DIY I Do : My Wedding Reception Dress!

Well, we had the inspiration post and the muslin post - and finally here is my big reveal!

As I mentioned in the previous posts, I decided that since I had saved money on my main wedding dress, and because it was hard/near impossible to bustle, I would have a go at making a fun and flirty evening/reception dress for my wedding day. 

I based the dress on the gorgeous Cambie pattern by Sewaholic, but adjusted it to be strapless. This meant that I had to introduce inner construction details such as boning and a waist stay. I used skills that I had learnt from Gerties Craftsy Bombshell Dress course as well as the Susan Khalje Couture Dress course.

Because Gertie is an advocate for the spiral steel boning and I had previously used it in my Bombshell dress (which I still haven't blogged!!) I thought I should stick with what I knew and use it for this dress. It takes a fair bit of force and fiddling to cut the strips…and I had to raid my husbands tools box:

…but it's totally worth it as the freedom of movement you get from them is great.

I decided to bring in the blue theme and used a navy blue grosgrain ribbon for my waist stay. I probably should have sewed it in with matching thread - but I was actually working on this until the day before and I think by that time I was just like "I DON'T CARE JUST GET IT DONE"!!! But that aside, the waist stay was an absolute necessity to get the dress zipped up - it holds the dress in place and takes the weight off the zip.

The main dress was made up of a beautiful ivory silk dupion that my mum picked up at a market in Spain for €5/m - yes you read that right, €5 PER METER for real silk dupion!!! The english lady who ran the stall at the market is a retired bridal dressmaker and was selling off all her stash. I think I got my mum to buy about 5m of the ivory for me because at the time I still thought I might be making my main wedding dress, which would have been full-length. So I have quite a bit left in my stash…what to do with it??!!! I'm contemplating trying to dye some and see what it's like. Anyway, I'm getting off track here.

I added in some couture techniques to this dress, such as underlining the silk dupion with silk organza and also basting on all the sewing lines. This was the first time I had worked with silk organza and I loved it. It's such a lovely fabric to work with and gave a little bit extra body to the dupion, which was quite a thin fabric. The dress was lined in the most gorgeously soft and flow-y lining that I bought online at Truro Fabrics. It was more than I normally spend on lining, but em...I recon you can afford to splurge when it's your wedding dress!

This is a close up shot of the zip guard that I sewed in with a pick stitch. Again, just another little couture feature. The zip itself was actually an invisible zip which I thought would suit the style of dress better due to the tulle overlay I was doing.

I had a lot of deliberation about how I was going to do the asymmetrical polka dot tulle detail. I initially wanted to build it into the dress, but I obviously didn't have a pattern piece for the tulle and would have had to drape it on me, before the bodice was attached to the skirt - and physically it was impossible. So I decided to make a sort of sash/belt with the tulle attached to it. The draping for this took AGES and was really difficult to get right. It also didn't help that I was doing this the week before the wedding - talk about pressure!!!

I also decided to make the sash out of the same coral silk that the bridesmaids sashes were made from. I realised this erred on the side of bridesmaid in itself, but as soon as draped the coral silk around the dress I fell in love and it just had to be! Plus I asked my florist to give me a Coral Charm peony to pin into my hair - so it tied together with the sash colour perfectly. 

The skirt was made by cutting the full style Cambie skirt (minus pockets - I was tempted, but due to the tulle, decided against it…but I do love Wedding dresses with pockets!) out of both the dupion and the tulle and treating as one layer. Under this I had another layer of very fine plain tulle and then to the lining I sewed two rows of stiff gathered tulle to create volume. This is also how I made the flower girl's dresses.

The dress was a lot of fun to wear and to dance in and it was great seeing people's reactions when I came downstairs in a new dress for the evening! The added bonus was that it really showed off my beautiful Jimmy Choo shoes, which up until then had been rather hidden!

I'll leave you with a few professional photos from our mini couples session once I changed dresses (we snuck out during dessert to take these in an abandoned greenhouse/yard at our wedding location) and some of the dancing:

DIY I Do : My Wedding Reception Dress : A Cambie Muslin

In my post earlier in the week I revealed that I had made a dress for my wedding reception. Well, although muslins aren't my favourite thing to do and I have been known not to both with them from time to time, I thought a wedding dress deserved the effort involved in making a muslin! As described in my inspiration post I wanted to make a dress with a full bodied gathered skirt, a sweetheart bodice and a spotty tulle asymmetrical overlay. After searching through my pattern collection I realised that the Sewaholic Cambie dress would be pretty much perfect for this! 

 

I had seen so many beautiful versions of this dress so I was excited to finally make one for myself. There was a gorgeous floral cotton in my stash and although I was nervous to 'waste' it on a muslin that might not work out I decided to just go for it and hope for the best! I'm so glad I did as I absolutely LOVE this dress - definitely one of my favourite makes. 

