The “king of bridal” spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about all things weddings — including his own! — ahead of SYTTD‘s season 22 premiere on March 4
According to Randy Fenoli, there’s no such thing as “designer’s block.”
The Kleinfeld Fashion Director and Say Yes to the Dress star, who’s been in the wedding business for more than three decades, finds inspiration everywhere and loves being able to help brides find their dresses, season after season.
“There’s always something new. There’s so much room to keep designing. I have to say that I love that it’s restricted to white because with many colors, I wouldn’t know what to do,” Fenoli, 59, tells PEOPLE.
“90% of my inspiration comes from brides. I see them. I listen to them. They put on a dress. I can say a few words to her,” he explains. “I can totally and completely bring her at ease and say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve been in this for 30 years, and I’ve never seen a bride walk down the aisle naked. She always finds a dress. We will find one for you.'”
Fenoli, who hails from a small farm in Illinois, is the youngest of seven children and got his start sewing at the age of nine.
His first muse? His mom, Jeanette.
“She went to work one day, and I got out a pattern and laid out the fabric and pinned down the pattern, cut it out, sewed it up, ironed it and cleaned up my mess and hung it in the doorframe,” recalls Fenoli. “She came home from work. She was a nurse, a home health nurse. She was supposed to wear blues. She said, ‘Where did the dress come from?’ I said, ‘I made it.'”
As Fenoli remembers, his mom went into the next room and tried the dress on. It fit perfectly, and she wore it to work the very next day.
“The day after that she brought me another pattern and said, ‘Can you sew this for me?’ That was really the start of my sewing career and fashion,” he says.
Today, Fenoli is a world-renowned wedding gown designer in his own right, and he has dedicated his life to helping women — just like he did so many years ago for his mom — on their search to find that perfect dress.
Reflecting on the success of his TLC show, Fenoli says: “22 seasons. For me, it’s always about the story and about the person and about what people are going through, about really the humanity of it all. Especially girls and brides that never thought they were going to find love or find the one.”
But, even after a lifetime of helping brides “say yes” to their dream gown, Fenoli never thought that he would get his own blissful wedding moment.
“Then I met Mete,” Fenoli says of his fiancé, Mete Kobal. “I never knew that somebody could truly love you unconditionally. It really just opened my eyes to what all these people have been going through for all these seasons and all my life, that I never really got to experience.”
After first meeting at a bar in New York City, the pair have become inseparable ever since. And, while they haven’t set a wedding date just yet, Fenoli has already taken care of their outfits.
“It was stressful!” he quips with a laugh. “Every bride I’ve ever met, it’s like, ‘All eyes are going to be on me.’ Suddenly, I’m going to get married. I call myself ‘The King of Bridal.’ I can’t just wear a normal black and white tuxedo!”
Of the final product, which Fenoli designed himself, he says: “It’s classic, it hints at couture, but it’s different. You’re not going to see any other men wearing this.”
While he continues to plan his nuptials, Fenoli is focused on being the best he can for his brides at Kleinfeld’s. Perhaps his greatest advantage when it comes to helping them say yes is what he calls his “sixth sense” for dresses.
“When you see the show, and it’s like I always know what to pull, [that’s] because most consultants work with about three or four brides a day,” he explains. “I walk around and I work with a hundred a day. So I see, ‘Oh, there’s a bride with this silhouette, with that figure, with this budget, with this kind of setting for her wedding. This is the dress she chose.’ I file it away, so I kind of have a Rolodex in my mind.”
Then, when the time comes, Fenoli whips out that handy mental rolodex: “Oh, here’s a bride. She kind of has the same look. She’s got the same budget. I have a dress for her.”
To this day, Fenoli remembers a trunk show he did in St. Louis in the nineties — a moment that truly solidified his dress-selecting super power.
“I was running around with dresses, from room to room. I waltz by the front desk. There’s a woman standing there. I said, ‘Oh my God. I have a dress for you. Don’t say anything. When you get in the room, let me know, and I’ll bring it in,'” Fenoli shares.
“She gets in the room. I bring in the sample. I said, ‘Don’t look at it. It’s a wreck. It’s been on photo shoots and down the runway and packed. It’s wrinkled. Just put it on. I’ll wait outside. Let me know what you think,'” he continues.
“I’m waiting outside the room, waiting outside, waiting outside. Nothing happens. I’m like, ‘Oh, God. What’s going on?’ I knock on the door. They open the door and she’s crying. I thought, ‘Oh God, I didn’t ask her budget.’ I didn’t know what’s going on. I’m literally in full panic mode. She’s just crying. She reaches down to her purse and pulls out a piece of paper and unfolds the picture of the dress and says, ‘I came in for that dress.'”
Reflecting on his lifetime of work and all of the brides he’s helped dress at Kleinfeld’s, Fenoli gets choked up.
“What a roller coaster of a ride. I love the consultants. I’m so blessed and so lucky that I love what I do so much. It’s about giving people hope,” he says. “Every bride that comes in, I genuinely do care. I’m not there to make a sale. I’m not there to sell a dress. I’m there to dress a bride.”