A few Words on the Dress

I chose to design and make my own wedding dress for several reasons.  First since I am a designer so it only made sense that I make my own dress.  Second the style of dress that I wanted is not something easily found in the United States, I wanted to mix my Korean heritage with western wedding traditions.  Third it saved a lot of money and headache, I didn't have to deal with a sales person, or another seamstress fitting me and getting it wrong.  Making my own dress I make all my decisions and I'm not locked into just one thing.  I can change it as many times as I'd like and play with the shape and embroidery and fabrics till I feel it is perfect.

As for saving money by making your own dress a lot of garment making pays into labor more then materials depending on the complexity of the piece.  If you know exactly what you want then it can easily save money by researching the fabrics to find the best price.  You are obviously saving money because you aren't paying for anyone else to do labor also.  On the Flip side it can also easily be a pitfall to spend just as much if you are indecisive because you will start to sample everything and want to try everything.

My advice is to keep in mind what is more important to you the materials themselves or the look you are trying to create.  Don't drastically change the entire design of the dress more then once.  Don't try to take on something new you haven't done before in sewing.  If you do decide you have to do those fancy french seams do another project first to practice.  Always make a muslin/mock up out of a similar fabric first before you go head on into your final fabric.  Last is to relax, yes that seam may not be perfect but it is also on the interior 3rd layer of tulle that no one else will ever see.  We are only human and you can't get hung up on small mistakes as long as the final product looks gorgeous on you.  Your wedding dress is just one in a million of things you need to do for your big day don't let it get you down.  The Sewing should be your most enjoyable experience!

The Wedding Dress Saga Continues

So the work on my wedding dress continues.

I have finished the embroidery for the bodice top of the dress.  It was a total pain and I admittedly cried several times when there were snags or mishaps in the positioning and hooping.  Just like in regular embroidery you have to hoop the fabric for machine embroidery.  You want everything to be perfect and precision. The embroidery itself only does a set of two flowers at a time,  There was a lot of trial and error to figure out how to hoop over previous embroidery without making the frame pop out of the hoop.  I also started with no stabilizer and a single basting stitch down the length.  Both were bad calls.  After the first two sets were done I knew I needed at least a tear away stabilizer to help keep the hoop from popping out against the slippery organza.  Then I also added rows of horizontal basting stitches across the first length wise basting stitching to give the two layers of organza more stability.  After that it was all about marking and repositioning before the next set of flowers.  One time my heart stopped as I was working on it and the boy didn't realize I was there and turned the lights off which also turn the power off in the studio.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, now I just need to remove the rest of the tear away stabilizer and the basting stitches.  I've decided to use cotton sateen for lining of the dress.  I've still got a long way to go
 like figuring out my closure if  I want it to be hook and eye tape, invisible zipper or what.  Also since this is strapless how to keep it up.  I think I am going to use a combination of lingerie elastic that has the slightly sticker side like on strapless bras and maybe retro fit a strapless bra into it as well.

I've also finished one row of the three rows of pleats for the bottom.  This is the middle section of pleats, they are 1" knife pleats, above them will be 1/2" knife pleats and below some 1" rufflles.  I made these pleats using a "Pleater" board that I made which I will follow up with a tutorial on how I made it and how to use a little later.  The black stitches are just basting to hold everything together before the final sewing.  I like using a darker thread so that I can see where i needs to be pulled out more easily.

 

The full dress so far and I really am not that tall!  It had been so long since I tried to put my pieces together I forgot the end of the inner layer of organza was the hem bottom and the pleats needed to be about 8-12 inches higher.  but you get the idea.  I also tried on the extra crinoline that my cousin got at her wedding to see the fullness for once I am done.

 

Lastly I got this fantastic gem in the mail!  It is my replacement for a veil, I am going to attach a birdcage type veil to it and hotfix Swavorski rhinestones to it.  You can buy it already blinged out on Etsy but I knew I could do that and didn't want to pay that full price.  In honestly I could of done the entire thing myself but it felt dirty to copy someone else's work even if it was just once for the wedding.  I felt I needed to at least buy the base and help support another artist out.   This headpiece can be found here!