{"id":919,"date":"2016-03-31T14:37:32","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T21:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/?p=919"},"modified":"2021-08-25T11:16:32","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T18:16:32","slug":"wedding-dresses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wedding-dresses\/","title":{"rendered":"Wedding Dress Part 1: Trying on Dresses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I recently got married to a very wonderful man who loves me a lot and shows it in one way by accepting my rather large stash of fabric and sewing supplies which I have been trying to squirrel away in our new little apartment. But about our wedding…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years I have had the fantasy playing around in my head of making my own wedding dress. I think it really began when I first learned how to drape garments and started making my own patterns. I didn’t really take this dream seriously because I figured “oh, I won’t have time,” or “that’s such a big project to take on, what if I mess up?” Then my husband proposed and the wedding planning began. I was faced with a very real decision. To make my dress, or not to make my dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My family, despite being my hardcore supporters, all balked at my statement when I finally announced that I wanted to make my own wedding dress. My mom just shook her head, knowing that arguing with me wouldn’t change my mind. Not wanting to cause too much trouble I decided to make an appointment at my local David’s Bridal store just to see if I could find the “perfect” dress. We went. I tried on dresses. I didn’t find anything that was perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"DB<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If you are a sewer of any kind you may know the feeling of seeing an element in one item or garment that you like and an element in a different garment and yet again another in a totally new garment and think “if only those were combined into one.” That is what I was feeling as I tried on dress after dress (really I think I only tried on 10, which is nothing in the wedding dress shopping scene, but it was a lot for me). I would say “I really like how the waist nips in there and the lace that wraps around to accentuate it on this one, but the neckline is not right.” Then the next dress “I don’t like this skirt material, it’s so stiff and poufy, but I like the cut of the bodice.” Or on yet another “This skirt flows really nice, I like the Grecian look, but I don’t like that it’s strapless.” The poor sales lady was probably having fits inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"DB<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n


<\/u><\/span>When we walked out of Davids Bridal, empty-handed, my mom turned to me and said “okay, you need to make your own dress. It has to be perfect and you’re only going to get that if you make it yourself.” This was all the encouragement I needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day I was searching Pinterest for inspiration. See my board here. I sketched and re-sketched. I studied photos of myself in the dresses from David’s Bridal analyzing what worked and what didn’t, noting the things I enjoyed in each dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some photos of me in a few of the dresses I tried on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"DB<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Detail<\/a>
Detail of a mermaid skirted dress.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Out of all the dresses I tried on there was one that was almost tempting. Once I had analyzed it compared to my mental requirements list however, it also became a discard. I did use it heavily as design inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The dress I almost bought. There were too many things that I wanted to change. I used this as my main source of inspiration throughout the process of designing and constructing my own dress.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Full<\/a>
Full view of my inspiration dress.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Back<\/a>
Back view of my inspiration dress.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The fun had begun. Up next: my design process and the beginning stages of design. As well as how I made my own dress form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photos in this post were taken by Bailey Bywater<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently got married to a very wonderful man who loves me a lot and shows it in one way by accepting my rather large stash of fabric and sewing supplies which I have been trying to squirrel away in our new little apartment. But about our wedding… For years I have had the fantasy …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":934,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[183],"mai_display":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"mai_display","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.textileindie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mai_display?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}