Should i sew my own wedding dress

In the past I had used my sewing machine for craft projects or, at most, sewing a quilt. Like, a little quilt, one that covers my lap but not my knees. So it took a full year to learn about fabrics, ironing, patterns, and weird phrases like "horse hair braid" to crank out my super cool dress. And of course wanting to do this, to sew something that has so much meaning, really put me face to face with my feelings about love and marriage and weddings and glitter and such.

I was very proud of my standards for dating and really thought I knew what I wanted in a partner. I had self-esteem. I knew a person's values were more important than tastes, so if he didn't know who Weezer was that was okay because he was honest. Honesty is more important than Weezer.

I was ready to get married. I will tell you something I say to people I'm trying to impress: I never thought about my wedding as a little girl.

I did other things. I froze flies in little margarine tubs and studied them, I waded in waist-high water in abandoned sewers to catch tadpoles with my best friend, Joanna, and I really liked crafts. I wanted to beat boys up, not marry them.

I never thought about my wedding as a little girl. I froze flies in little margarine tubs and studied them, I waded in waist-high water in abandoned sewers to catch tadpoles. I was fascinated with the idea that you could want to be with someone so much you'd go through this bizarre expensive ritual with them and then be with them FOR-EV-ER. I wanted that. I didn't necessarily want to have a super rich wedding with fireworks and a cocktail yacht and a fancy hotel, but I did want to do my version RIGHT.

Which was, thematically: Disneyland's Blue Bayou restaurant meets a Tropicana-esque vibe. The reception would be in a maritime museum in a quaint harbor.

The colors would be the palette of a bird of paradise. The dress would match this theme. And although the dress would turn out beautifully, the wedding would never happen. Oh, here we go. Listen, I don't like shopping for vintage clothes. This is one of my weird shames that go in the same bucket as I don't like Seinfeld and I'm constantly unsure whether women have urethras—it's a weird blind spot.

Vintage clothes are too many things. I get very overwhelmed by all the mix 'n' match, and I always come out looking like an overpriced Bob Dylan doll.

But oh my God. I will make a dress from a vintage pattern with fierce passion. I would scroll through these patterns with obsessive regularity. I currently have more vintage patterns than I will ever be able to make in my lifetime. Why have I turned to hoarding? What hole am I trying to fill? Oh well, it's probably nothing. Back to sewing the dress! I can look at my dress and remember what I was watching when I did what: Nurse Jackie and Jessica Jones when cutting the final chiffon, Orphan Black when I was tracing the pattern, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when I was cutting out the muslin, and Blade Runner like three times when I had to cut out the muslin over and over again, The Americans seasons 1 and 2 when sewing the muslins, the movie High Society with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly when basting the bodice.

And so, so, so much more. I pretty much am now an expert at TV. Couture is the best. I have already activated my account. Resend activation link. We and our trusted partners use technology such as cookies on our site to personalize content and ads, provide social media features, and analyze our traffic.

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Facebook Add watermark. Change Source Title. Liucija Adomaite. Show All Contributors. Get the latest inspiring stories via our awesome iOS app! Download Bored Panda app! Write comments. MiniMaus MiniMaus. It cost quite some effort to keep the loops in place while sewing, because they are rather thick and the pressure foot tends to push the straps away and it is not possible to use sewing pins.

I ended up re-doing some loops and in the end they are still not perfectly sized and shaped, but after all the effort I was happy with the result. I sewed over the entire strip three more times to make sure the loops were secured. I then sewed the strips with loops to the structure layer of the bodice, along with the tunnels for for the spring steel boning previous step.

Next I had to make the corset lace itself. Basically, the technique is the same as for the loop straps, but now I cut out two long diagonals from a new piece of fabric.

I connected the two pieces on the bias , such that the seam accomodates stretching of the lace. Again I sewed a tunnel using the cord and zipper foot, but now I turned it with the cord itself, since the lace was to long almost 4 meters to use the loop turner. Finally I created a lacing panel to go behind the lacing, again from satin.

I used the rigilene boning to make sure it stays in shape when the lacing is tightened. I attached it to the lining layer of the bodice. Assembling the bodice was the most difficult step in the entire process of making this wedding dress and drove me to several mental breakdowns.

