Wedding Dress, Take Two

OK, so I’ll have to admit, I can be headstrong.  I’ve been so insistent on making my dress myself, that I refused to even think about getting a dressmaker to help!   After three goes at building a bodice toile for my dress, and the same number of frustrated wollopings of fabric into the bin — too sad to blog about it — I called in the experts.

Isn’t it funny though, that as soon as you let your barriers down and ask for help, things seem to work out?  I’ve found two lovely ladies, one a patternmaker and one a dressmaker.  Julie and Karen worked together in a bridal store for twenty odd years, so they know what they’re doing, and they’re going to help me make The Dress in their homes as a kind of masterclass.  Instead of paying for dressmaking, I’m paying for guidance and learning new skills, which I much prefer.

Julie fit this final toile on me today (by the way, that skirt is just a placeholder bit of bemsilk, not the final pattern).  And I have bought such wondrous fabrics! Silk and organza and tulle…  but photos will have to wait until two weeks hence, when I promise to take photos of the cutting process.  It’s so nice to be excited about this again and I can’t wait to learn and share bridal construction techniques.

Dart class coming up tomorrow…

 

Equal Love and Tulle Love

my wedding dress inspiration board…

My dress form — her name is Beuhla — stubbornly refuses to grow 6 foot tall and stretch in the torso,  hence the toile is a lot more squashed on her than it will be on me — see below.  The finished version will also be less hot pink than this too

Too sick to work this week.   Instead I gently played at dress-up for an hour or so at a time, using calico and some cheap pink tulle to figure out the basic structure of The Dress.

This first toile, with its cut out piece of calico for a bodice, is simply to get some idea of how I like the style of dress on me (answer : a lot!  hooray!).  It’s three pieces: a skirt, a bow, and a sweetheart bodice.  It uses a full circle skirt, which I am now reconsidering.  I think there’s too much fabric at the bottom: that once it’s layered in tulle it will be ridiculously large, and crazy-expensive too as I’d like it worked in silk dupioni with nice tulle.  I also have to learn how to construct a boned bodice.  (Any ideas, sewing mavens?)

It made me happy to start building my wedding dress.

Something that has been making me sad, however, is the Australian wedding ceremony.  We recently found out that our celebrant will be legally required to say that ‘marriage is between a man and a woman.’

I have very strong personal feelings about this meanness (I realise they will not be shared by everyone who reads this blog, but please bear with me, for I don’t often talk politics here).  Dan and I are currently looking at options like going through the legal rigmarole the day before the wedding.  In this way we can say what is in our hearts on our wedding day, not what is written in old man’s law, and hence avoid affirming unjust sentiments in front of dear friends and family.

This weekend, thousands of people marched in Melbourne for the right to do simple and joyous things like play with hot pink tulle and plan vows.  And for the so important legal privileges that Dan and I will enjoy because he is a man and I am a woman.  What’s more, my friend and photographer-to-be Jessie was there to commemorate the day for the over 65 (!!) couples who exchanged vows.  Do have a look at her beautiful photographs.  Some of them are just heartbreakingly lovely. Please go have a look.  If you’re not convinced that this is the right thing, ask yourself what you would lose, and what the world would gain, if a few more people were allowed to say in public,

‘I love you: I do.’