Diy Wedding dress - My tips and tricks

Project of the year 

Front view of the dress

A few months ago a very dear and close person to me asked, if I could sew her wedding dress. She had found one she liked (not loved), but it was way over her budget, with all the alterations the dress would need.

I was overjoyed and I had time to sew and I really wanted to take on a challenging project this year. So I promised to go through my pattern stash and see if I had any patterns she loved.

Pattern and buying fabrics

Tip #1: Knowing your pattern stash helps a lot and at least here in Finland sewing magazines have wedding-themed clothes in 2-3 years intervals. I just tried to find all the wedding dress patterns I had in my stash, if I hadn't found any dresses that the bride liked, my next step would've been to alter ballgowns or other party dress patterns to a wedding dress.  

And the back looks amazing!!

So after skimming through probably three different magazines, we found this gorgeous lace and satin dress from an issue of Burdastyle (3/2017). 

The bride loved it immediately, she loved the full hem and the lace neckline and it gave serious royalty vibes.

We decided on that pattern and then we went shopping for fabrics and everything else the pattern required.

Tip #2: I should've sewn the first mock-up before buying the dress fabric

Luckily, the pattern looked amazing on the bride with all the alterations. But if the pattern had been awful and I had already bought all the materials, that would have been an expensive disaster.

We had to visit four different fabric stores to find everything we needed, I'm not sure if that is a lot though. Let's just say that the end of the summer is not the best time to buy wedding dress fabric. 

Pure white lace with a scalloped edge was the hardest fabric to find, there were off-whites and red and green, but not white.

We estimated the cost for supplies to be about 150-180 euros, and that was quite close to the initial supplies. There were additional costs down the road so budgeting an extra 50 euros would've given us more accurate amount. E.g. At first I thought that covering buttons would be the best option, but those turned out ugly -> I had to go buy new buttons (about 32 euros).  But I can re-

purpose those uncovered buttons later, so it is not a complete loss.

Tip #3: Be prepared to change plans if needed and budget some extra money for those changes. 

Mock-ups and pattern alterations 

The 2nd mock-up

In my opinion, wedding dresses require multiple mock-ups. I made two mock-ups for the bodice and three for the lace top. 

I started with the original pattern in the bride-to-be's size. 

I'm glad we didn't have to adjust the length of the bodice, but other alterations were needed:

- I had to raise the neckline for about 1,5cm (0.5 inches).

- Move the seam of the middle front piece.

- Add a dart to the neckline, so that it would flop and it would sit properly 

- I added 1cm extra fabric to the back, by cutting the back piece with a 1,5cm seam allowance, but sewed the zipper with a 1cm seam allowance 

Trick #1: I used a contrasting color pen to mark my alterations to the mock-up and fabric with even squares, it was so much easier to measure the needed alterations to the pattern pieces.

The second mock-up 

I learned from my own wedding dress project, that the second mock-up can end up being much better than originally thought. So I decided to take a risk and sew it from a proper dress fabric and include lining.

The second mock-up fit like a glove with all the alterations and we even called it our emergency wedding dress, in case something would happen to the end result.

Sewing the Dress

Bodice pieces

After sewing the second mock-up, I cut out all the pieces from the duchess satin and lining and sewed
the bodice, the hem and the lining according to the instructions. I even remembered to use my pinking shears to cut out the pieces from the satin.

 And of course, we added pockets to the side seams .

The lace/mesh top

This was absolutely the most difficult part of the pattern. I made the first mock-up and it didn't fit at all, the arms didn't have enough movement and the shoulders were too wide. 

Raising the shoulders was easy, but getting enough movement to the shoulders was difficult.

I googled how-to videos and finally called my sewing friend who had helped me to sew my own wedding dress.

Final lace mock-up

Here is what I did with the lace bodice:

- I discussed with the bride-to-be, how much the shoulders need movement. We concluded that it would be enough to be able to hug the guests -> so about 90-100 degrees was our goal

- I raised the armpit about 1,5cm (I didn't think it would work but it did)

- I lowered the curve of the sleeve by about 0.5cm

- I had to check the fit of the sleeve twice to the front and back piece (on paper)

- And bought a proper lace fabric to test these out

In the end, the top also fit and I could it from the fabric, three times, well the front three times, and the back pieces twice. 

