My Wedding Dress

When I was a little girl I had a rule, I liked to wear dresses, but if I did they had to pass the spin test. The spin test involved me spinning around as fast as I could to see if there was enough swish in the skirt. Even as a bride on my wedding day I gave my dress the spin test - it passed with flying colours, cornflower blue mostly, and that was how I knew this was the perfect dress for me.

The time has come. I'm finally posting on my wedding dress.

This is probably to most important post I'll ever write on the most important dress I'll ever wear. I don't want to sound shallow, but even as someone who hadn't planned on what kind of wedding dress I wanted, I still knew that I wanted to look my best on that most important day of my life.

I previously described my route to finding my dress here and the need to shout from the roof tops about it has been burning in me ever since.

My dress was designed and made by Joanne Fleming at Joanne Fleming Design.

Her studio is located in Brighton opposite the famous Pavilion and during the design process I visited the studio four times. Each visit I felt very welcome and excited to see my dress getting closer and closer to completion, what was really wonderful was that while constantly remaining calm and cool about the process Joanne became like a friend that I could go to when I wanted to gush about all things wedding.

I went with a fairly certain idea about what I wanted, something like the Annie design I had seen online, but with a few tweaks and changes, most importantly the change in the sash around the waist. Small things like choosing fabrics,  lace finishings, colours and beading meant that I could make the dress my own and that helped make it all the more special. I wasn't really looking for something specifically vintage, but it ended up being heavily inspired by the Dior new look dresses of the 50s but lets face it, they suit my shape so why not?

The original sketch design for my dress

My final dress was a tea-length silk and organza dress in ivory with a lace overlay over the bodice and a cornflower blue (that and teal are my favourite colours) silk sash and flower. Something that made the dress so different was that in the tulle underskirt there was a silk binding in the same cornflower blue silk (this is something that I believe is one of JFD's signature flairs) that gave a flash of colour as the skirt moved.

Photos courtesy of JFD on Facebook and my mum @JanetteWphotos on Instagram

The dress was surprisingly comfortable, the fabric was light and the bodice was secure but wearable, I can't really describe the feeling the moment I put the dress on I felt fantastic and I knew without looking in the mirror that I would probably never look that good again. It felt magical.

Adding a few accessories, a simple veil also made by Jo, my Irregular Choice shoes and my vintage cream gloves, bought and monogrammed by my maid of honour Sadie and I was ready to go.

I wore the dress all day, and the next day I was really very sad that I couldn't put it on again. I am now trying to create elaborate costumes that would mean I could wear it again.

I received so many compliments on the dress, as I'm sure every bride does, and a lot of people seemed surprised by what I ended up wearing to be married in (in a good way) saying that a long traditional dress wouldn't have suited me. I think I agree with them, I wouldn't have felt right in a long dress.

Dress in Durham City copyright Alan Gibson Photography

I was and still am so pleased with how it all turned out. My husband said I was stunning, or that he was stunned by me (...he then proceeded to make a bad Star Trek joke about 'Set Jennie's to stun!') and that's all that really mattered to me. You can probably tell from the smile in the pictures how happy I was and it wasn't all down to the dress - but it sure helped.

The Swish
Copyright Alan Gibson Photography

Vintage Inspirtation: Recipe for My Perfect Vintage-Style Wedding Dress

Hi there, today I have another wedding update. I had my first dress fitting with the fantastic JoanneFleming last week. What a treat! 

But now that I have decided on who and how I am getting my dream dress I thought I should share my experience of making my choice.

Here's my recipe for a perfect wedding dress:

Take one picky girl,

Add one helpful but not quite right shop visit,

Mix with some very stale vintage,

And a sprinkle of wedding fairs,

Bake for two months with a very rude eBay seller and a Chinese Counterfeit,

Top of with some forum research,

And serve with a flair of local designer!

I knew from the moment I was engaged that I would want a fit and flair vintage 1950s style dress. I had watched enough Don't Tell the Bride to know that I liked very few of the typical shaped wedding dresses. One of the designer dresses I liked from magazines was the Rosealba by Stephanie Allin however it seemed a dress like this would cost around £2000! Far above my budget... but served as great inspiration for my subsequent searches.

The Rosealba

So on one Sunday some time ago I decided to go wedding dress shopping with my maid of honour. Unfortunately no-one had told us that wedding dress shops are rarely open on Sundays or that you typically need appointments to go inside - It would seem browsing isn't something wedding dress shops allow. 

We eventually happened into OZone of Brighton and I tried on several dresses some long, some short and while they were very helpful they just didn't have the kind of dress I wanted. They offered to make changes to an existing dress design so that it would be more like what I wanted and advised me on a quote- for £1600!!! I felt it was just too much for an adapted designer dress... 

Furthermore after a few wedding fairs it was clear that finding a short dress may be expensive and this pushed me to dabble in trying to find a vintage dress. 

Months of eBay watching and vintage trawling occurred. But being a size 12-14 meant that I found very few genuine vintage dresses as they were just too small - especially the good quality ones. I decided to risk buying a dress on eBay on a whim, mainly because it was £35 and I thought It may be worth it. The dress was photographed badly and listed as '80s does 50s', unfortunately when it arrived it was exactly that. A sort of net lace fabric with an off white lining and it was quite a bit too big. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't quite what I wanted. So back on eBay it went, I managed to sell it for £50 so I did make a small profit. However I'm fairly confident this was for a royal wedding party as the buyer 'needed the item delivered by Friday the 29th of April'...  

1980s does 1950s vintage lace wedding dress

I then experimented with vintage replicas like those found on Dolly Couture. I have to say that some of these look gorgeous! And I was very tempted but worries of import tax and shipping costs kept me from buying. So when a dress that looked like one by Dolly Couture appeared on eBay in my size I decided to buy- for £100. 

Dolly Couture The Beverlywood and The Cambridge

When the dress arrived it was nice but it was clearly a fake version of the dress as it lacked labels etc. while i was impressed with the fabric some I the finishing was very cheap and there was what looked like a spot to blood under a pin tuck on the bodice. Of course I was not happy with this at all and asked to rerun the dress. I was very rudely dismissed by the seller who accused me of damaging the dress so I could return it - can you imagine how angry I was at that! During the months that followed there was much to-ing and fri-ing but I did eventually manage to get my money back. It was, however, a very surprising experience for me and was the first real eBay trouble I have had as a buyer.

After all this I decided to go back to basics and went trawling through forums about wedding dresses and came across someone recommending Jo Fleming’s designs. After looking on her website I saw styles that I really liked and made an appointment to visit the studio. After another visit to try on a studio sample gown I was in love and knew what I wanted I was just worried about price.

I have been fortunate enough that my mother has been able to help me out with the price but lets just say I am getting a custom made designer gown in organza silk and lace for just about the average price of a standard wedding dress. These dresses are exceptionally well priced- Grab a bargain while you can!

But I can’t really put a price on my dream dress. Its been a challenge and has taken about a year of research, investigation and some horrible mistakes but thankfully I didn’t lose and money from it and I will now have the dress of my dreams - its just a shame I can't show you it... yet...

Hopefully my hubby to be will like it as much as me.