Clothing Engineer

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not into blogging anymore. The world has gotten too weird and crazy since Covid, and in addition to not being keen on putting myself out there anymore I’m very busy doing other things. I made an exception this time though, because…

I got married!

We got formally engaged in June, and married 2.5 months later in August.

I did not want the standard 1-2 year engagement. Covid and everything that happened in the meantime had caused enough delays! I’m 37, he’s 43, and on top of dating for several years I’ve known him as a friend since I was 20. I had no doubts about his character or suitability as a husband. As soon as I had that ring on my finger I got to work planning the wedding!

There was a church:

flowers and candles:

and a cake!

Of course I made my dress.

With such a tight timeline I had to be extremely organized and deliberate in how I worked…and not too picky. We had a LOT going on in those 2.5 months. Some of that was directly related to the wedding, like Pre-Cana and wedding planning. But a lot of it was not at all related to the wedding, like dealing with the unending nightmare that is managing and settling his parents’ estate. (PSA: actually talk to your heirs about your wishes and expectations, both with regard to your estate and any potential health crisis. Make sure you make use of “payable upon death” and keep your beneficiaries updated. Consolidate accounts and make sure all of your documents are in order. As you get older and/or your health starts declining, try to de-clutter your home and keep it maintained. And if you have a child that is special needs, make sure there is an actual plan in place for them after you pass. No one likes to think about their eventual death and estates tend to bring out bad behavior in people, but doing this will make the process much less stressful for your executor(s) and/or successor trustee(s). As soon as my husband and I got married we made sure to update our beneficiaries, as this experience has taught us that it never hurts to be prepared.)

We had less than 30 people (including us) at our wedding and while the small size helped, it still takes time and effort to pull these things together. There wasn’t much time to second-guess and be picky. I had to make up my mind and work quickly to coordinate everything. I used Pinterest sparingly (helps with keeping costs down and expectations reasonable) and did not micromanage. I gave my vendors a general idea of what I wanted and what I was going for, then stepped back and trusted them to do their thing. I was not the least bit disappointed. Vendors have been there, done that, and know what works and what doesn’t work. Listen to them; they know what they are doing and want your event to be successful.

The Dress

Planning Stage

I actually didn’t already have a dress in mind, so I made a few muslins of various patterns to see how they looked.

At first I was going to make this dress, Burda 4/2017 #105:

During the muslin process I discovered a possible error in the pattern with the back waistband. I found all the gathering was getting annoying and would complicate fitting. Rather than spend my limited time trying to work it out, I decided to abandon it and try something else.

The next one up was Burda 3/2017 #110:

My mom urged me to try this one because of the elegant lines and feminine sweetheart neckline. While I loved the bodice, I wasn’t crazy about the skirt. It tapered too much and I didn’t like the back godet. I wanted less of a fishtail and more of a trumpet shape.

Next I tried Vogue V1616:

I liked the skirt on this one, especially with the little sweep train, but I found the bodice fit was pretty bad. It also lacked the feminine sweetness of the Burda pattern, so I didn’t have the patience to keep trying to make it work.

So for my final dress, I combined the bodice of Burda 3/2017 #110 with the skirt from Vogue V1616.

Fitting

I didn’t do a great job this time recording all of my adjustments because there was so much tweaking and this was a one-time project.

I started with a size 40 for the Burda bodice.

I moved the front princess seam inward 1/2″ on each side.
Lengthened the bodice 3/4″
Took in the back princess seams at the waist, I think around 1/2″ each
I found the straps very short as drafted, and they dug into my armpits and made the shaping of the princess seams too high. I had to lengthen the front and back bodice straps about 1″ each.
I found the back straps set very wide apart. They said that you can wear a normal bra with this bodice; I found that was not the case, at least not out of the envelope. I ended up taking in the middle back panels and widening the side back panels by the same amount (around 1/2″?) in order to get the strap to not be so wide-set. On my wedding day I wore a strapless bra with clear straps, and my husband dutifully applied double-sided tape in the back to ensure that my bra straps would not be visible and the top of the bra back would not peek out from under the dress.
I found the entire upper back was too wide, and had to take it in probably an inch or so.

I started with a 14 for the Vogue skirt. (14 in Vogue is like a 40 in Burda.)

I added some width to the hips, basically traced out to a size 18. I took in the upper back of the back princess seams the same amount as the bodice, and then tweaked the shape of the curve to match my lower back.
I found there was too much extra fabric in the front skirt, and it was too curved and didn’t hang right. I took in in the front princess seams to make them straighter, I think about 1/2″ each.
I had to lengthen the skirt much more than I thought I would, I think about 2-3″

I did a bunch of nips and tucks along the way, then took apart the muslin and transferred the adjustments to my pattern pieces before cutting out the dress.

Materials

For the fashion fabric I used the heavy crepe de chine from Dharma Trading. This is basically 4-ply silk crepe. This was the most economical source of four-ply silk crepe that I could find. The fabric requirements for this dress are on the more modest side so I could afford to splurge for a luxurious fabric. The nice thing about undyed silk is that the color is this very flattering color that isn’t bright white but not quite ivory. (I think they call it diamond white.)

I used Pro-Sheer Elegance Medium for the bodice and straps. The entire bodice and the straps are fully interfaced.

