The Wedding Dress

First off, thank you all so much for your lovely comments. Such a nice welcome!!

My next project I am going to share is my wedding dress. I know, exciting!
I really loved making this dress. Well, apart from when I had to take out the lining and make a new one from scratch, when I had to undo the back belt because of fitting issues and of course when I burned a small whole in the lace to name a few ;) The rest was great.

When people asked me if I would make my own wedding dress I always said NO way! Far too stressful and I am not really that good. I became much more confident in sewing about a year ago and suddenly started considering making my own dress. I am very picky when it comes to clothes and usually struggle to find what I am looking for. Imagine me looking for the perfect wedding dress. Kind of impossible. Of course I went to try some on, I think every girl should. Made me feel like a princess and it made me want to be rich so I could wear dresses like this all they time…

I started working on the dress back in February/March. It was quite a long journey but I learned a lot about sewing and what styles fit me or don't. I made five toiles plus about 3 skirts when trying out which style I wanted to go for. I might share some pictures of them in another post.

The first pattern I picked didn't really work, so I decided to use the bodice from the Macaron dress from Colette Patterns and to design the skirt myself. I had made this dress before and really loved it, so why not. I was also inspired by Dixie's version, she looked stunning! If you would like to see more of my inspiration see my Pintrest board. This dress was probably my biggest inspiration when working on the design.

When my mum came to visit this summer we went fabric shopping in London. We found the beautiful lace and the silk dupion a the Silk Society on Berwick street. I also got some lovely turquoise silk lining. I had this vision that it would show just a little bit when I would be walking or dancing. Unfortunately once I had lined the dress I realised you could see trough the white fabric and see the turquoise. This made the dress look quite cold and at the bust line you could see the seam which did not look nice at all. So the linking had to go and I went to John Lewis in a panic to find a new lining similar to the white of the silk. 
As there is not much drape in the silk I used curtain weights to hold the skirt down. 

Looking back now I wish I had taken some more time and refitted the front of the bodice as it is a bit loose. I finished just a week before the wedding and was at a point where I just didn't want to work on it anymore.
I really loved wearing this dress and so glad I made it myself. I had a few comments from people that I spent too much time making it perfect and that it was good enough already. But I am really glad I did. I loved wearing it on the day and it felt super comfortable. We had the most fantastic day!

Have you made your own wedding dress or are you considering it?