After growing up a fashion devotee with a penchant for glamour, Lhuillier was well on her way to making her dreams a reality, but the path onward would not be familiar territory.

After growing up a fashion devotee with a penchant for glamour, Lhuillier was well on her way to making her dreams a reality, but the path onward would not be familiar territory. 

"When I graduated from design school and decided to set out and start in the bridal business, I really did not know what I was doing," she said. "I had not worked for a storied house before. I just knew I wanted to create these beautiful gowns." So she got savvy, calling up retailers and asking if she could show them her five gowns. Through those conversations, Lhuillier learned she could put her work on display at a trade show, where she ended up getting multiple customers and a whole new slew of anxieties. "In spite of us being so happy, it dawned on me, 'Oh my God, five stores picked us up. Now we are in business and I have to make all these dresses.'"

She got through it with help from her husband, then-business student Tom Bugbee, but without the help of outside investment. "We were a very lean startup. I started the company from the basement of our home in Malibu," she described. "We would design Monday through Thursday, pack up all the boxes, ship out the stuff through UPS. And then on Friday we would board a plane and go to local bridal salons throughout the country that would carry us. And I would do trunk shows from Friday early evening and leave Sunday."

Eventually racking up the miles paid off. 

"People could not say my name for the life of me. They would be like, 'Oh, you know that Monique girl, she's new?' Or 'Monique Lhu...I can't say her name,'" she remembered. After nearly four years, "People started saying Monique Lhuillier," she said. "And I was like, 'Oh my gosh, something's happening. We are going in the right direction.' And that gave us confidence to keep going."