In the Studio: mother's wedding dress

(For more reading, see Meghan's dress update experience, our first and second installments of wedding saga, and what we wore to each others' weddings.)

My husband and I have been together since we were 19, eight years, so the "when are you getting married?" question was not new to us. I knew we would be together forever and at some point there would be a wedding, but for some reason I was very superstitious about planning our wedding before we were actually engaged. The only things I knew before the moment he popped the question were that I wanted to get married outside, and I would be wearing my mother's dress.

My parents have been married for 38 amazing years, and I only hope my marriage will form into as strong and loving a partnership as my parents have. I'm a sucker for tradition and symbolism, and I could think of no better way to begin the next phase of my life than wearing the dress my mom wore to begin hers.

However, 1975 and 2013 are very different, and as a costume designer I couldn't help but want to put my personal touch on the dress. There were also several key physical differences between my mom when she wore the dress and me. My mom was 18 and 5'6" (not including the platforms she wore), with the narrow frame of a 70s era high schooler. I am 27 and 5'3" (and I wear flats), with the curvier frame of a 21st century woman.

Getting the dress out of the box for the first time

I brought the dress into the Studio before I got it cleaned and we discussed some preliminary ideas. The sleeves definitely had to go, and we had to figure out a solution to my height problem. My dad and I both loved the cuffs of the sleeves, so I wanted to incorporate them somehow.

Sleeve option: 1 of 100,000

Marilyn's appraisal

I have mentioned in the past that I missed my true calling as a Romantic era painting, and we knew the empire waist and scoop neck of this dress would be flattering. To go with that theme, we thought a ruffled cap sleeve would bring the look together.

Trying to figure out bustling

Then 6 weeks of diligent dry cleaning (by the best in the world, TRS Cleaners), my dress was white again! I showed it off during our Moms in the Studio visit.

What you can't see: gaping open back and 5" heels

Then it was time to finally bite the bullet and actually take apart the dress. Multiple panic attacks later, the dress lay in 5 still recognizable pieces: the bodice, skirt, sash, and two sleeves.

Ready to walk down the aisle!

It was ultimately decided that, regardless of how "trendy" (ie. not classic) it may be, I really wanted a high-low style skirt and no one could stop me. It reflected the bohemian look I now wanted (shown in our earlier blog), solved the problem of the dress being several inches too long in the front, and quelled my fears of dying of heat stroke in the hot June in Southern Maryland sun.

Note Meghan in her reception dress in the background!

And then I got way too excited and literally safety pinned it to my body

Then the dress was ready to put back together. Though I approached the very first cuts of the dress as if I were to diffuse a bomb, the dress didn't explode and I had no regrets about my decision to shorten it.

excited!

Once the dress was back in one piece, I began the long, long process of changing my mind every other day regarding the length of the dress, the gathering in the front, the sleeves, pretty much everything. As it turns out, I am the worst client ever.

When I cut the skirt down to make it high-low, the waistline became much too big around to have the smooth effect of my mother's dress. My first instinct was to gather it evenly all the way around.

Not quite perfect, but ok for now

The exact height of the high low was agonizing to figure out. I am somewhat short and curvy (see: Romantic period) and I didn't want something that would make me look even shorter and/or curvier, but I also didn't want to show off a ton of leg on my wedding day.

A matter of an inch makes a huge difference

Calling in the expert

The sleeves were a constant struggle. I had become obsessed with the idea of a dropped sleeve, but I seemed to be the only person who thought it was a good idea. This was a lesson in making the client happy, because even though I couldn't get anyone to agree with me in the beginning, I was ultimately happier because it was what I wanted.

With? Without? Higher? Lower?

Then the subject of my skirt came up again. It was decided that the gathering was too much, so I decided to do a few large pleats on either side in the back. It smoothed out the front, and added a really beautiful line to the back.

New front

Then it was finally time to actually close the dress. The original dress had a zipper, and even though those old fashioned zippers hold up awesomely, the sizing wasn't right on me and I wanted a more "classic" look in the back to go with the pleating. It is possible to make your own corset lacing, but it is extremely time consuming and difficult to make evenly, so I went to the bridal shop down the block and bought a corset kit. Installing a corset back is very similar to installing a zipper, which is to say difficult and time consuming. But so worth it.

And then I was done!!!

Just kidding. I changed my mind about sixteen more times after that. See in the above picture how the lace is all curled?

Some background: throughout this whole process of updating our wedding gowns together, Meghan and I would periodically hold up our half-finished dresses and say, "I really REALLY don't want to do this, but would it look better if I did?" And the other would almost always have to say, "Yes, I'm sorry, I am so sorry, but it would look better if you did that thing that is going to take five to ten hours of hand stitching/seam ripping/taking apart and putting back together." It was the exact gentle encouragement each of us needed to not let our stitcher selves convince our bride selves that we really didn't need to do the extra work. It is so much easier when the client is someone else!

So I slowly, sadly, held up my dress and asked Meghan, "Do I need to stabilize all this lace?" And she said, "Yes, I'm sorry, I am so sorry, but it would look better." So I stitched down all the lace on the collar by hand, and then I stitched down the ten feet of lace on the skirt. But it really did "finish" the look.

