The great reveal - beaded lace wedding dress!

I know I've been quiet for a little bit, but I've been squirreled away in my workroom completing this dress, and then I took a well deserved week's holiday! I'm back going full-steam ahead on various other projects now, but not before I share a few pictures of the finished dress with you (it's ok, the wedding was on Saturday, I'm not spoiling any surprises!)

This was a full-length wedding dress custom designed and made for this bride. Fully structured, it's made from a satin underlay covered with beautiful beaded lace. All the lace edging and the button detailing was applied by hand.

From the front...

 

 The back...

And close ups of some of the edging / the train...

The bride was delighted with it (phew!) and I have to agree, it's a lovely dress and the style she chose suited her to a T!

Struggling to find ties for the Groom's party?

I wanted to share these to show couples planning their wedding that if the place you're getting your suits from doesn't have the right colour ties you don't have to stress about it - get in touch and providing I can get hold of a fabric in the colour you're after I can make them up for you! The commission pictured below is a case in point - the bridesmaids dresses were a slightly unusual colour but the couple got in touch and I was able to find them an almost perfect match for the ties.

Problem solved, and five custom made ties for the Groom's party...

Photos from a happy customer

Following on from my previous post, I'm delighted to be able to share a few photos with you of a beautiful bride and her lovely bridesmaids on her wedding day.

Congratulations to Juliet and Alan, I hope you have a long and happy marriage. And thankyou to Juliet for choosing me to make your dresses and cloak, I think it was a fab combination and I'm so glad you were pleased with them!

It started with an idea of wearing a cloak...

Pictures today of a commission that I finished shortly before my week off - a commission that started with the bride to be looking for a cloak to wear on her wedding day and ended up with me being asked to make not just the cloak but matching bridesmaids dresses and her dress as well!

First, her dress: a simple full-length strapless dress with an off the shoulder band that also went round her arms.

And her cloak: beautiful burgundy duchess satin, lined with ivory satin and with a silver clasp to hold it closed.

And the bridesmaids: the same lovely colour satin in styles appropriate to their ages (and sadly the older girl's dress fitted on none of my mannequins so you only get a picture of it on the hanger).

I have seen photos of the wedding day and they all looked absolutely gorgeous, I'm waiting for permission to share them with you all though, so you'll have to keep your fingers crossed for now!

A family of waistcoats

Not a long post today, or one with a lot of photos, but I just wanted to show you a picture of one of my finished commissions this week - a family of waistcoats for cousins of varying ages to wear for a wedding. 

These came about after chatting to the bride when she brought her dress in for alteration, as she was struggling to find anything that went across the three ages in a colour that she wanted them to wear. Fortunately she was able to find the perfect colour at Fletcher's (the back is a two-tone material with a blue 'flash' that matches the front) and I was able to do the rest for her...

 

And now on the person it was made for...

Yesterday I received a lovely email from the lady the cloak in the previous post was made for enclosing a photo of her and her new husband on their wedding day. It's so nice to get to see my garments being worn by the people they were made for, and she very kindly said that I can share this photo online too, so here you go...

Apparently the cloak was a big success, keeping her warm as intended while also looking flattering and stylish and drawing compliments from her guests. And I have to say, based on this photo I can see why!

Congratulations to the bride and groom, I wish them all the happiness and a long life together.

First wedding cloak of the year...

Yes I know it's April, but January to March doesn't really seem to be a popular time for weddings. I made this cloak a little while ago, but I always wait until after the day to share pictures of anything the bride's wearing even if she hasn't explicitly asked for secrecy.

So, here we go... this was a lovely idea for a cloak, full-length ivory cotton velvet with a round hood, silver clasp and arm slits so that she could hold a bouquet / champagne glass and still be warm!

The full-length picture doesn't really do it justice, since it's on a mannequin which is just a torso. It draped properly and without distortion on a body with arms, but that didn't work for photography. I've added renovating my full body mannequin to my list of things to do!

Catching up - some pictures of my dresses on real people (not on my mannequin for once!)

I realised today that I didn't share with you some of the photos I received from a customer of two of my custom made bridesmaids dresses being worn on 'The Big Day', so this a blog post to rectify that immediately!

You may not remember the dresses appearing on my blog when they were made, but they were bridesmaids dresses 'with a difference' in that they featured the same material but were designed to match each girls style and personality. The original blog posts are here and here.

And the pictures from on the day...

There's not much I can say really, other than that I think they looked beautiful (beautiful models and a glorious day must take some credit too!) and looking back at these pictures is making me happy and proud of my past work!
 

Mother of the Bride

The brief for this dress was for a Mother of the Bride's dress with a difference, something that she felt comfortable in and felt was her while still being more special than something she'd chose for any other wedding she was going to (after all, your daughter's wedding is pretty special).

