Bespoke - Wedding Dress

This is the thing I am most proud of making at the moment and I think it will be my best for a long while.

(Thank you Carrie and Seb for letting me use a couple of wedding photos!)

A friend was looking for a wedding dress when I mentioned on Facebook that I do bespoke work.  She asked if I could do a wedding dress and since I had done mine and my sister's I said I was at least happy to see what kind of thing she wanted.  She sent me some ideas and we had a chat and it seemed pretty feasible.

What she wanted:

• Full length
• Swishy/floaty and nice to dance in
• Comfortable
• No boning or corsetry
• And preferably cornflower blue to match the dress she was wearing on their first date (awwww....)

With a helping of extra cute!

We spent a day in London going to department stores trying her in every dress we could find.  Some of them were fine, others were hilariously terrible (yes I do still have reference photos from the day.....no I'm not going to be posting those), but it was really great to get to the nitty gritty of what did and didn't work for her with these dresses.

I'm really glad too that she said it was one of the best days she'd had shopping for clothes, even though we didn't buy anything.  It's the way shopping should be: really thinking about what you want, what's available and what works for you specifically.  But that's a rant I'll have some other time.

We ended up with a spec for  a cross back, empire line dress with a split layered skirt in different blues so that the different tones showed through as she moved.  Lace as the top layer turned it from "dress" to "wedding dress".  The cross back was a great compromise between sleeves and sleeveless - it was comfortable and easy to wear without the restrictiveness of sleeves, the fuss of straps falling down or the dress needing an occasional boost.  I actually made the straps as tubes wide enough for her multiway bra straps to go down inside them, so no worries at all about visible underwear either.

Pretty......

The key to really nice garments is definitely the fit and the fabric - this wasn't a complex or particularly impressive design, but she was willing to pay well for the right materials and that's what really made it work.  Finding a cornflower blue silk was definitely the hardest part. After a very very long time trawling through the internet I found Beckford Silk and I have to said I'm really glad I did.  Their fabric walks the fine line between insanely good and insanely expensive - the quality is better than anything I had ever dreamed of working with and the prices (though definitely bridal rather than day wear) were at least feasible.  They had cornflower blue silk crepe, but they will also dye to order for a price, so the possibilities are endless.  Next time I get the chance I would love to buy more from them, though I probably can't afford much more than a camisole's worth.

The corded lace was another matter entirely: around twice the price of even the silk.  I looked everywhere for cheaper options, but honestly it's just not possible to cut corners with this kind of lace overlay if you want any drape at all.  In the end though it was completely worth it.  It had the perfect balance of drape, texture, pattern and opacity.  I have some little bits of the scalloped edge left over which may show up in future makes.

I was originally planning to modify an existing pattern as I've not done pattern drafting from scratch before, but as we discussed it and made more and more changes it just made sense to draft it from scratch.  The first mock-up of the dress in muslin and calico went really well and I perhaps got slightly over-confident as the second fitting....not so well.  But a dash of terror at the thought that I might ruin their big day, and actually not nearly as much extra work as it had seemed during the fitting, and by the final fitting all was well.

On the day I packed a mini travel sewing kit just in case (professionalism or paranoia? You decide), but I actually left it in the car.  I knew she was going to look awesome, but I hadn't realised quite how lovely it would all look together.  In the full outfit with make up, hair and jewellery she looked absolutely stunning and I can only feel grateful that I got to be a part of that.

And the first dance put all other first dances to shame!

Swish!

Congratulations Carrie and Seb!