Why?  Because I didn't check the alignment of the lace flowers at first and the bride-to-be wanted to include the flowers on the scalloped edge to the bodice, and 2nd I screwed up the center front by 1cm, so the flower was off-center and it looked bad. Also, the placement of bust darts was better when the dart was hidden in a flower, it didn't show as much when the dart wash sewn to a place where there was only mesh.

So, check, double, and triple-check your pieces before cutting 

 I haven't sewn lace or mesh in ages, my old sewing machine would rip the fabric to pieces and I have to admit that I was a bit scared of how my machine would handle a delicate fabric. In the end, it worked really well. 

The mesh/lace felt quite itchy in the seams when worn and the pattern instructions said to use organza, but it also felt too scratchy. I made French seams for the shoulder seams and side seams because that seam was visible and for sleeves and to finish off center back for buttons, I covered the seam allowances in satin bias tape. It is much softer against the skin. I didn't do any finishing for the armholes, the satin bias tape would show and other options were too scratchy. I just told the bride to be careful when moving her arms.

The neckline

The neckline

This is where I had the most trouble. It was difficult to get the uneven scalloped edge to align with the neckline perfectly. I had holes between the pieces, some floppy places in the edges and the fabric had an extra fold at one place. I'm so glad I can adjust the speed of my machine very easily and this time my machine was in its slowest setting.

I had to use a seam ripper for the extra fold and I ended up with a hole in the main fabric, not good. I fixed the hole by sewing a small flower from the extra fabric to cover the hole. It really worked and I don't think anyone even noticed my fix.  I fixed floppy places with invisible hand stitches, the bride had to endure me folding and pinning all the floppy places, while she was wearing the dress. But it was totally worth it.

I love the buttons :)

I found this subtitled tutorial very helpful when sewing the neckline

The buttons

At first, I decided to make the button loops and the buttons myself, but the covered buttons looked
awful, and lost my tutorial on how to make elastic button loops. So I had to change to premade elastic loops and pearly white buttons and I'm glad I did. 

This tutorial helped with the buttons

The rest of the dress

After sewing the lace top, I finished sewing the hem. 

The only problem I had, was the placement of the front pleats. I think I redid the pleats four or five times, before finally getting the placement symmetrically enough in relation to the bodice. I'm surprised how well the lace took the ripping of the seam and in the end the seam was covered with a blue ribbon belt, so the unevenness didn't show.

Tip #4: Don't be a perfectionist. Sometimes the mistakes will only turn worse if you use the seam ripper too many times. I don't think the lace could take any more turns with the seam ripper and there are mistakes that can be quite easily covered. Like the hole in the mesh or a bit wonky pleat on the waist.

The zipper

I used an invisible zipper and I got it right the first time. 

Trick #2 I highly recommend using an invisible zipper foot and both basting and pinning the zipper in place before sewing. And turn the speed of you down if needed.

Hemming

I had to shorten the hem about 10cm /4 inches in the front and I intentionally left the back hem longer. I used double-sided fusible interfacing to turn the hem and when it didn't hold, I sewed the hem by hand with invisible stitches.

The final result 

What did I learn? 

Many new sewing skills: I've never made French seams before and this was the first time I tried plastic boning in the top, it wasn't nearly as difficult as I first suspected. I gained confidence in my pattern modification skills and now I know that I can tackle even harder fabrics with my machine. 

The dress wasn't sewn perfectly, but in the end, it didn't matter that much. Dim autumn lightning certainly helped a lot and there were ways to cover little mistakes so that you wouldn't even notice them.

The bride was so happy with her dress and I think her wedding day was just perfect. The dress fit perfectly and didn't tear, only her hair got stuck in the top buttons (but no buttons were lost when fixing that). She was so happy with how pretty the sleeves turned out and I think a long-sleeved dress was perfect for an autumn wedding.  And who doesn't love these sleeves?