Making My Wedding Dress - Part I - Starting Point

Welcome to the very first edition of the Worthy Design Studio ‘Making My Wedding Dress’ Series. Over the coming weeks, I will be filling you in on the process I took to make my own wedding dress. Be sure to keep an eye on your inbox or keep notifications on for @worthydesigstudio on Instagram to hear about the post as soon as it’s published.

Let’s dive right in!

I was a little hesitant to make my own dress at first. I had pretty harsh memories of still sewing my Debs dress at 2am the night before the event and absolutely hating the dress by the time I put it on me. (The Debs is what we Irish call our end of school graduation ball) To be fair, it was the first dress I’d ever made, it was a strapless top and skirt, I’d no pattern and the skirt was made out of bias cut panels that spiraled around the body. I didn’t exactly make things easy for myself! So would this be the same? Would I still be sewing my dress the night before my wedding, pulling my hair out and hating every stitch? My time management skills were not their finest in college and my poor parents only ever witnessed me working through the night. This was just the way I worked. Had I changed? Had the years given me some knowledge that sleep is good? Could I be organised and have it finished in time? These were my concerns, not my ability. As my college technician said to my class many years ago, “girls, if you ever get asked to make a wedding dress, just remember this. It’s the same as any other dress you make only the fabric is white”. No truer words. My other doubts were, what if I liked it now but look back at it in years to come and think “sweet Jesus what was I thinking?”. This can often happen but the blame would fall on me and not the shop that swore blind it was the height of fashion at the time. Over-riding all these concerns however, was that niggling voice that kept telling me that I’d regret it if I didn’t at least try. So with a cup of tea and some magazines, the planning began.

I’m not the person who walked around as a kid with a pillow case veil on her head dreaming of her big day. Quite the opposite. The idea of all the attention freaked me out. I’d never thought about what type of dress I might like to wear. This may have been down to the fact that I change my mind like the wind. What I like today might be on my black list tomorrow. I’m not the most stylish person either so I didn’t even have a style of dress I love to wear or a shape that I knew really suited me. I was shooting in the dark. I looked at wedding magazines and photo shoots but everything I was seeing was too ‘weddingy’ and not ‘me’ even though I’d no idea what ‘me’ was. I wanted something a bit more unusual. I needed to hit the shops to try on some different styles to figure all of this out.

Honestly, how do people choose?

I definitely didn’t want to go down the glitzy sparkle princess fairy godmother route. For anyone who knows me, this would make for comedy gold! My initial thoughts however were that I’d like a full lace dress. Perhaps long sleeves, not big and poofy and hopefully something timeless if that even existed. Into the shops I went, pulled out some dresses that might meet that description and tried them on. They did NOT work! The lace completely swallowed me and was just too much. It didn’t matter if it was delicate floaty dentelle lace or heavy structure guipure, it just looked horrendous on me! No probelmo. That was the benefit of not knowing really what I wanted. It meant I didn’t have my heart set on something only to realise it didn’t work.

So that’d be a firm ‘No’ to lace then?!

Since lace was now out, I moved onto plainer fabric. What I liked about plain fabric was that it made the cut the most important aspect. Good and bad - could be amazing but if the fit was wrong, it could be awful. Either way, plain was definitely suiting me better than lace. Ok, one box ticked.

Silhouette was a really interesting one to figure out. I went into one shop here in Dublin only to be told that “there are only 4 shapes of wedding dress. Forget everything else you’ve heard, you’ll be one of these four shapes and that’s it”. I had to bite my lip that day! In their defence, I’d not said I had studied fashion design so they weren’t to know that what they were telling me was like telling an artist that there are only four types of paintbrush. I played along! I really did learn so much in trying on all different shapes though - not just in their shop. I assumed that perhaps a V-neck would suit me because crew necks generally don’t. Or that I’d like something that was wide at the hem so that my waist would look smaller. I was so completely wrong.

I was only told there were 4 but here are 5 dress shapes to give you an idea! Image from laviamor.com

Here is what I learned. I have a fairly straight up - straight down figure, not a very defined waistline, a slightly broad back and maybe even a shortish torso. While a strapless sweetheart neckline did look ok on me it wasn’t something I felt comfortable in. Empire lines were a disaster. I definitely needed something to define my waist. I did try an amazing A-line gown with pockets and a high neck. Looked fab but again, not right. It did get me thinking a higher neckline might work though.

Jesus Piero, David Fielden and Bembo Styling

Right, I was getting there…Defined waist, higher neck, plainer fabric and maybe pockets. I knew I didn’t want anything too big and heavy but I didn’t think narrow would suit me but I had to try to rule them out. Well wouldn’t you know, this turned out to be much more what I felt comfortable in. I tried some slinky styles (not so good) and some bias styles with a bit of a kick and hey-presto, I was starting to see what my dress might turn into. I discovered that while I needed to define my waist, a fitted bodice wasn’t the way to go. Instead, a relaxed folded down blousey-type waist line would give me a softer look while still giving me some shape. This meant losing the pockets but hey, can’t win ’em all! By now I had my list of things to work with: slim, column type silhouette, plain fabric, beautiful drape, high neck and blouse-tucked-in style waist.

With all these key features in mind, I hit the stand and began to drape. Over the weeks, the design began to take place.

In future posts, I’ll show you some behind the scenes of the design process but coming up next, it’s fabric selection time!

Have you ever gone in with one idea and come away with something completely different? Does trying on wedding dresses, or any formal dresses for that matter, make you want to hide in a dark corner? Pop a comment below and share your experiences with others going through the same feels!

Until next time folks…