The Wedding Dress

One fated day before we were even engaged, I decided to sew my wedding dress. While I have cursed and cried and screamed and bled, I could not have asked for or found a more perfect dress for me.

Enjoy the show:

What on earth was I going to make? What fabric did I want to use? How long did I want it to be? So many questions that literally needed an answer before I started even thinking about sewing my wedding dress.

What I wanted:
Tea-length, demure, full skirt, vintage feel, sleeves, a higher neckline or illusion neck, not white, and a hint of sparkles, but mostly lace.

Good freaking luck finding that – still to this day have not found anything remotely close to my dress.

I found my pattern pretty quickly. A yoke waisted dress with a massively full skirt, high neck, and sleeves. A check on all my requirements and for an added bonus, the dress was meant to be made out of lace! Enter Claire Shaeffer’s Vogue 8943:

Well, this is perfect.

Thus began the search to find my fabrics! I searched online for expensive laces and embroidered organzas but nothing spoke to me, it all seemed like it was made for someone else. What was worse, it was overwhelming. So one day while doodling around on my favorite fabric site, I stumbled upon this gem:

Starlight Sequin Damask Mesh Gold on Ivory

The search was drawing to a close. This combined with an ivory flat cotton lace with scallops on both selvages would make my dress. Keep in mind, the dress requires scallops from the fabric to edge the hem, neckline, and sleeve. With no scalloping on the selvages of the mesh, I had to get creative. Looking at flat trim lace, I figured I could cut away the gold scallop from the white and use that as my edging. I selected two laces, one for the skirt hem that is large, and one for the sleeves and neck that is small:

The Big Lace
The Small Lace

By now you’ve realized that I didn’t want a whole lot of sparkle, but suddenly I have a disco ball type of fabric. Yup, that happened. I have no defense. Sparkles are the best. Solidarity with the shine sistas.

Now to find the buttons for the button back of the dress. This took forever! I finally found the buttons about a month away from the wedding while in NYC with my Mom. And yes, we were hunting for them! Bless the AMAZING selection of MJ Trimming!

The Saga continues soon with sewing and in progress shots! Check back soon for more!

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