The wedding is long past, but the memories of the day will last forever! Maybe it is because as a young bride myself twenty-mumble mumble years ago, I dreamed of a tent wedding on the farm. Maybe because it was one of the only perfect summer days we had this past summer. Maybe because I love to look at our radiant daughters faces on their wedding day and know that they made such excellent life choices. Maybe because I love to organize and make perfect snippets of days.
Or maybe it was the dress!
Mme Micaela changed her wedding dress design choice a myriad of times before her final decision. We ran the gamet from a bodice strewn with huge puffy flowers ( a design that we ultimately used in her bridesmaid dress for Erica’s wedding) to a sleek bead encrusted charmeuse design.
The ultimate dress was what I am calling my Project Runway entry, as I didn’t use a pattern, was draping and redesigning until the eleventh hour, and almost had the wardrobe malfunction from hell!
Initially I had a difficult time trying to formulate a review for this gown. Difficult until, that is, I realized that I don’t have to review it as much as explain it. Just so that you know, apparently I didn’t take any photo’s of the progress. Smack me on the head! I am pretty sure that whenever I worked on the gown, I had mulled it over SO much in my head that I didn’t want to lose the inspiration, and so just cut, pinned, repinned, basted, and sewed!
The Gown. An Explanation
What did you use for your concept? The challenge was to design a wedding dress, with tiers. The tiers had to be of varying widths and angles, and they had to lay close to her body, not poof out. She didn’t want strapless, and the back had to be low. Sounds easy peasy, no?
How did you make the pattern? I drafted a six gore skirt – I wanted to do the skirt portion first and then decide what to to for the bodice later. I drew it to have a slight train- so that you were aware there was a train, but not so long that she would need to bustle it up. The bodice back I stole from Vogue 2964 - but altered it sooo much for her frame that it bears too little resemblance to the original to own it. The basic shape was the look we wanted however. By the way, we were also originally going to use the entire bodice from this pattern, but it ended up looking very “I’m getting married in a bra top“. This was especially noticable in ivory! It likely would have been fine had we used red or yellow! For obvious reasons, we opted not to use it! The tiers- not ruffled ruffles- whatever you want to call them- were the fun part. I traced the finished skirt on to paper, and drew on the tiers, then made individual pattern pieces for EACH tier, adding seam allowances. Fitting it on the dress form was important as some of the tiers went completely around the skirt, and I needed to ensure that they fell correctly. I didn’t count them – there were a lot. A million I bet. Well it felt like a million anyways!
What fabric did you use? It seems like our go-to fabric store for wedding dress fabric is L.A. Fabrics on Queen Street in Toronto. Micaela chose a silk taffeta that was ivory in colour. The lining was silk organza. I bought a bolt at Thaisilks. I adore it!
What did you do that was interesting on this dress. The tiers. They were the dress. They ranged in width from one inch to about three inches, and started and stopped in various places, as well as having various angles. Hem finishes for the tiers caused us some discussion, and after consulting with the bride (sounds professional doesn’t it, calling my daughter “the bride”?!) anyways, after consulting with her, and showing her various “tier hem” finishes, we opted for a deconstructed look by simply sewing a row of stitching about 1/4 inch from the lower edge. Before she donned it on on the wedding day, I trimmed some ravely ends, but not many. Each top tier edge was bound in Seams Great to make a flat, clean edge. Of course they didn’t show! I hand placed each tier, handbasted, pinned it on the dress form, adjusted if necessary, then machine stitched the strip in place. Yes, each tier. It took forever, but it was fun! Honest.
And the bodice? A simple wrap over with some pleating. I tried experimenting with some current and vintage bodice patterns that were almost the shape we wanted. Everything looked too overwhelming for Micaela’s tiny frame. I ended up going to the dress form and outlining the shape I wanted, then draping and experimenting until I got it right. It took patience and time- two things I lack in life!
What caused you to tear your hair out? I was, at first, quite concerned about matching the tiers at the back seam line. That took fiddling and hair loss. Then I decided that not matching added to the look. It did!
What was the most fun? Designing. Figuring out. Making Mic and myself both happy! Realizing that I could actually make this dress happen from conceptualization to the aisle!
What was the most annoying? You really want to know? Imagine this. It is 7:30 on wedding day morning, and I haven’t yet finished sewing the lining to the bodice. Micaela had been rushing in and out all week and didn’t have a second to try on the dress to make sure everything was perfect. And I was finalizing tent and reception details and also had not a moment. Just before the bridesmaids and hairdresser show up we decide to do that final try on. Then the unimaginable occured. The invisible zipper split- and couldn’t be convinced to go back together again. You would have been proud that I didn’t start screaming out loud! I simply asked that my hair and make up be done first, so that I could be standing at Fabricland’s doors at 9:30 am to get a new zipper. Of COURSE I didn’t have any at home. *sigh* I prepped the dress before I left, so inserting the zipper would only take minutes. Miraculously it went in perfectly the first time! And behaved for the entire day.
Conclusions. If you love to sew and create, have some time – okay a LOT of time, or don’t need to sleep, love your daughter and are loved in return, then sewing a wedding dress is a blessing, not a chore! Micaela looked calm, cool and collected the entire day, the weather was perfect, and the company was outstanding. 
They even had time to pose for a Garage Sale photo shoot. The laughing here is because Mic found a veil at one stop and asked her dad to buy it for her- it cost a whole dollar! Yes, she wore it! You have to know Micaela in order to realize how perfect this scenerio was. She originally didn’t want a veil, but as we all say “everything always works out perfectly in Micaelaland”!
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