The wedding project is back in full swing! I didn't mean to leave so long a gap between posts, but a lot has happened since December. We've finalized our venue, made a semi-tentative plan, and oh...wait...set a date! I have a deadline for this project! Soon I'm going to be starting a more full-on wedding dressmaking schedule during my usual sewing time, which means between now and February 2nd 2019 (ayeeeeee!) if you visit this space it's most likely going to contain progress updates on the dresses rather than other sewing projects.
Today, I've got a little video featuring lots of giddy excitement over all of the beautiful fabrics and beads I have for the dress, but I've also posted a bunch of photos and links below if you'd like to check them out individually. Next weekend I've got plans to make my mockup corselet to make sure I'm getting a good amount of structure from my draft, so I should have a new video up soon with the results of that experiment. Click the thumbnail below to watch the video:
Okay. I know I went over everything in the video, but... well. I've got a macro lens because that's what happens when you're a hoarder and also have a minor in photography, so here's some gratuitous extra info:
Silk Gauze: Dharma Trading Co. for the top-most layer of the ceremony dress's skirt. This will be dyed a like rose-ivory color with Dharma's Acid Dyes.
Silk Chiffon: Dharma Trading Co. For the second layer of the ceremony dress's skirt. This will be dyed a slightly darker shade.
Crepe Back Silk Satin: Dharma Trading Co. This is the structure layer for both dresses: The bodice and underskirt of the ceremony dress, and the bodice and skirt of the reception dress.
Silk Habotai: Dharma Trading Co. This will be painted with dye to give multiple colors and depth to the gores of the reception dress.
Coutil: Vena Cava Designs on Etsy: The coutil is used as a structure layer for the corselet, which will be an invisible underlayer worked in to the structure of the ceremony dress. It is 100% cotton but has very little bias stretch, which makes it perfect as a base layer to hold everything steady.
Seed beads, pearls, and fire-polished crystals: Fire Mountain Gems. These will be the base decoration for the ceremony dress. I'm planning a very vine-inspired, semi-floral design, with the pearls and crystals as centerpieces and edging around the neckline.
Swarovski Crystals: Crystallized Montees on Etsy: Sparkle, but low key sparkle. I've got several different shapes of opal crystals for the ceremony dress, and a couple of opal colors for the reception dress.
Delica Beads: Fire Mountain Gems. These will add dimension and 'color' (in shades of cream...) to the ceremony dress's flowers, leaves, and vines.
Seed beads, delicas, and fire-polished crystals: Fire Mountain Gems. These will be the base decoration for the reception dress. The beads will be focused around the neck and the colors in the skirt will reflect them.
Costume Jewelry: I'm so excited about these crystals! They're from my Mom's costume jewelry stash, and I'm planning on working some of the beads from the necklace into the ceremony dress, and the rest of them plus the earrings into the flower crown, as some of the featured details.
Delicas and fire-polished crystals: Fire Mountain Gems. These beads are for my flower crown, in addition to the beads from both dresses, which will hopefully add a bit of continuity to the whole situation.
While I was home in February, I took advantage of the opportunity to try on my mom's wedding dress and take some photos of the inside. From the looks of the dress (combined with what my mom can remember)- it storebought and altered to fit her. She was about the same size as me, although quite a bit shorter. The dress is a thick brocade and you can see how much it's been taken in at the side seams in the photo above. It's underlined in a powder pink fabric to give the whole thing a bit of warmth which I thought was very clever.
As you can see, it comes with a veil as well as a pretty fabulous train. The shoulders are elasticized, and the butt bow (for lack of a better term) has snaps on one side and is permanently attached on the other; you snap it in place after you zip the dress up.
That should be about it! My plan from here is get the draft of the ceremony dress finalized, because the embroidery is going to take the longest and I can't start it until I have the pattern exactly how it needs to be. I expect the next video will be in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned to find out how that goes!
If you have any tips or links to other people who've made their own dresses, as always, let me know in the comments! I'm really enjoying the fact that this has been a social experience so far, and I'm looking forward to that continuing to be a thing. See you next week!