My Wedding Dress

 Someone asked me to write a post on my wedding dress. First off I will say that the thought of making my own wedding dress seemed way over my head. I had no idea where to start with designing it. There were so many things you could do...lace overlay, sequins, plain white satin, colors on the dress...no that was pretty much never an option for me, but still it wasn't easy trying to pick a design, pattern, fabric... Josh had proposed 3 days before my family went on vacation to FL so mom and I planned to go looking at the mall and a dress shop to get some ideas. So one of the days out of our week there, mom and I went dress shopping. Here are some of the dresses we tried out...

 

 

Very Pretty, too big and the lace stuff was terribly stiff and annoying

 

 

This one was awesome but I didn't think I could dance in it since it wouldn't let me lift my arms

 Cute, too short. See the lace overlay and the pretty way it makes up the top? I had/have no idea how to do this with lace, so that was kind of out of the question too :-P

Next we went fabric and pattern shopping.... 

 I looked kind of like a bum that day. I didn't fix my hair and was wearing an over sized swing dance shirt lol :-P

 I did end up using the middle wedding dress pattern for part of my dress.

 Between Joann's and The Sewing Studio (awesome place) we got what we thought we'd need for making my dress. Its rather complex to try describing exactly what I did but I'll give it a try. I wanted something that could be used for multiple things. Such as I REALLY wanted something I could swing dance in with the hubby after the wedding. So I thought about making a calf length dress...everyone told me that I couldn't have it and that it must be a long dress. Well darn! Okay, I'm creative enough to figure this out. I could just change into a going away dress for that part of the day...but no, it being me, it had to be much more complex than that lol! I opted to make the top a lace up and have it be totally separate from the skirt....

I used McCall's  4109 to make the top but I did alter it quite a bit. I took the seam out of the center front and just made it smooth. I also brought the neck up quite a bit. This was no easy task given where the seams in this top were. But I really liked having multiple seams, it gave it the corseted look that I wanted. I actually think these are meant to be undergarments..maybe, I couldn't be absolutely sure. The skirt in itself is kind of strange, I never saw one like it before, it was actually two separate pieces. I took a bell shaped skirt (also made from pattern above^) made of the same fabric as my top (a shiny brocade) and built a petticoat into it. Then...my train was separate from the bell shaped skirt. I wanted it to be easily taken off for outside pictures after the ceremony. I used this pattern: 

The skirt in the bottom, left hand corner was the one I based my train off of. I made the train about a foot longer and I cut, yes, I cut the front of the skirt into a draping like split in the front so the bell shaped under skirt could be seen :-) So cool right?! I thought so! I made the band to fasten in the front so it could be easily put on or taken off.... 

And now to the construction pictures... I don't have as many as I thought I did though :-(

Isabel hand hemming the bell shaped skirt

 Anna cutting apart the fancy lace trim

 Working on the train. 

 I think it was a little too pointed in the back, I believe I rounded it out.

 Getting a fuller picture of what it would look like with the lace.

Close up

Trying on the unfinished top, I put sleeves on it latter.

And I think that's all the unfinished pictures...sadly...I thought I had several more. 

 The ribbon was way too long....

 

After the ribbon was shortened my sisters went about lacing me into the top. We hadn't done this yet I don't think... My sister Anna has always been my 'lacing' person when it came to things like this :-) She's the only one who has the patience for it! 

 

Testing out the veil. I did not buy one of those $99 veils from David's Bridal. I found this one for $15 on ebay and it was perfect!

Mom and I

 Headed for photos in the sanctuary...

 

I'm carrying the train here..

Train has been attached at the waist and is getting a fluffing! 

 You can see some of the detail in this shot

 

 

Mom, Dad, and I

 My Family :-)

 Onto the Ceremony.....

 Pastor Rick was wonderful to preform the ceremony for us!

 After shots, I took the train off for outside. I love this shot! Its as if we're looking to see if the coast is clear! Haha :-)

The Laces....I guess it would have been better if I'd had white grommets instead of silver huh?

So that was my dress...but wait...there's more! No really, I made an extra skirt for swing dancing afterward. Why? I don't really know. I probably could have done just fine in the bell shaped skirt :-P

And so there was the swing skirt. That's all folks. This post is, I'm sure, way too long and has way too many pictures. I enjoyed my dress and it was just what I wanted it to be :-)