The sleeves were still bothering me, and a friend advised me to thin out the straps to show off the lace and give the top a more delicate look.

Then there was the issue of bustling. My train was fairly long so I needed multiple bustles to get the dress up off of the ground for the running around in the grass and dancing part of the night. I ultimately decided to attach five ribbons at different points in the back, that would tie to five ribbons at the same bustle point at the base of my corset. I stabilized it three or four times to keep the weight of the skirt from ripping the top during the reception. The style of bustling I chose is called a French bustle, or an under bustle, in which the folds of the dress are visible.

1st: the back unbustled
2nd: trying out a French style bustle (though not the one I went with)
3rd: trying out an American style, or over bustle

(Full disclosure: the following picture is of one of my amazing readers

and best friends holding my dress as I bustle it at my parents' house

about an hour before the ceremony rehearsal.)

After taking apart and readjusting the front of the skirt one more time to mirror the pleats in the back ("Should I?" "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."), I was back to thinking about sleeves. I had a brilliant late night brainstorm and decided to widen the neck to a boat style neckline, and add the drop sleeve with only about an inch between the neck lace and the top of the cuff.

After a veil/fascinator/nothing back-and-forth that reflected my dress process, I finally just bit the bullet, walked into the bridal shop nearest my house, and had a total "Say Yes to the Dress" moment.

Finally, finally, finally. My dress was ACTUALLY done!

Totally cried when I saw myself in the mirror.

The sleeves, the lace, the skirt, the shoes, the veil, everything was perfect.

Special thanks to Meghan, Marilyn, and my mom for their amazing guidance and patience, and to our AMAZING wedding photographer, Britt Croft of Britt Croft Photography, who was so great to work with and captured our day and my dress perfectly.

In September, we posted about our Moms in the Studio day. Brittany and I invited our moms to the studio to discuss our wedding dresses! Both Brittany and I wanted to wear our moms' wedding dresses, but we both needed to do some major updating before that could happen. As beautiful as the dresses are and were (in 1975 and 1986), we wanted to pull them into 2013! Months of work later, our dresses are done!! Check out the transformation of my dress:

Left to Right: Marilyn's Wedding Dress, My Mom's Wedding Dress, Brittany's Mom's Wedding Dress

Before any work has been done. Look at those sleeves!!

For now, the sash is just a strip of fabric and a strip of trim (held by my mom hiding behind the skirt!)

First: The Sleeves

Goodbye sleeves! They were stitched on like any sleeve would be so they were very simple and unobtrusive to remove.

So happy the sleeves are gone!

Playing around with the sleeve length. I knew I wanted a cap sleeve to give a little more coverage for my Catholic wedding, but the shoulders were a little to broad for me for the sleeves to remain the same.

Next: Tackling the neckline!

Scoop neck?

V-Neck? Decision for now: wait until mom comes to town and have her help you decide ;)

Beading Decision

After months of working on my dress and feeling that it wasn't quite right, I realized that what the dress needed was to be de-beaded. The entire bodice was beaded with pearl beads and sequins which were very fitting for 1986, but not so much for 2013. After struggling with my decision and talking to my mom, I bit the bullet at took all of the beads off. (Side note #1: This picture was taken while my car was getting serviced. Weird looks all around.) (Side note #2: That entire bag of beads is missing, guess the VW guys got a present!)

The back was easy (but time consuming) to de-bead. The front was a different story. Many of the beads had been glued on so I had to take all of the lace off completely. I reused lace from the sleeves to recover the bodice.

No neckline, no sleeves, no lace! At this point, the front piece of lace was the only one I had removed from the sleeves so if you look carefully, you can tell that the bodice is mostly bare.

What a train!

Plain lace on the back

After many hours of cutting threads and plucking beads, I had enough plain lace to cover the entire bodice!! To make sure that the lace would lay flat on my body, I put the dress on a dress form to pull and pin the lace into place.

All of the lace sewn on except for the overlapping pieces going over the bust! To avoid Madonna cone-boobs, I cut a slit in each lace piece going over the bust. This way, I was able to pull each half flat over the curves.

Not all of it came out perfect though... Do you see the oval piece on this side that's a little bubbly? I know it's small and not that noticeable, but the perfectionist in me had to fix it.

Enter Mom :)

While the boys were out bachelor partying, my mom and I sequestered ourselves to the studio to FINISH THE DRESS! Since all of the lace had been sewn on, all that was left was the giant decision of what to do with the neckline and the sleeves. Many hours, a trip to Hobby Lobby, and a tired Meghan later, the dress was DONE.

I repurposed the lace that originally trimmed the sleeves to complete the neckline. They were already cut and created the perfect scoop out of the mesh. The trim on the sleeves is a new addition but the scalloped edge fit perfectly with the sweetheart neckline of the dress.

In a stroke of pure BRILLIANCE, my mom suggested rather than having the sash follow around my waist line, to have it start at my waist in the front but taper into the basque waist in the back. It was the final touch that really tied the sash into the dress.