And Tasia strikes again with her fantastic pattern drafting and instruction writing. What a dream this was to sew up. Every step of the way was a joy, and I'm definitely getting good at putting in an invisible zip. I lined the dress in the softest, butteriest white cotton lawn and it is so beautiful next to the skin. Perhaps a little pricey as linings go, but I think I'm converted! The only thing I would say is that occasionally you can see the lining peeking out past the sleeves, as you can see in the above photo, so perhaps I should have under-stitched that or something?

Now for the blooper! My dress strangely ended up tight at the waist - like, no eating at all while wearing the dress and sit down while holding your breath in tight! I couldn't understand why this had happened because I was sure that I had cut my size. And then I checked what size I had cut out…yes, I had cut my correct waist size, but it was the waist size of the FINISHED garment I had read, rather than the pattern size to cut (which would have included ease)!!! Doh! So it's a bit on the snug side, to say the least.

 

Ironically this turned out for the best because for my actual wedding reception dress I would be needing to get rid of the sleeves and make the dress strapless. That would mean adding boning for support and a tighter fit would be advantageous as well! Everything happens for a reason so it seems.

On a side note, after wearing this dress a couple of times, I noticed that some of the stitches where you attach the sleeves to the bodice had ripped and the corner of the sleeve is peeking out. I do believe that that is mainly because I have made the dress too tight for me, but it is also a place that would come under a bit of day to day strain, so I would recommend reinforcing that line of stitches if you are ever planning on making a version for yourself.

 

So all in all this is a fabulous dress and I am totally in love with it. I feel super girly in it and find myself flouncing around like a fool - but I kind of like that! I see many more Cambies in my life. 

 Oh - and it has pockets! I LOVE POCKETS!!!!!

That is all.

DIY I Do : My Wedding Reception Dress : Inspiration

Yep, you read that correctly, this post is all about the inspiration behind my Wedding Reception Dress, because…I made it!

When I first started looking at wedding dresses I went and tried on a few, including the beautiful Justin Alexander dress above. It was love at first sight, but at £2000*, it was over my budget. My top tip for brides just starting out in their quest to find the perfect wedding dress – don’t try on any dresses that are over your budget…it will only break your heart!

At the same time as trying on dresses I also had a wee thought in the back of my mind that I may try and sew my dress rather than buy one. I mentioned it in this post back in August ‘12, but the majority of comments back were warning me against it, saying I would have enough to worry about without adding to the load. Plus most of my family and close friends and acquaintances also suggested against it. To be honest, do you know how that made me feel? I know this is totally not what they were implying, but I honestly did feel that there was a general consensus that I didn’t have the skills to make my dress. And perhaps that’s true, but doubt fuels my fire and just made me want to prove them wrong! I had a style, the fabric and the franken-pattern all worked out. But I knew it would be a massive undertaking, and I began to doubt myself.

Then I tried on a dress in a bridal shop that gave me the wow feeling – and it was in the sale! At £300 I was sold. It’s the dress I ended up wearing on the day, so you will have already seen some photos of it. BUT – because I had saved so much money on my main wedding dress it was the perfect excuse to have TWO dresses on the day…which meant I could have a go at making the second dress!

Since my main wedding dress had an outer layer of delicate, floaty chiffon that couldn’t be bustled I decided to make a short reception dress that would allow me to bust a move on the dance floor that evening. My mum also told me that she had been able to source some very reasonably priced silk dupion. So, the search began for inspiration (all photo sources can be found on my Pinterest board here):

And then I came across this gorgeous dress by Alexandra King (OMG – check out her work, it is fabulous!):

I just loved all the fabulous spotty tulle and I also loved the sweetheart neckline and the asymmetry of the tulle at the neck. However, I noticed that all my previous inspiration pictures had either a pleated or gathered skirt made out of ‘stiff’ fabric, which I really liked. So I decided to make a hybrid of the two. Again, some more inspiration pics:

I had the silk dupion base fabric, and was able to source the perfect polka-dot tulle from a local fabric shop (for a very reasonable £7/m rather than the crazy price that lace is per meter – another reason for loving the spots!). Next I had to find a suitable pattern – has anyone got any ideas what I might have used? I’ll give you a clue – it’s a pretty recent pattern from a fantastic Indie pattern company. I’ll reveal all in my next post, the muslin!

 

* I know it’s not the ‘done’ thing to talk about costs, but do you know what – it was the MOST frustrating thing when I first started researching my wedding and I couldn’t find any prices for wedding dresses online, so I had no idea how much they would cost…which is one of the reasons I ended up trying on a dress that was way out of my budget. And by the way, when I say out of my budget – I could have afforded to buy the dress, but I would have had to compromised on some other aspect of the wedding. And to be honest, I couldn’t physically bring myself to shell out £2k on a dress that I would only wear once. But that was due to my own personal priorities (honeymoon was top of our list!). Plus, my logic was that by spending only £300 on my dress I had extra to spend on shoes…which I did! I may have treated myself to this pair of gorgeous Jimmy Choos. And guess what – I will definitely get to wear them more than once (and my dress and shoes combined cost less than the Justin Alexander dress)!

