My Wedding Dress

It's difficult to know where to begin with my dress. I already spoke of my frustrating wedding dress search in a previous entry, and how I found the right one for me while bridesmaid dress shopping.

However, I never really shared any pictures, because I knew that John occasionally read my blog from time to time and didn't want to give any details away before the wedding day.

When friends would ask me to send a picture along, I also didn't want to spoil the surprise, so I kept it to detail shots of the lace.

Photo from my perspective of the train of the dress.

The skirt.

But I thought I might share snippets from a journal entry I wrote shortly after finding the dress in March:

I love my wedding dress. I only have a few pictures, none that I even particularly love, but seeing the dress fills me with such expectant joy. I found the dress a week before my masters of music recital, so it's taken a few weeks to have it all sink in. The enormity of what I accomplished in those last few weeks.

The lace is amazing. It's an all-over cotton lace, with a vintage, sweet look. It wasn't like the heavily beaded, re-embroidered laces I had seen in so many other styles. This lace is ivory over a champagne silk lining, so the lace pops more. The dress drapes beautifully; the only things I'll need to take in will be at the top: the back is a keyhole style which buttons at the top and shows just enough skin that I cannot wear a bra with it. But the whole top will need to come in a little, to fit snug and not gap.

The front and back of the dress (and how long it was
before I got it taken up!). Notice how it gaps at the top
in the back.

We (my mom and I) are going to meet with a seamstress about alterations-she is a friend of a friend and came highly recommended. She is going to meet with us at the bridal salon for a consult. Basically, I don't want it any tighter in the waist or hips since it drapes so beautifully now. The consultants at the bridal salon kept cinching it back with these clips and it just looks so much prettier when it doesn't cling to me for dear life.

The dress clipped back on me. It came with a dusty-
pink/champagne sort of sash, but I didn't like how
it cut the silhouette in half and drew the eye. I knew
I wanted my smiling face to be the focal point!

We want to see about some simple changes: add little cap sleeves out of lace taken fromt he bottom, tighten the fit of the top, and take up the train. Initially I wanted to completely remove the train but I love the shape of the skirt so much I don't want to remove it anymore so long as it hangs at a proper height and doesn't look like I'm a small kid playing dress-up. After all, when will I ever get to wear a dress with a train again?

I love this photo of the side, too. It shows the drape
that I wanted to preserve in the tailoring process.

The only sad thing about a wedding gown is that I can't wear it for just anything. I am so besotted over this dress that I want to wear it all the time. We took Dani to visit it (she's the first bridesmaid to see it!), and I didn't want to take it off again. That's how you know it's love.

I originally planned on going with vintage milkglass
(like those earrings), but they were too stark white
against the ivory dress, so I opted for my mother's
crystal necklace that she wore on her wedding day,
with earrings I made to match.