Wedding Dress Dilemmas

In keeping with our theme of not spending huge amounts of money, I had decided to make my own wedding dress. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at wedding dresses, but have never come across one that seemed like what I was wanting. Not exactly in any case. Our wedding is more of a rustic-casual feel. The guys will not be wearing complete suits- just a nice shirt, trousers and a vest (trousers and vest in a light grey). My ring bearer is wearing whatever he wants with a red bow-tie I'm going to make him. My flower girl, again, can wear anything in any color. I envision something classy without being stuffy. My MOH is wearing an awesome vintage-inspired wiggle skirt dress with little cap sleeves (it's so amazing that it makes me want to puke a little bit). Bright colors will pop out against the light grey in the flowers, shoes and other accessories we end up having. I have never thought that I would want a long wedding dress...long dresses tend to make me look shorter than I am. I also usually feel like an elephant in a tent when I wear a long dress. So I've been envisioning a short wedding dress with a sweetheart neckline and a fun, bright crinoline underneath. Then I went to the only wedding dress shop in Nelson and tried on dresses for an afternoon with my MOH who was in town. About 15 dresses later, we narrowed it down to three that I was happy with. Then we left and ex-nayed all of them because I simply cannot afford to buy a wedding dress here. Absolutely not. And with only 5 months until the big day, I can't get it made somewhere else or ordered online (finances are a big factor here). So here are the ones I liked that I am taking inspiration from to create my own unique wedding dress. I seriously haven't come across anything that has all the elements of my own dress.

The collage with purple is the dress I've fallen pretty hard for. It made my figure look amazing (who knew I had a waist?) and was a stunning color and feel.

I did notice that when I sat down in it I had perfect posture (thank you boning) but I also had va-va-voom boobs. Seriously ridiculous and needing a little more control. Unfortunately it was also nearly $2k and we're hoping to keep our entire wedding under that. While that dress was phenomenal, it was also way too fancy for the wedding I have planned. The deep v-neck of the dress above made my chest appear smaller and more controlled (important for a large-chested woman such as myself). So what's a girl to do?

Design her own dress of course! So I'm using a pattern I bought at a vintage shop to start the dress, but then I'm altering it all to suit the parts I liked about the wedding dresses I tried on.

Below is my favorite part of the dress I'm going to make- a rainbow-esque crinoline!

The fabric I got on sale a few months ago. It's a creamy white and the lace is my mom's veil from her wedding. It's the only thing she has left from her wedding as she lost her own handmade dress in a trans-Atlantic move when I was younger.

I'm excited and nervous about making my own wedding dress, but I know I have the skills to do it. I just finished making the body double so I can do the draping of my dress without having to constantly be trying it on. I'll post pictures and the how-to we used in making my dress form.

Jeff is excited about my wedding dress. So even though he knows what it looks like, I already told him he doesn't get to see me actually in it until the day of. Fair is fair, I think.

Next up is the corselet for under my dress. It's gonna have a lot of boning in it and be laced-up to get my hourglass figure to show up. I better get to work!

All photos are personal.

Which dress do you think looked great on me? What are your thoughts on the dress design I drew up? Am I crazy for attempting to sew my own wedding dress without a clear pattern? :)