DIY I Do : Ties for the Page Boys

As I mentioned in my last post, as well as making the flower girl dresses I also made matching ties for our page boys. I had previously never made ties before but had pinned a tutorial and pattern which I thought looked pretty easy. Well…I recon making these ties was harder than making the flower girls dresses!!! I made the first one months and months before the wedding…and then the rest of the material sat waiting for me to get the energy to make the other two!

The original tutorial is made out of beautiful, well behaved Liberty Tana Lawn. My ties were made out of slippery slidey, very badly behaved, polyester! I couldn't cut the ties on a bias fold as the fabric would slide around and I was worried that it would mess up the stripes, so I had to make individual pattern pieces to lay out for each tie on the flat. And then you need to iron the ties - a lot. Well, my fabric did not like being ironed - so pins were brought out. A lot of them. And then because I was over ironing and over working my fabric, and it being cut on the bias, it grew and stretched! Which meant that the pattern pieces for the stable interlining were too short - so I had to cut new ones! BUT, as with the flower girls dresses, and other DIY parts to the wedding, it was worth it in the end as the little boys looked very dapper and very handsome!

DIY I Do : The Flower Girls Dresses!

I am so excited to finally be able to blog about my flower girl dresses! I've written a couple of previous posts about my inspiration and showed you a muslin, but today I get to reveal the finished dresses. I have to admit that I was so so SO pleased with how they turned out - in fact their dresses were perhaps one of my favourite things about the day!!

I used New Look 6309, view D, which is a basic sleeveless girls dress with gathered skirt. It was hard to pick a suitable pattern that would essentially suit both girls because one is 8 and one is 11 (going on 15!) so they are sort of in that in-between age that isn't really catered for in sewing patterns it seems. So I thought that by picking such a basic pattern it should be easy enough to alter. New Look 6309 is for ages 3-8 so I had to cut the largest size for the younger girl and sort of 'wing' it for the elder. Luckily the size 8 was a pretty good fit for the 8 yr old so I didn't have to do much altering on her at all - a little bit of pinning and such and it was good to go (phew!).

Fitting the 11 year old was another matter. She is quite mature for her age and last year went through a major growth spurt (she's almost the same size as me already!!). I ended up having to make about 4 muslins for her to get the fit right. I decided to use swedish tracing paper (or similar - minus the grid markings) to make my muslins and I have to say I'm a bit of a convert - it is just so convenient!!! Thankfully because the skirt is essentially just a large rectangle gathered I only had to worry about getting the bodice fit. But it was tricky because I have never had to fit someone else other than myself, and she has started to develop a bit of a womanly shape so darts were required. 

Oh - and to make things even more awkward - the 8 year old lives in England (I live in Northern Ireland btw) and the 11 yr old lives a 2 hr drive away!! Not so convenient for fitting. I ended up having only one opportunity to fit the 8yr old and a couple of goes for the 11yr old. But thankfully it all worked out really well! 

 I just wanted to share the photo above to show my very happy coincidence when sewing up one of the dresses - look how well I matched the stripes on the shoulder seams….total fluke! Don't you just love it when that happens?! I have to admit that, apart from the shoulder seams (which aren't usually a place I bother with pattern matching), I worked very hard an ensuring my sewing was as neat as I could make it as I was really conscious that people would know I had made the dresses and therefore would be inspecting the sewing very closely. Do you ever find that? As soon as someone knows that an outfit is handmade they start inspecting it in great detail? Talk about putting the pressure on!! But thankfully I didn't really have any dramas with the dresses - the invisible zips were some of the best I have sewn, the stripes on the bottom matched up and the lining went in smoothly - I was very lucky!

 In a previous post I mentioned that I was planning on making a striped sash for the dresses. I had planned this all along but one day my mum put the idea of a coral silk sash into my head. I had the muslin of the dress over at her house at the time and she had some suitable silk to hand, and once I saw them paired together I thought it would be a really lovely touch. My bouquet was to have some coral peonies in it, and the cake would have coral flowers on it as well, so we thought it would be the perfect way to tie everything together.  

Now here is confession time - I didn't make the sashes! They are homemade though. Evidently I may have bitten off more than I could chew, and I was really feeling the pressure of so much DIY and sewing that needed to be done for the wedding. My mum kept asking if there was anything she could help with - so I decided to ask her to make the sashes. She was more than happy to help. No pattern was used, she just winged it (that's how us Wilsons sew most things apparently!), but they turned out beautifully. She made the 8yr olds a bit wider than the 11yr olds as we thought a narrower sash would be more age appropriate for the elder girl, and both were lined with quite stiff interlining which meant they kept their shape really well all day.

 Both dresses were fully lined with lovely soft white cotton. On the skirt linings I sewed two rows of gathered tulle to give the skirts some 'flooffiness' as I call it (aka body and shape!) - the girls loved it and enjoyed twirling and dancing all day!

Although at times I was in major stress mode and cursing taking on so much, I honestly am now so please and proud to have made the girls dresses. They turned out exactly how I wanted them and added such a quirky, unique and personal touch to the day.