PHOENIX — Candice Gonzales says she has been training her whole life for her calling — opening a bridal shop in Phoenix.
Gonzales grew up watching her grandmother, who was raised in Mexico and immigrated to the United States, work on gowns as a master seamstress. While watching her grandmother work, she learned to do some of the beading and hand sewing, because she showed such an interest in it. When she wasn’t working on sewing or beading, she would sketch her own designs.
“I started designing without even knowing it,” Gonzales said. “For my eighth-grade promotion, I designed my dress, and it went on from there.”
After getting a degree in fashion design, Gonzales worked at a boutique that specialized in dresses for the mother of the bride, but Gonzales said she wanted to focus on the main event, the bride. She went to work at Almond Tree Wedding Boutique, a bridal shop in north Phoenix, but when the owner announced she was retiring, Gonzales saw it as the push she needed to start her own business.
Gonzales opened her bridal boutique, the House of RemiRose, in south Phoenix over the summer. Pam Ronalter, the owner of Almond Tree, gave her the unsold inventory from the former store to get her started. Gonzales leased 1,500 square feet, plus basement space at Alborada Village, a functioning wedding venue near Central Avenue and Baseline Road.
