Every dress I make gets a little part of my soul- a little bit of "me". Some dresses get just a tiny bit and some get a lot of it. This dress got a lot of it, and I am soo proud of how it turned out. I think I was intimidated by writing this post because it's like the final farewell to a project that took a multitude of hours, but today is the one year anniversary of this dress' special day it's time. The only picture I managed to snap the day of the wedding was the one above, all of the other photos in this post were captured by the amazing photographer Rena Schild.
Sarah and I started planning her wedding way before she was engaged- That's what best friends do right? It's a fun thing to talk about! And ever since Sarah asked me to make her dress I knew what it should look like- I could just picture it. So the day came when the boyfriend popped the question becoming a fiance and the journey to create the perfect wedding dress began.
It was quite an adventure, which included a trip to a salon to try on dresses for shapes, sketches of dresses to determine dream details, fabric store hunting to find the perfect fabric, muslin fittings to ensure perfect fit. One of Sarah's favorite stories is how I had her over for dinner and fabric swatch looking and I said "I found the fabric for your dress but we will see what you think". When she got there I spread three or four swatches on the table and asked her what she thought of them, I didn't tell her which I was in love with because it needed to be her choice and I didn't want to sway her. She says it was like a test of our friendship- how "eye to eye" did we see on this dress! She picked the one I loved, so it must have been meant to be ;)
The dress was crafted from seven yards of champagne colored taffeta, twelve yards of cream tulle, eight yards of delicate, vintage inspired rose printed lace, and tied around the middle with a wide satin sash. I think that part of the challenge of wedding dress creation is how much fabric it takes- sewing a wedding dress feels like wrestling an octopus at times.
Sarah wanted a long romantic dress for the wedding and a shorter, simpler dress for the reception (so it would be easier to move in). I accomplished that by creating a tea length dress that would be worn the whole day with a long, full tulle skirt that would be worn over it just for the ceremony. The dress is lace covered taffeta with flattering sheer, elbow length sleeves and a full circle skirt- perfect for vintage pink petticoat underneath. The high round neck line contrasts nicely with the dramatic, hand cut scalloped lace, key hole back. To carry the romantic lace detail onto the skirt I hand cut hundreds of lace roses and petals and fused them to the tulle. I used bigger rose segments towards the hem and smaller ones towards the top so the roses would look like they were gracefully falling towards the hem. I love the body of the tulle skirt, it moved in the most magical way. I hand cut a medium sized section of lace, stiffened it with interfacing, and attached it to ribbon for the matching hair piece.
It took hours and I have to thank my mom and sister for their help corralling Cordelia so I could work and all their sewing advice and assistance. It is my biggest project to date and it was well worth it!
