I get words embroidered on my wedding veil?
Yes. Our workshop in Bath embroiders words onto the veils we make: any phrase of your choosing, your wedding date and initials, a discreet initials-and-heart motif near the hem, or your own handwriting recreated in thread. Everything is sewn by hand, on a veil made for you. Start with our personalised veil embroidery add-ons.
How long should a veil with embroidered words be?
Hailey's veil was cathedral length: the longest class of veil, around 3 metres or more from comb to hem, which gave the embroidered words room to unfurl behind her. A full phrase reads best on a longer veil, while a date, initials or a small motif sits happily at any length. Explore our cathedral-length veils to see the canvas at full size.
The look, made yours
One sentence changed wedding veils. Yours is waiting to be sewn.
From Hailey's embroidered vow to the veil the world is waiting for next: read our workshop's analysis of Taylor Swift's wedding veil, or trace a century of iconic bridal moments in the most stunning celebrity wedding veils of all time. When you're ready to write your own line, our embroiderers are ready to sew it.