Wedding Series: Outfit Part 2 (the Dress)

In Wednesday’s post, I talked about my eclectic approach to the wedding outfit and the things that I felt were important to create the perfect feel. My wedding dress was the central part of that story. Honey always dreamed of a big wedding in a church, seeing her bride in a dress at the end of the aisle. I thought her dream was a pretty good reason to wear a dress for our wedding. I don’t particularly love dresses but knew that if I made it I would love my dress. I also knew that I would want to get a lot of use out of any dress I created so the Infinity Dress was the perfect choice.

After searching the fabric stores here and finding nothing, I bought what I needed during a trip to the US in June. When I went to pay, I learned that the fabric I choose ended up being on super sale and I got 7 yards for $24.95…an unintended deal when I was prepared to pay a bit more for my wedding dress!

The fabric was gorgeous so, although I’ve sewn t-shirts, I was very nervous about messing this project up. I delayed starting the dress for months but as the Fall approached, I figured I had better start in enough time to find an alternate outfit if needed.

(Another super-cropped image above).

I borrowed a rotary cutter and mat from a friend, gathered my courage (a.k.a. my mother in law) and begun measuring and pinning! I used a combination of two blogs for instructions and created a dress with a very tall waistband, which I am very happy with. We measured several times, pinned slowly, and carefully cut (it would have been impossible to get a good cut without a rotary cutter because of the stretch and slight curl at the edges). I was a bit terrified to start sewing my dress and almost let my mother in law do it for me. I practiced on a small bit of scrap and it puckered terribly with my zig zag stitch and the tension was off. When reading the manual (what a practical thing to do!) my mother in law found a stitch used for things like bathing suits. I tried it and it was perfect. It creates tiny, pucker-free seams. With this new discovery, I sewed the whole thing myself.

The other instructions out there say to sew the straps and waistband in all at the same time, but I envisioned slippage that way so I sewed the straps in place first and then the skirt.

For our wedding, I wrapped it with the waistband under the bust and both straps over one shoulder as though a tunic. I have since worn the dress to another wedding and wrapped it with two shoulder straps and wore a wool blazer and black boots. It looked entirely different and I’m confident that the half-dozen other combinations I’ve come up with will mean that my staple dress carries me through a lot of occasions.

Want to read more about our wedding planning? Read the introduction here. Next week I’ll post about our wedding venue. Photos by Kat Goldin Images.