Meghan's Wedding Dress Roundup

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.

Tired Meghan!  But so happy the dress is done and beautiful :)

 Now onto the professional pictures!  A huge thank you to my photographer Autumn Harrison!!

Moms in the Studio

A few Saturdays ago, Meghan's and my moms came up to the studio for an afternoon of tea and wedding talk.  I made cucumber sandwiches, Meghan made lemon cookies, and Marilyn created a teascape worthy of the queen.  This was the first time either of our moms would be touring the studio and meeting Marilyn, so we were really excited to show off our work... and our dresses!

Both Meghan and I are going to update our mothers' dresses for our own weddings, but we will not be doing any major updates until after our current studio projects are finished.  We wanted our moms to see us in their dresses, cleaned and in their full glory before we changed them in any way.  We had a blast trying on our mothers' gowns and talking in depth about what we were going to do with them to update the dresses for our own weddings. And of course we took pictures.

***ATTENTION: SPOILER ALERT! If you are the fiance of either Meghan or myself, you should not go any farther in this post. I'm looking at you, Nick and Steve!!***

Now, then.

My parents got married on August 2, 1975, and Meghan's parents wed exactly 11 years later (to the day!)   Both gowns are long sleeved, and with ruffles and long, wide trains.  However, the differences in style and cut between 1975 and 1986 are immediately clear.  Meghan's dress has intricate beading and lace with a chiffon overlay to give it a "dreamy" effect; very Princess Di!  The lace on my mom's dress is of the large 70s style flowers seen so often in flashback reels, and the belled sleeves and empire waist popular of the time.  Both dresses have a flowy vintage feel that is very different from the structured bodices that are so popular right now.  We will be documenting our progress as we merge old and new to create something perfectly suited to our personal styles, without losing the deeply personal effect of wearing our mothers' dresses.

With the dresses on, we talked about our initial ideas for each update, which you can see a bit of on our Pinterest pages for Meghan and me.  We will discuss more details as we go, and share our updates here.

And without further ado, The Gowns!

Meghan; note the high collar, sweetheart neckline, and basque waist. 

The train

Meghan and her mom

Me: note the wide neck, belled sleeves, and empire waist.  

The train

Me and my mom (don't be fooled, I'm wearing obscenely high heels)

Flashback Friday: Afro-Centric Wedding Ensemble

For this Flashback Friday, we're harkening back to a post Marilyn wrote for the Price George's County Women's Journal Bride Guide:

Early August 2009 was centered around creating a unique, Afro-centric wedding ensemble that incorporated traditions from several cultures and countries.   This bride and her mom brought me beautiful white embroidered cut-work fabric to work with.  Early on we agreed to line it in a platinum silver to reflect the metallic embroidery.  After studying a number of photos of traditional and updated Nigerian dresses, I was able to work out a design that pleased everyone.  The white fabric had a distinctive shaped border on both edges and I was able to cut that off in long strips and use it as the hem on both the bodice and the skirt.  To highlight the shaping, I made the silver lining of the skirt just a tad longer, sweeping both layers back into a train.  When the bride walked in for her final fitting, it was waiting for on my dress form and looked breathtaking!  So another happy bride walked down the aisle and that makes me very happy.

Vintage Gowns from the Shop

It is smack dab in the middle of bridal season here and everywhere, and this bridal (etc) shop has been buzzing with wedding talk even more than usual.  Meghan and I both got engaged around the same time this year, and will be getting married around the same time next year.  This week, Meghan returned from a visit to her parents' house with her mother's wedding dress, and we clearly had to take a break to check it out and play with it.


We oohed and aahed and made some plans for how she will want to update the Princess Diana look for her 2013 wedding.  Then I brought out my mother's dress, which I just got back from the cleaners and will also be updating to wear at my own wedding: vintage hippie chic from an actual 70s hippie dress.  Then Marilyn brought down her own wedding dress from 1977, a beaded sheath dress complete with adorable jacket extension, and we had a grand old time comparing the styles and decades, and getting really excited for all the things to come.  

1977, 1986, 1975

We can't wait to begin the process of updating these sentimental dresses for our own weddings, and to show our mothers (and you guys!) the results.  We would love to hear about your vintage wedding dress (or anything else) experiences as well; leave a comment or send a picture!