Per the book Bridal Couture by Susan Khalje, I underlined the bodice and skirt. To keep the character of the 4-ply silk crepe as unchanged as possible I used a silk crepe de chine I found in my stash, also from Dharma Trading. This made the dress nearly opaque, though it was maddening attaching everything by hand. Plus no matter how careful I was there was some shifting. With less of a time crunch I would have soaked the silk in gelatin to help stabilize it, but I didn’t want to have to prewash, soak, press, sew, then wash AGAIN to rinse out the gelatin and do all that pressing again.

The lining was a white superfine bemberg from Cleaner’s Supply. It was great for the skirt, but it had a tendency to stick to my skin during the heat and humidity. On the day of the wedding I dusted my torso with some translucent face powder before slipping into my dress, which helped a lot.

The zipper was an ordinary YKK invisible zip, also from Cleaner’s Supply. I was going to use a bridal weight zipper, but it was way too heavy duty for this style. Those are designed for bodices that are more structured, beaded, etc.

To finish the hem I used bridal tulle from Bodikian Textiles.

All my stitching was done with a lightweight silk thread.

Construction

Working with four-ply silk crepe is a dream. It has a thick, buttery feel and is much easier than other silks when it comes to pressing and sewing. I used a silk organza press cloth when working on the face of the fabric. When it came time to press the straps and neckline edge of the bodice I used a wooden clapper to make sure the edges would be nice and crisp.

I still had to adjust the fit once the dress was put together. I found that letting out the side seams for a total of 1″ more room made it not quite as form-fitting, but it was much more comfortable to sit in and flowed a bit nicer. Plus I didn’t have to worry about my side seams suddenly ripping apart in the middle of the ceremony. The downside is that despite my fine thread and needles the silk had tiny holes in the side seam from removing the stitching. I steamed it, I lightly misted it, I gently rubbed the holes with my fingers, but I still couldn’t make them entirely disappear. No one noticed though since you had to be very close and looking at the side seam in bright light.

When it came time to hem there was one section that was higher than the rest and as a result I had to hem my dress a good 3/4″ shorter than I had wanted. I had no choice but to shrug and let it go. It was actually it was a blessing in disguise because it was much easier to walk in, especially when we did our photos outside. I had a giant bouquet (2.5 pounds of flowers!) so I literally had my hands full much of the time and was glad to not be fussing with my dress anytime I needed to walk up a little hill or on uneven ground.

To do the hem I used the technique recommended by Kenneth King for 4-ply silk crepe. Since I had the underlining I was able to stitch the tulle to the underlining only, for a completely invisible hem.

I made my lining stop at the front hem length, rather than go all the way back to the train. I’m not sure if this is the proper way to do it or not, as I have zero experience with trains and I’m almost certain the Vogue pattern had you cut the lining the same length as the train, but at least I knew my lining would stay hidden the entire time. Since I had just a little sweep train I didn’t bustle it. It was easy enough to manage when I went around talking to our guests during the reception dinner.

After the muslin stage the entire process took me around a week, from start to finish. I remember I took a couple of days to cut it out and then spent an entire day constructing on the sewing machine, with another evening or two spent finishing up the lining, sewing the straps to the inside by hand, and pressing. I needed help with marking the hem so hemming was done separately a few weeks later, with another couple of evenings dedicated to sewing the hem in place by hand and doing final pressing.

To make things less chaotic the morning of the wedding we stayed at the reception venue the night before. I took along my steam generator iron and and pressing ham and gave my dress a blast of steam the night before hanging it up overnight. The morning of the wedding, while I was waiting for my hairdresser to arrive, I took my pressing ham and carefully pressed and steamed out any wrinkles I had missed the night before.

The Big Day

A lot of people, even random strangers, came over to say “I love your dress!” I was surprised as it was so simple compared to the usual bridal gown, with none of the usual beading and tulle and elaborate tucks and draping and sparkly trims. I felt like it was the right choice though for our daytime micro-wedding.

With such a simple dress I wanted a big cascading bouquet. My florist certainly delivered!

Originally I was going to use a beaded bridal belt, but I felt like it was too bulky and formal and just not the look I was going for. Instead I accessorized it with a simple ribbon and flower sash I found on Etsy. It fit perfectly within the front princess seams.

After the Wedding

The day went better than I thought it would. Everyone rallied around us! The children we had invited were so well-behaved that you wouldn’t have even known there were kids there. It was 90+ degrees and very humid but the church and reception venue were air conditioned. By the time we did our couple photos after the reception it was early evening and just starting to cool off a bit.

When I finally took my dress off at the end of the day it was in quite a state. Somehow bits of twigs and grass made their way between the tulle in the hem and the underlining, not to mention the hem was pretty frayed and dirty in some areas. Some of the hand stitching had come out from the tulle too. I decided to take a chance and washed it by hand. Despite being very gentle it shrunk quite a bit. I was not surprised or overly upset, as I didn’t prewash/preshrink the fabric and knew this had a high likelihood of happening. My work was captured in many photos and wedding dresses are not something you wear more than once. And as my husband pointed out: “I didn’t get to keep my tux!” I know people sometimes like to save dresses thinking that a possible future daughter might like to wear it, but I feel like if I had a daughter she would probably want to choose her own dress. I would happily make her a dress of her own choosing and she could always wear my earrings, hair clip, and/or sash. If she really wanted to have the same dress I still have the pattern.

People keep asking me how married life is. It is great, better than I thought I would be! Neither one of us has been married before so it has been an enormous life change, but adjusting to living together and operating as a new family unit has gone more smoothly than I anticipated. We’ve had a lot of support, and everyone has been super happy and excited for us.