Every Celebration Starts Somewhere
Celebrations have always been part of our family.
Birthdays, Christmases, weddings, new homes and those wonderful occasions when everyone somehow manages to gather in the same place. Most of our own family's milestones have been celebrated together, usually around our home, and perhaps that's why helping other people celebrate has always felt so natural to us.
Door Bows grew from that same love of making an occasion feel special.
Sometimes it's the smallest detail that changes everything. A beautiful bow on a front door can turn collecting the keys into a proper new home moment. It can make children stop in their tracks at Christmas, welcome guests to a celebration or make an ordinary doorway say, something special is happening here.
We've been creating bows since 2007, and after all these years, that's still the part we love most - knowing that something we've made in our little corner of Essex is about to become part of somebody else's memory.
Welcome to Our Workshop
Most mornings at Door Bows begin early.
By 6.30am, the coffee machine is on, the computers are waking up and we're checking the orders that have arrived overnight. There's something rather lovely about the workshop at that time of the morning - quiet outside, the smell of wood still noticeable after all these years, and a whole day's possibilities sitting in front of us.
Our workshop is a large wooden cabin nestled amongst the trees here in Essex. It's where ideas are sketched, colours are chosen, ribbons are cut and bows gradually take shape.
In summer, the doors are thrown open and the garden becomes an extension of the workshop. In winter, it's wonderfully cosy inside while we're surrounded by ribbon and Christmas bows.
It's busy, creative and occasionally slightly chaotic - particularly when someone has borrowed your favourite scissors - but we wouldn't have it any other way.
It's not a factory. It's simply where our family makes beautiful things together.
Family at the Heart of Everything
Door Bows is a family business in the truest sense of the words.
Three generations of our family work together, each bringing something different to the business. There are the creative thinkers who are always wondering “What if we tried this?”, the practical ones who want to know exactly how big the box needs to be and which courier is collecting it, and the technical brains quietly making sure everything behind the scenes keeps working.
Our wider team includes sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews and godchildren who join us around studies, families and the busier seasons of the year. And keeping an impressively organised eye on the books is the grandmother of the team — proof that every good family business needs someone who actually knows where everything is.
We work together because we genuinely enjoy it. Breakfast is often shared in the workshop, conversations about orders become conversations about family life, and everyone cares about the things that leave our doors.
We may be related, but we're also a team - and we're incredibly proud of what we create together.
Three generations. One family. And rather a lot of ribbon.
And Then There's Oscar...
No introduction to Door Bows would be complete without Oscar.
Our English golden cocker spaniel has grown up alongside the business and has spent more hours in the workshop than some members of the family.
These days he's something of a pensioner, so his contribution to production is mostly supervisory. You'll usually find him snoozing beneath a desk, enjoying the sunshine outside the workshop doors or quietly appearing whenever somebody mentions breakfast.
He's particularly fond of anyone prepared to stop what they're doing for an ear scratch and has perfected the art of positioning himself exactly where you need to walk.
He doesn't make bows.
But Door Bows simply wouldn't feel quite the same without him.
The Little Things Matter
After all these years, there's still something rather magical about taking a roll of ribbon and turning it into something beautiful.
Our shelves are filled with ribbon in almost every colour imaginable. New rolls arrive perfectly wrapped and organised in rainbow order - although once production starts, those beautifully tidy ribbon ends have an annoying habit of escaping everywhere.
Bows are cut, shaped and finished by hand. We check the proportions, adjust the loops and make sure everything looks as it should before it leaves us. There are scissors everywhere (although somehow never the pair you're actually looking for), boxes being made, instructions being printed and finished bows gradually filling the workshop.
We're particular about the details because we know what happens next.
That bow might be waiting on someone's first front door when they collect their keys. It might be part of a Christmas morning children remember for years, a surprise for someone special, or the finishing touch to a beautiful display.
To us it's a bow. To somebody else, it might become part of a very important day.
More Than Just a Bow
We make bows every day, but we never forget that our customers don't.
For someone else, that bow might mark the day they collect the keys to their first home. It might be waiting on the door when someone arrives home with a new baby, welcome guests to a celebration, or transform the front of a house on the first morning of Christmas.
That's why customer photographs still stop us in our tracks.
We love seeing where our bows eventually end up. We've been known to interrupt family television with “We made that!” and to send friends and extended family on missions to photograph our work when they happen to be passing a display we've created.
There's something wonderful about knowing that an ordinary morning in our Essex workshop can become a tiny part of somebody else's family history.
The world moves incredibly quickly. Photographs get taken, messages disappear down screens and we're all immediately onto the next thing.
But a beautifully decorated doorway creates a moment.
People stop. Someone takes a photograph. Families gather around it.
And sometimes, years later, that bow is still there in the picture.
Looking Ahead
When we started our first online business back in 2003, we could never have imagined where it would lead.
The internet was still new, online shopping was only just beginning to find its feet, and we certainly weren't imagining that more than two decades later three generations of our family would be working together from a cabin workshop in Essex.
Door Bows has changed and grown over the years, just as our family has.
New ideas still appear around the breakfast table. Younger members of the family bring new skills, technology changes how we work, and we're always experimenting with colours, materials and new ways to create something special.
But the important things haven't changed.
We still make things with our hands. We still care about the order that's leaving the workshop today. We still celebrate a lovely customer photograph or a wonderful review. And we're especially proud when customers who first found us years ago come back to celebrate another milestone.
Our hope is that Door Bows will continue to grow with our family and, one day, perhaps another generation will find themselves surrounded by ribbon, looking for the scissors that were definitely there five minutes ago.
However Door Bows changes, we hope it will always remain a family business built around helping other families celebrate.
Thank You for Being Part of Our Story
After more than two decades of creating things for other people's celebrations, we still feel incredibly fortunate to do what we do.
Every order that arrives in our workshop has a person and a story behind it, and we never take for granted that you've chosen our family business to play a small part in yours.
So, whether this is your first Door Bow or you've been coming back to us for years — thank you.
From our family to yours, from our workshop to your front door, we hope whatever you're celebrating is wonderful.