Just after her wedding, the gorgeous Amber of my aim is true wrote a post urging plus-size brides-to-be to look into having their wedding gowns custom made.
If you’re a plus size bride in search of a dress, forget shopping at wedding boutiques. Seriously. I watched my sister go through this with her wedding a few years ago, and unless you live in a city with a specifically plus size bridal store, you’re going to David’s Bridal (or as I prefer to call it, the horrible place with those people who are complete douchebags).
Her advice is spot on, but it’s not just for plus size brides-to-be. In my opinion, everyone should look into skipping the salons in favor of working with a seamstress. Even if you’re reasonably sure that you’ll be able to find the traditional look you love on the racks of your local bridal outfitter, there’s no reason not to look into the whys and hows of custom made wedding gowns.
The process tends to be easier — and frequently less expensive — than people think assume it will be. In fact, if you don’t have a mom, aunt, gal pal, or future in-law who sews, the hardest part is usually finding a seamstress you like and trust. Looking for a seamstress in the phone book can be a harrowing experience, so ask friends and relatives for recommendations, call up the local sewing shop or fabric store to see if they know of anyone, and check with the office of any nearby university’s fashion programs.
Once you’ve found the right needle jockey, it’s time to design! If you absolutely have no idea what kind of wedding gown you want, talk to your seamstress about the sort of dress or gown styles that generally catch your eye. Study up on fabric types and embellishment styles beforehand so you understand the lingo. Amber shared the following tips that, again, work for everyone, not just plus size brides-to-be.
Know what styles work on your body. Here’s a shopping tip: take a brutally honest friend to a store that has dresses in your size and try on different styles. Don’t even think about wedding gowns. Find a garment construction that works for you and go with that style of dress.
Bring in as many photos as possible to show garment construction, color, style, fabric, etc. Your seamstress will probably have her own opinions on what will work fabric-wise (example: my dress would work in silk or satin but wouldn’t have a chance of holding up in charmeuse).
Turn it over to her. Be brutally honest at the fittings, if you don’t like the way something is fitting, make sure she does it your way. You have to live with the dress and the pictures, not her!
Of all the reasons to opt for a custom made wedding gown — it’s made to measure and one-of-a-kind, it’s exactly what you want, and you can see your gown at various stages so there are no surprises — there’s also the quick turnaround. Whereas wedding gowns ordered from salons can take ages and ages to arrive, some custom made gowns are ready in as little as two months!
I still regret not having considered this as an option. Did you go custom or look into it? What was the experience like?
The image above is from Couture Gown Studio, where designer Tracey WardKerr saves rides-to-be of all sizes from the hustle and (ahem) bustle of the bridal salon environment.
I went custom, and I can’t imagine having gone any other way. I’m hard to fit (petite plus-size with a tiny bust, no shoulders, and a waistline in my armpits), picky (even as a toddler, if I didn’t like a piece of clothing, I got it off me as fast as humanly possible), and semi-unconventional. I would have been any salon’s worst nightmare…and vice versa.
Not only did I get precisely what I wanted, nobody will ever have a wedding gown quite like mine. It fit my body, my personal style, and my budget perfectly.
Of couse, it did help a LOT on the budget side that I had a source of pure silk fabrics at wholesale prices available to the public, was able to make my own lace, and had a good friend (and bridesmaid) who was willing to make the gown to my specifications as a wedding present, asking only a hundred dollars and a specialty foot she needed for her sewing machine to do the deed. But even if it had cost a great deal more than it did, it would absolutely have been worth it to me to get exactly the gown I wanted and felt beautiful in.
Even if the gown had wound up costing two or three times what it did, I think I still would have come out ahead. A commercially made gown would probably have cost more between the cost of the actual gown and the necessary alterations. After all, many wedding gown manufacturers have a plus-size line and a petite line, but almost none of them have a petite plus line. Besides, I didn’t have to fight the sales staff to get out of the shop without buying a veil, tiara, gloves, matching handbag, dyeable shoes, and ten layers of undergarments.
