My Wedding Dress

As announced on Sunday I’ll show you every garment I wore on my wedding in a separate post. I thought about not starting with the dress… but who am I kidding. I have been waiting for month to get a chance to show this dress off to you, so here we go! It really took me a while constructing this dress. Most of the time I spend planning it, I was unsure about everything and for a short instance I envied those girls who do exactly know what kind of dress they want for their wedding. I’m not quite sure if those girls really exist…

I read that other women who make their own wedding dress go to shops to try on some dresses to see what they like. I did think about that but I didn’t feel good about going in a store trying on dresses with the intention of not to buy anything. Seems wrong to me. And so I searched the Internet. Oh did I search the Internet! And I found a lot. Most of the dresses you can find are made to be worn in summer and so I was looking for something different. At some point I found this dress. I didn’t fall in love with it at first sight but as time passed by I liked it better. My dress now is the same style as the dress I found, it is kind of similar only better as I could add and change things that I liked or didn’t.

Fabric shopping was difficult this time. I went to a lot of stores without finding anything. The main problem was that I had this idea of a lace fabric in my mind and nothing fit that idea. In the end I found that fabric and it cost me 52 €/m, but I think it is gorgeous.

The main fabric is a silk sateen that I also ordered online. At first I didn’t want silk, why buy expensive silk for a dress that you only wear one day? But after testing and petting some fabrics I had to admit that silk does look nicer. It has this light shine and it is so drapey. So I went with silk. I used rayon lining for the dress.

While I was looking for fabric I put together a pattern for the dress. I decided to pair the BHL Flora Dress skirt with the Colette Hawthorn Bodice.

I did some major changes to all of the pattern pieces. I lengthened the skirt and used gathers instead of pleats and I altered the neckline of the bodice so that it was higher and so I that I wouldn’t need additional darts at the neck. I think that worked out okay. There were some wrinkles at the back of the dress, but I can live wit that.

It took some courage but I managed to really cut into the silk! I how I dreaded working with silk. But it turned out that that wasn’t so bad. Much worse was working with the rayon fabric. Ugh! How it shifted. But I managed to get it under control.

I used bias binding that I cut from the silk fabric to finish the raw edges of the lace bodice. I sewed those by hand! For the button loops I used small straps of the silk fabric, sewed them together, turned them, cut them into pieces and sewed them on together with the bias binding at the center back.

I also hand sewed the hem of the dress. Took me 2 hours or so and I hope I never have this idea again :D I machine hemmed the lining.

All in all the sewing process wasn’t hard. I made some mistakes and had to rip things apart but in my defense I didn’t have an instruction and sometimes I was so afraid to do something wrong and thought too much about it so that in the end I did it wrong. I hand basted the silk dress to the lace at the upper edge and I had to redo that 3 times because the silk dress was so shifty and the neckline shape looked peculiar.

I french seamed everywhere I could. I left the lace seams raw and used the scalloped edge of the lace as sleeve hem :)

I drafted the back of the silk dress only slightly higher than I wear my bra,s thank god I thought of that! I also thought about sewing a corsage with boning and everything, but well, I liked it better this way. More comfortable!

I also sewed a petticoat with help of the BHL Tutorial. At this point of time I was really annoyed by hemming and so I simply serged the hem of the petticoat lining.

The waist band matches Marvin’s Tie! Ha! That’s because I made him the tie ;) But it really took some time to find a fabric that had the color I liked. In the end my Mother In law found this light pink silk in a store.

 

All in all the whole process of making this dress was fun! What wasn’t so much fun was finding fabrics and fitting the pattern. It took me 10 muslins to get there. Usually I have my perfectionism under control. It usually doesn’t control me anymore. I like making mistakes and making imperfect things. But sewing this dress it was so hard to hold it back. I got frustrated looking for fabrics. And I usually love that. So a some point I stopped myself, took a deep breathe, made a break and just ordered and let the 10th muslin as it was. And so I ended up with this dress. It isn’t perfect, the colors did not totally match my jackets and shoes, There are some wrinkles especially at the hem and back but nevertheless I am absolutely pleased with how it turned out. Plus I learned another lesson about perfectionism and I love that this dress represents that! You know, in the end a perfect dress won’t make your wedding any better and a crappy one won’t ruin it. Better take the time a savor it instead of being frustrated that you aren’t perfect. Because you aren’t, no one is and this is the one true good thing about being human :)

And in the end I was fine with the crappy weather. With how my dress looked after it had been exposed to my jacket’s zipper, to rain and dirt. I was happy about everything that went wrong, everything that went fine and everything else that made this day special. Oh and btw I wouldn’t have needed silk for that. Silk seems to me to be more of an indoors fabric…

I think I spent about 200 € on this dress. That’s okay I guess. I’m glad I spent this money. I did really feel great! :)

I now think that sewing a wedding dress isn’t any harder than sewing a regular dress. And that isn’t that hard if you just have the courage to try. And sewing your own wedding dress is so rewarding and totally fun if you manage to keep your perfectionism out the way:)

I have more to show off ;) So thanks for reading and hope to see you soon :)

Katharina

BTW: pictures of me and Marvin were taken and edited by  Markus Nobis. Pictures of the dress alone were taken by me.