I’ve made two wedding dresses and helped on another.
It’s a long process as you can imagine what it takes to design “the most amazing dress you are ever going to wear in your life!” It better be good. Right?
I generally say “aaahhhm, no thank you” because there is so much psychology involved that an otherwise simple process can become complicated as the bride changes her mind, loses weight between fittings, freaks out about things that are seemingly beyond her understanding. It can be a crazy time, and I could end up spending hours hand sewing, and making changes, while my own life slips away as I use it to pander to the whim of a sensitive human being who simply won’t make up their mind and stick to it. And we haven’t even touched on the cost of the most beautiful fabrics available.
There are reasons why wedding dresses can be very expensive.
Here are a few:
– the meetings about the dress can be numerous and take quite some time, as the bride needs to feel confidant the whole way through.
– the techniques used to produce clean lines and exacting form can be time consuming.
– fine materials are more costly than otherwise cheaper alternatives.
Some women are so tied up in knots, it’s as though they are conditioned to believe that what ever they are going to choose is going to be sub standard, and therefore by default, will never ever be pleased by the result.
Are you one of those women?
I’ve been like that a little bit, at times. The trick is to catch it, and then trust you know yourself better then anyone, and pick a friend you trust for advice, and then really trust them, and then enjoy it!
Wedding dress number Hot Pink!
A dear friend of mine was showing me the jewels she was planning to wear, and the hot pink sari she was going to wrap around herself in the morning as a backdrop for the jewels.
“Cool!” I said, “show me!”
So she got the sari and started to wrap it, and then it was a bit bulky in one spot, so she unravelled a bit and then re-wrapped it, and it got a bit uneven in another spot, and then some of it slipped, so she totally unwrapped it all and started again, and got another bulky bit there and an uneven spread here and then she started over again, and got another funny twist in it, all the while saying “I did it perfectly the other day, it was so easy”
When we are calm and in the flow, things flow easily for us, including skills like wrapping saris, but I thought, what are the chances of a bride being calm enough on her wedding morning to wrap a sari just as she wished, without worrying – even if she did manage – about it slipping out of place at some other stage in the day, especially if wrapping a sari is not her normal practiced way of dressing?
Forget it.
So i offered to turn her hot pink sari into a straight up and down strapless dress, lined with hot pink lining, darted to follow her already svelte body shape with an invisible zip at the back. The perfect backdrop for her jewels, and it was actually what she was out to achieve in the firstplace.
Pink wedding dress
That was easy.
There was a good two days work there, at least 15 hours, including discussion and logistics.
I took her measurements, and made a toile, or mock up in a similar light fabric, and got the fit in one go! I am good sometimes.
Then I made her dress.
It was so easy, there was no iff-ing and umm-ing an ahhh-ing, the job was done easy and smooth. There was even time to make her reception party dress based on a design from another designer friend of hers. I made up the pattern and I made up the dress and she looked awesome.
Reception after party dress
Party on!
By the way, the after Party theme was:
“Hot Pink White Hot”
How awesome is that!!