My way definitely worked for me.
Another source for dressmakers: call the costume shop of your local theatre and ask if there is a draper or patternmaker who would be interested in making your dress. Most of the drapers I’ve worked with in my theatre career are happy to pick up some extra money freelancing–plus you get someone who’s used to creating or adapting patterns (not always the case with home seamstresses) and knows what can realistically be accomplished within the constraints of time or budget.
My mom got married last year and decided to go the custome made route. She was already looking for something non-traditional (she felt silly picturing herself in a big white dress at 54). A friend of mine who lived in Brooklyn recommended a boutique where she had purchased a bridesmaid dress for her friend’s wedding, my mom liked the simple lines and fabric choices and decided to get both her dress and mine. But… we live in NH.
Well, it was a BLAST. We took three “road trips” to the store in Brooklyn – the first to try on styles and get measured (this is when we found out my mother is *beautiful* in red), the second for a fitting, and the third for the final pickup. We could have gotten the dresses shipped, but it was so much fun for us and such a wonderful bonding experience that we decided to stay for the weekend on the last trip.
The total cost for two dresses (one long, one tea-length), two bolero jackets, and two purses CUSTOM MADE from SILK was $948. Granted the total cost with driving and food and all that was more, but the time we spent together was totally priceless. I’ll never forget those days as long as I live: they’ll be stashed in my “mommy and me” memory banks forever. So worth it.
I had my gown custom-made as well. I don’t like to show my upper arms, and gowns with sleeves–and sleeves that aren’t sheer or made of lace–were very hard to come by two years ago when I first started looking at gowns. Furthermore, I wanted a really simple gown, since my accessories (sash in my husband’s family tartan and garnet necklace borrowed from my grandmother) were a lot more important than the actual dress.
I admit that at the end of the day, I did not actually love my wedding gown, but that had nothing to do with the seamstress and everything to do with me making a hasty decision about the pattern. If I had it to do over, I would have chosen a different dress pattern but I still would have had the dress made by a seamstress. The dress, incidentally, cost about a thousand dollars. I doubt that it was cheaper than a similarly simple, train-less gown from a store would have been, if I had found a store that carried a dress with long, opaque sleeves.
I just want to say that the bodice on the dress in the photo above is gorgeous.
I went custom as well. I’m 4’8″, so any dress that I bought off the rack was going to have to be heavily altered, and that leads to problems when there is any sort of beadwork or embroidery or lace involved in the dress. I also wanted something with sleeves, which as we all know is hard to come by these days.
To echo what JaneC said, in the end I didn’t love my dress, but that’s because I was not always decisive about what I wanted and not assertive enough with my seamstress when she wanted to go against my ideas. I kind of figured that she was the expert and would know what looks best on my body type and coloring, so I went with what she said. Something to keep in mind for anyone going the custom route is that the dress you get is probably not going to be the dress that you pictured in your mind. Some of the elements that I wanted in my dress just didn’t look right on me, so keep in mind that you might have to adjust your picture of the perfect day and the perfect wedding dress to fit reality.
Custom! Because I made my own. Made my own, made my sister-in-law’s, made others. I really, really recommend it.
It makes me sad that the ladies who went custom weren’t happy, because, to me, that is the point of custom. Especially for Wendy – yes, the seamstress – a GOOD seamstress, at least, is the expert – but her job is to figure out how to give you what you want. You love a fabric? It will work in this type of design, but not that. You love a particular silhouette? It will work in this type of fabric, not that. You want it anyway? We can try to overcome it; these are the potential problems. My SIL, who is not a girly-girl, and doesn’t speak a word of fashion/design – I mean, for sleeve shapes, skirt shapes, anything – got exactly what she want, even though it took a lot of work for me to get her to be able to describe it – right down to how wide the sleeves were and how the ends of them were shaped. My personal taste wasn’t exactly hers – but that wasn’t the point of the exercise. She got exactly what she wanted, and you should have, too. You should have wound up with something you loved, even if the original elements didn’t work the way you thought they would.