Luckily, before I started making the dress, I had several help lines offered to me and I consulted all of them in this process.

The pattern I bought had an option for such a yoke and I used the pattern piece for this. I think in the end I started over making the yoke three or four times. This was not the difficult part, however. Joining all three bodice layers with the yoke in between at the top edge, which is curved due to the sweetheart neckline, is what caused me much headache.

The tulle kept crumbling together and getting caught in the seam. In the end I carefully pinned the yoke to the reinforcement layer only, while I was wearing it, to determine the correct position. I then marked with basting thread where the seam needed to go and placed a staystitch. Then I very carefully attached the yoke only to the satin layer, so that I could see what I was doing, rather than the tulle being covered by all the other layers.

Then I attached the other two layers, carefully pulling away the tulle yoke from being caught in the needle. Then I understitched the top edge and cut away parts of the seam allowance of all layers to make the top edge less thick. Besides, the undesired wrinkles can be masked later by some lace flowers I want to place on the yoke and the issue will be solved. Joining the layers in the back was easier.

I topstitched the reinforcement and satin layer together just beside the lacing loops and I installed an invisible zipper beneath the lacing. Later I slip stitched by hand the lining to the zipper tape and beside the lacing loops. I had never installed an invisible zipper before and I bought one extra to practice. But with the invisible zipper foot and the clear instructions from the YouTube videos by Made to Sew and Professor Pincushion it was actually not that hard!

I wanted the dress to be quite poofy and therefore I decided to make multiple layers of circle skirts. The outer layers are made of tulle, for an extra poofy effect and because I like the look of tulle skirts. Bridal tulle comes in very large widths, which makes it possible to cut the entire circle of about 2,5 meters in diameter in one piece from the fabric. For the layers from the other fabrics satin, lining and organza I needed to cut two half circles and join them.

To cut the circles I folded the fabric in such way that I only needed to cut one eighth of the circle. I did not make the backside longer than the front side this time, however, since I made the skirts long enough to make a small train in the back anyway.

Then I cut out the circles. For the satin, lining and organza I then joined the two half circles by a straight machine stitch. For the satin the half skirt was cut in such a way from the fabric that the straight edges aligned with the fabric edge and therefore did not need finishing in some way.

The seams of the lining fabric, however, were serged to prevent fraying and for the organza I used a French seam. First we measured what the size of the center holes needed to be by measuring the circumference of the bottom of the bodice. We then measured, marked and cut out the holes from all layers of the skirts. The lining layer of the skirts was directly attached to the lining layer of the bodice, by pinning the skirt to the bodice while I was wearing it.

After taking off the dress I machine sewed it to the bodice. The other layers of skirt where first attached to eachother, two by two layers at the time. The organza was directly attached to the satin. For two of the tulle layers the center hole was made larger, such that it could be gathered at the top to create more poofyness.

After all six layers satin, organza, four layers of tulle where attached to eachother, they were clamped to the satin and structure layers of the bodice using sewing clips. Before sewing the skirts to the bodice, I carefully tried on the dress one more time to check if everything was clamped symetrically. This was the case and I sewed everything together with two rounds of straight stitches for extra security.

For hemming the skirt I again asked my mother in law and my friend Maartje to help me. They needed to pin the skirts to the correct length, layer by layer, while I was wearing the dress and standing on a table.

The back of the skirts was left longer than the front to create a small train. Maartje used her serger to make a nice rolled hem finish to the lining and organza layer. Also the satin layer was serged, but a regular hem was made with the sewing machine. The tulle layers were just cut to length, no hem was necessary.

The final stage of making my wedding dress was to attach the lace layer to the the bodice and to make covered buttons to close the yoke. The buttons were made by cutting small circles from a piece of satin fabric using a cilinder shaped flashlight as a template for the circles.

Then I made a basting stitch around the circle, not too close to the edge to prevent fraying. The thread is pulled, such that the satin circle forms some sort of sachet, in which one part of the button is placed. Then the other part of the button is put in place to close the covered button. The button can not be sewn directly to the tulle yoke, so a small strip of satin is attached first on both ends of the yoke.

