My sister got married this summer to her longtime partner at a beautiful Canadian farm belonging to his family, and I made her wedding dress! She didn't have a specific idea in mind for her wedding dress, but she had a few requirements. The most important thing was that it had to be comfortable and soft against her skin, as well as easy to wear throughout the day so she wouldn't have to worry about it while she enjoyed herself. I had tons of fun making something completely different from the types of dresses that I usually make, and with materials that I don't usually go for.
My sister's favourite colour is pink, so she knew that she wanted to incorporate pink in the dress right from the beginning. She was also interested in having a trumpet/gentle A-line style dress, but she otherwise wasn't entirely sure what style she wanted. We ended up going to a beautiful little bridal shop where she tried on a few dresses and we also had a group Pinterest board where we both shared photos of potential inspiration. After lots of research, she decided on this trumpet style dress with a deep V neckline, low back, and straps. The trumpet skirt gives a figure-skimming look with the comfort of movement that a mermaid style doesn't, and the straps ensure that the bride isn't fidgeting all evening. The only way for strapless dresses to stay up properly is for a really fitted, structured bodice, and my sister really wanted something comfortable that could move with her body. The straps also meant that we could get a pretty low V-neck without illusion mesh (which I personally think never looks very high end, no matter how closely it matches the person's skin tone).
I ended up drafting this pattern entirely from scratch, so this really is a one-of-a-kind dress! After doing a few fittings, we were able to go fabric shopping where she picked out this lovely soft pink cotton lace, a cream chiffon to go underneath, and a cream cotton jersey for the lining.
We decided on this lace because the cotton was soft, so it wouldn't irritate her skin where her arms brushed against the dress and because cotton would be able to handle tough wear. With her very large dog, it was important that this dress could handle a lot without falling apart, so no delicate silk laces for this dress! One detail I really loved about this lace was the cording that gave it dimension, it really reminds me of French lace from the 1600s, where using cording to add dimension was common.
The chiffon that went underneath the lace moves beautifully and added some delicacy to the dress. The jersey for the lining was the perfect way to make the dress comfortable against her skin. We got this idea from some of the dresses that she tried on which also had stretchy, t-shirt material linings. Although the rest of the dress is not stretchy, this lining gave the dress some give so it could move with her.
Here you can see a bit of the layers of the dress at the hem
When it came to the details of the dress, my sister gave me tons of freedom. We ended up going with an empire waist seam and 6 princess seam panels for the skirt. The princess seams let me get a lot of shape in the dress without darts or gathering, so the fabric flows smoothly.
The top lace layer was sewn as one piece with the chiffon layer immediately beneath it to give the lace a bit more stability. The 2nd chiffon layer underneath that was sewn separately so there was lots of movement in the skirt and you could see the layers when she walked around. The final layer was the jersey, which does not actually line the entire dress. From the waist to the hem is a skirt lining that is tacked in at the seams, then the cups of the bodice are also lined. This leaves a slightly sheer section from the empire waist to the natural waist, with just chiffon and lace.
All of the layers (other than the jersey layer, which was serged) were put together with french seams, and all of the finishings such as the hemming (of all of the layers) and the lining attachment was done completely by hand. The entire dress (once again, apart from the jersey layer) was sewn on my trusty 1905 hand-crank sewing machine. This machine is incredible because it never has tension problems and the stitches are always so even and beautiful. I actually thought that the chiffon would be the biggest problem for me while I was sewing but it was actually a breeze on that machine! However, the lace ended up taking first place of frusteration. The cording details I mentioned give the lace so much depth and detail ended up being enormously annoying to deal with - they made my scissors skip and stick, and caused the machine to stop every time I hit the center of a corded section (of which there were many). The lace is so pretty that I had to forgive it for causing so many problems, but it certainly made the sewing process much lengthier!
The dress has a low back and a slight train, enough to give it some glamour without making it too difficult to walk in.
Here is a lovely detail shot where you can see a bit more of the construction. The straps and the mid-section just under the bust are not lined with jersey so they are slightly transparent. The gargeous felt flowers in all of the pictures were made by my sister!
Overall, this project ended up being a year long endeavour that took me almost 100 hours! I documented the time that I took throughout the project and have included the breakdown here:
Drafting the Pattern: 8 hours
Cutting out the mock ups (there were 3 mockups and fittings before the true fabric was used): 5 hours
Mock up sewing/ironing/fittings: 12 hours
Cutting out the lace: 6 hours
Cutting out the chiffon (two layers of chiffon were used in the skirt): 7 hours
Cutting out the jersey: 2 hours
Unpicking after the fitting: 1.5 hours
Sewing the lace seams: 16 hours (1.5 hours per seam, plus some unpicking and re-sewing)
Sewing chiffon seams: 10 hours (40 minutes per seam)
Cutting out the straps: .5 hour
Sewing the straps: 1 hour
Ironing the straps: .5 hour
Top Stitching and final iron: 2.5 hours
Sewing the jersey: 3 hours
Attaching jersey to dress: 2 hours
Inserting the zipper: 3 hours
Hemming: 15 hours
Finishing: 3 hours
= 98 hours altogether!
In addition to the dress, I also made a little bandana for my sister's sweet dog, Willow. This was just a triangle of the lace and the jersey so that she could match, since she was walking down the aisle with us and was, of course, featured prominantly in the photos.
You can see how closely the colour of the lace matches the pink flowers in her tattoo. The patterns of the lace are even reminiscent of the patterns of her tattoo as well, which we really wanted to highlight.
Overall, I am so pleased with the dress and my sister felt comfortable and hopefully beautiful all day! I would honestly probably not create a wedding dress for anyone else, since this was so intensive and difficult to coordinate with our very different schedules, but it was such a unique and incredible experience.
~Katherine
All of the beautiful photos were taken by photographer Kristen Shima