Yay! for going custom. I’m a costume designer so I’m lucky enough to know what I want, what would look good on me and have the resources to get it made. I’m 5’10” and like a lot of ladies here I wanted sleeves on my dress so I never seriously considered buying a dress off the rack.
I would add theatre drapers to NTB’s list of places to look for a seamstress. You can check with your local theatre or university’s theatre department. Most theatre folk are happy to pick up side projects and they have a wide experience of different styles/silhouettes and work with lots of different body shapes.
I also found it a big help to have one other friend in the fittings with me. It gave me another set of eyes who was able to see the back! I also felt like he (another costume designer) was more dispassionate about fit issues and so was able to see more clearly than I was at times! I was actually surprised at how hard it was to direct the fitting for myself when I do fittings on others for a living!
If you go custom, especially with a seamstress you’re not familiar with, I would suggest having a “test” garment made first. Even something like a skirt or simple sundress can give you an idea of their skills and finishing abilities. Granted, a wedding dress is much harder, but at least you’ll know if you’re going to someone with skills and an eye for detail.
Toni, that’s a great suggestion. In addition to telling you a little more about the talents of the seamstress, you’ll learn whether or not you get along with her, which is at least as important as how good she is with a needle. After all, you need to be able to communicate with her, and you need to know she’ll hear what you’re trying to say. If you feel intimidated, or like your ideas are being simply ignored, then pack up your fabric and look for someone else.
Do NOT ask a student to make your wedding gown! It is not fair to you or the student. Find a professional at the website for the Association of Sewing and Design Professionals. You want someone who makes many wedding gowns a year, not someone for whom yours is the first!
Oh, and Twistie? I meant to ask, what was your silk source, if you don’t mind? And I do think Toni, Vida, and Colleen all have excellent suggestions. I don’t think students should necessarily be trusted with a wedding dress, because some of them start school without knowing even how to sew! However, seasoned theatrical professionals are used to producing an extraordinary variety of shapes, in some extraordinary fabrics, especially useful for a bride with a significant fitting challenge, or very particular silhouette in mind. I think Vida’s suggestion is also very sensible, and it would be well worth hearing from other satisfied customers. If at all possible, Toni’s suggested “simpler dress” would also be useful if it bore, say, a resemblance to the finished gown. My sister-in-law’s toile was in a soft brushed white denim, not a muslin, because it gave a much better sense of what she was looking for in her dress; it could easily have been a dress in its own right. I do absolutely suggest that the bride have a full toile made of her dress! All fitting problems and final shapes should be worked out in this pre-production full-sized model of the finished garment!
I don’t mind at all, La Bella Donna. My silk source was a place called Rupert, Gibbon, and Spider, and I recently discovered that they are not only still around, but now have a web presence. Here’s the URL: http://www.silkconnection.com/
Mind you, it’s been sixteen or so years since I placed my order, but my experience with them was great. They had excellent quality fabric at insanely low prices and the order arrived speedily in good order.
As for the question of using a student to do your wedding gown, I think that one should be aware of the level of knowledge and experience the student has. I agree that one at the beginning of his or her training might well not be up to the job, but if you know or hear of someone who is close to graduation, that would be an option worth exploring, particularly if you want something fairly simple. No matter whether the person you go to has professional experience or not, you should ask to see some sort of portfolio of work they’ve done, and if possible see a couple real life expamples so you can get a feel for the quality of the work. After all, there are some professionals out there who produce some mighty shoddy work, and some students who have amazing chops.
Twistie, thanks so much! Yes, Rupert, Gibbon and Spider is an excellent resource! I had had a catalog from them back in the Jurassic, and I discovered their web presence, too – to the tune of a bolt of black habutai, for linings! Heh. Great minds think alike!
And of course you are right; I’ve seen both shoddy professional work, and excellent student work, myself. One of the agonizing danger areas is the person, professional OR student, who produces excellent work – usually.