On one side the buttons are sewn, on the other side small loops of elastic band are sewn that can be slipped over the button to close the yoke. The lace is attached by first pinning it in place and then handstitching the lace to the satin layer of the bodice on all edges: the top edge, the bottom edge and the edges along the lacing loops and zipper.

The remaining task was to hand sew the lace outliers to the tulle yoke and the tulle top skirt. Also some extra loose lace flowers were cut out and sewn on the yoke to hide the shoulder seams and to fill open spaces.

Furthermore, I made sure to attach some pieces of lace at the weak spots of the tulle yoke, for example at the armpits and at the edge of the open area above the corset lacing, to provide some extra strength at these locations.

Finally, after months of sewing, literally with blood, sweat and tears, the dress was finally finished! I am very happy with the result and I proudly wore the dress on our wedding day! Absolutely amazing job. Gorgeous dress. Gorgeous bride. I have been sewing for several years and would still not take on a project that big. Good for you for showing no fear.

This is beautiful! All though I do hope you had a back up dress in case. Knowing myself, I would freak out and mess it up. Great job :. Question 1 year ago. That turned out gorgeous. How much did you end up spending on materials and the creation of the dress overall? Hello, This is absolutly amazing and has inspired me to make my own wedding dress, although still undecided. I just wondered how long it has taken you in total to make this? It really is beautiful!

Reply 2 years ago. Hey Jen, Sorry for my late reply. I didn't really count the hours I put in the dress, but I started in February making the pattern and the mock-up dress. My wedding was in November and I finished the dress about one or two weeks before the wedding. I worked on the dress mainly in the weekends, especially in the beginning, and later on also in the evenings, but definitely not every day.

Closer to the wedding I had some time off from work and I could also spend some time on the dress during weekdays, but still I was not working on it every single day.

And I never had to rush or stress out to finish the dress in time. Please let me know if you decide to make your own wedding dress, I would be very curious to see the result :.

Good luck with your decision and the sewing if you decide to do it yourself! Also congratulations on your engagement! Hey, I think it is so awesome that you made your own wedding dress!! It turned out beautiful! I will be getting married in a little under 2 months and I already have a wedding dress. However, the dress I have is strapless and I really want to add an illusion neckline. Do you have a template that you followed to make the yoke or top of your dress?

Is that something that you could share? I really want a cap sleeve illusion neckline look, but I honestly have no idea where to begin or if I would even be capable of making that on my own, but I also don't want to pay someone to make it either. Do you have any pointers or resources you could point me to? Reply 3 years ago. Hey, thank you so much! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

You must be so excited :. For the yoke part on my dress I followed the Vogue pattern V I used the pattern pieces for the yoke, but needed to alter them quite a bit to make them a good fit for me. Attaching the yoke to the dress was actually the most difficult part for me, probably because of my lack of sewing experience, but an experienced seamstress told me that this is indeed a tricky part in making a dress.

I attached the yoke IN BETWEEN the lining layer and the the satin layer see attached images of steps of the pattern and I'm not sure if that is what you want to do with your dress, since it would include taking apart the top seam of your dress. Placing the yoke in between made it really difficult, because the tulle yoke didn't stay nicely in place as it seems in the image of step 31 of the pattern, but it crumbled up because of the mismatch in curve due to the dip in the sweetheart neckline, and got caught in the stitches, thereby ruining the tulle and making me have to start over making the yoke a couple of times.

It is definitely more easy if you have a straight neckline. Since I'm not an experienced seamstress, I don't really know what would be the best advice to attach the yoke to your dress. Perhaps attach it to the lining on the inside of your dress by hand stitching? Of course the inside of the dress would not look that great anymore, but you wouldn't be able to see it when you wear the dress. Another option might be to make a complete overlay including sleeves for the strapless bodice like the lady in this blog I came across as some point did:.

To me YouTube and Google were my greatest friends in finding information on 'How to' in sewing. Maybe you can ask around if anyone you know knows someone you could ask for help. To me at least it was really helpful to get some advice from them :. I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but I hope at least you have some ideas now.

Good luck with altering your dress and I'm curious to see how it turns out in the end :. I wish you a very wonderful wedding day and a happy life together! Both you and your dress look gorgeous, my dear! I too sewed my own wedding dress, a little over 25 years ago.