The colour scheme was already decided as she had a jacket she really liked and wanted to wear, and she was quite keen to browse fabrics herself so she took herself off to Fletchers Fabrics to see what they had in stock before I started ordering in samples. Luckily she found something that she fell in love with so we went with that (the staff in Fletcher's are great so between my list of fabric type suggestions and their knowledge she found something that was perfect).

The final dress was an embroidered georgette over matching crepe, with an under-bust band in contrasting crepe. The 'hankerchief' hem was something she particularly wanted and I think it adds a little something to the dress.

We added purple and silver beads to the bottom section of the skirt to add colour and interest to the dress (the silver was to match her shoes)...

And the outfit was topped off with some little flower hair-grips made from the contrast crepe, to which she'll be adding some cream bought ones.

All in all, a lovely outfit that I think suits her perfectly!

Accesories to match The Wedding Gown

Yesterday I posted about a wedding gown that's been under wraps since it was finished last month, today it's the turn of all the accessories that I made to go with the dress!

First, the bride's tiara, made from fine silver wire and beads that match those on the dress:

The groom wore a custom-made cravat from the same material as the bride's gown:

Instead of adult bridesmaids she chose to have her 2 year old niece as a flower girl. Her really cute dress was made from duchess satin in a beautiful dark blue (there is a matching sash that I somehow forgot to photograph, oops!):

And the Best Man had a cravat to match the flower girl:

Although if I stopped to think about it making all the bits for the wedding was a lot of pressure it was an honour to be asked to do and lovely to be able to do. I'm thrilled with how everything turned out and it seems the bride was too so I think it can be counted as a success!

 

Beautiful satin wedding gown!

I've been quite shamefully lapse in blogging about my creations for a little while now but I have been rather busy of late! One of my main projects that was occupying a lot of my attention up until a month ago was a wedding gown commission that came with matching cravats, flower-girl's dress and tiara. It was lovely making something so special and it's been quite hard keeping it all under wraps but she got married yesterday so I can finally share some pics of my work with you! As it's likely to be quite picture heavy I'll put the gown itself in this post and then all the other bits in one to follow tomorrow.

The gown: an a-line dress with a structured, boned bodice and chapel train in a beautiful red duchess satin, covered in over 2000 beads and Swarovski crystals (all individually applied) with tiny covered buttons running down the back. While the front was beautiful it was the back where the real 'Wow' was, with over 1500 of the beads/crystals on the train itself and a diamond cut-out detail from the nape of her neck to the waist.

From the front:

Detail of the skirt beading:

More skirt beading:

The back cut-out and chiffon section (unfortunately the dress was slightly to small for my mannequin to I had to photograph this part on the hanger): 

The train:

The bride was absolutely thrilled with it, which is the most important thing, hopefully everyone else on the day loved it too!

A wedding dress with a difference

Back in September I was given the opportunity, thanks to a recommendation from an existing customer, to make a dress for a lovely lady to wear on her wedding day. Not your traditional bridal gown but a dress that she could wear many times again in the future and that suited her down to a T.

After much deliberation over fabrics she settled on a dark teal satin with a light stretch to it, and we tailored the style of the dress accordingly. She didn't want anything too complicated but wanted to focus on what she saw as her 'good points' so we decided on a crossover top with a wide waistband and slightly more than a-line skirt:

The 'V' at the front was mirrored on the back, and both the top of the zip and the little 'keyholes' details on the sleeve were finished with the most fabulous buttons (which I can't take credit for, she spend some time in Duttons for Buttons picking out what she wanted, but I did love them).

It was a joy to work with someone who was so excited by the garment as it took shape, and I had a text from her after the wedding saying she'd had many compliments on her dress, which was good to know (and gives you a warm feeling inside when you know you've got it right). I know she was planning to wear it again for a family event the week after so hopefully she got more then too!

 

Another dress for a wedding...

...this time for me to wear!

Thanks are due to my step-dad Ray for the pics of me in this post, as he kindly took proper pics of me wearing the dress before we headed out to the wedding rather than me taking them later on my dressmaker's dummy (I've not yet mastered taking photos of myself, although Ray has given me some tips to try out!)

The dress is made from 'Stoff' cotton, which is a lovely weight and drapes well. The bodice is boned and lined with black poplin, the skirt is a full circle (great fun in the wind, both me and my decency are grateful to my friends for their interventions on a couple of occasions!!) I also made a net petticoat to wear underneath in order to get the proper shape on the skirt.

This is a really fun dress to wear, but what was even more fun was getting to watch two good school-friends get married - they both looked so happy and it was an amazing day!