A Beautiful Wedding

We had a lovely weekend. Not just lovely. Fabulous.

Helen married Anthony on Saturday 4 June in a local church. Helen’s two sisters were her bridesmaids.  Anthony had a best man and 4 ushers including his brother. My two grandsons, Helen's nephews, presented her with a lucky horseshoe - a real one,  painted by Alison and trimmed with ribbon from her wedding (no photos of that yet - will have to wait for those from the official photographer)

Helen and Anthony. Alison and Joanne. Best man Alex and 4 ushers. Taken in the garden at Capheaton Hall

Then we travelled out into the country for the reception which Helen and Anthony had organised and the two families help set up in the few days leading up to it. It was great. Photographs,  garden games, wedding breakfast in a large marquee, ceilidh followed by cake cutting (the cake was made by Anthony's mother), hog roast. A free bar with plenty to drink including a bride's cocktail and a groom's cocktail.

Then on Sunday we had a post wedding BBQ in our garden for their friends who were travelling back - mainly to London but some friends had travelled much further, one from Australia who had travelled just for the wedding and was then going back. The weather was glorious.

You want to know about the dress, though.

Yes, I finished it. Very much at the last minute. All that hand sewing took so much longer than I thought, not helped by incorrectly sewing in the weights and having to redo. Helen made the belt to go with the dress (well done,  Helen, you did a brilliant job and I'm not going to say any more so you can put it in the sewing blog you’re going to start) and I finished the cathedral length veil at 11pm on Friday after Joanne and Alison researched how to do it for me.

I realise I am not going to post a lot about the design or construction of the dress as I've had to put all of that in my course portfolio.

Helen wanted an unstructured very soft dress in double crepe sandwashed silk. My portfolio shows some of the evolution of the idea. We had to compromise as the design needed to be something I could make but that still had the vibe that Helen wanted. Her first ideas were much too complex for me (I tried but couldn't make them work). Gradually we evolved something that worked.

The earlier ideas were very revealing dresses e g. illusion tulle topped with fine Chantilly lace and appliqués added strategically.

Originally she didn't want a waistline but this affected fit so we changed.

The very low front was raised as I couldn't stabilise the front properly.

Helen decided against princess seams at the front. She wanted completely smooth. As I had to wedge out neck and armscyes and have waist shaping there, this led to a very large side dart - I decided to split this dart into 3. We like it.

The back consists of small side wings. It is supported by 3 spaghetti straps on each side. Each bias strap has a core of cord. The wings have an additional layer of silk organza interlining. The sides are low and cut away as requested.

Getting ready

The back skirt does have princess seams and is tightly fitted with the centre backs extending into a short train. We discussed how she'd dance etc but H just wanted to let the dress do its own thing. It did.

The neckline and armscye are supported by tape and understitching.

The whole dress is underlined in habotai silk. We tested samples and this soft silk kept the look and feel Helen was after. The dress is lined in a soft fine charmeuse silk. The lining has a fine rolled hem (done very much at the last minute as I had to shorten it the night before - I had to do this quickly on my overlocker). The dress has a horsehair braid hem and the back to the sides have string weights inserted into the hem. I ended up stitching and pinking the main skirt seams though I hand overcast the bodice seams. I just realised today that I forgot to put a chain stitch between lining and dress - perhaps that contributed to the train’s early demise!

I didn't like working with the charmeuse or the habotai silk.  Too squiggly and difficult to control. I did enjoy working with the sandwashed silk, which didn't fray much at all.

Proud mother, beautiful daughter

There had to be a few very last minute changes as the silk was spongier (not sure of what word to use to describe) and I had to give up on the planned side zip because of bulk that I couldn't remove with three darts there. I used a back zip instead and on my tutor's advice stopped this at waist level (mistake - it would have been much better going all the way up as the suggested hooks and eyes didn't hold it sufficiently firmly and came out a few times anyway - I was going to sew her in at the reception but we didn't do that)

Helen found the dress supremely comfortable. She had wanted very soft very unstructured, very her,  as she had heard of brides being so uncomfortable in their dresses. Helen could sit, dance, go to the toilet etc. The dress is supremely lightweight and soft, just as she requested.

Photo from Patrick Lourie

The dress hasn't survived. I don't know if it's possible to revamp so that Helen can keep it as planned. I dry cleaned the fabric before construction. The train is filthy,  both outer and lining and her foot caught in the braid tearing it back. The hooks at the back didn't survive intact - this meant that for much of the time the bodice was too loose. Helen didn't seem to mind.

I received a lot of compliments for the dress. Helen looked beautiful and happy. 

I spent a long time on the dress and on toiles because fitting at a distance isn't easy. Helen helped by visiting a number of times and I visited her. I’d do it differently on another occasion. I'm pretty pleased with the result and I hope Helen is too (she certainly seems to be). I learned a lot of new techniques and now feel I could tackle anything - the support structures I have are great,  too. Helen says I can't call myself a beginner anymore!  Obviously there are loads of things I've never tried and my attempts at what I did aren't perfect - but the more I practice,  the better I'll get!  When I get around to putting my reviews of the waistcoat on PR,  I may celebrate by upgrading my status to ‘Intermediate’. What do you think?

Back - our family tartan printed on silk

Pre wedding try on

I also made Anthony's waistcoat. More on that later.

I had made the pattern and the final toile for the bridesmaids dresses but in the end ran out of time and arranged with Rory and Dan to sew them; Dan was ill leaving Rory to do them both. I was sick with panic as Rory didn't finish until the evening before the wedding and for the last few days I was running around like a mad thing because of all the activities we had,  including hosting a meal for the two families, meaning that my sewing room was out of commission. Yes,  I know it should have been finished by then…

I took my mother home yesterday (Monday) and rather belatedly helped her sort or some of her stuff in her new sheltered accommodation. Sorted out some by bringing it back with me. We have so much to do! We still plan to downsize…

Tomorrow our course work is moderated and on Thursday we have a display of our work at the college. I handed in my final board with some wedding pictures tonight - some photos from my camera (which I unfortunately broke irreparably by dropping it during the reception). We've had a teaser photo from the official photographer which is fabulous. I've given my tutor the dresses and the waistcoat  but I'm not sure what will be used - do they cover the muddy train? Let it show? The waistcoat and the bridesmaids dresses probably will go in.

Help question, though - a lot of Helen and Anthony's friends have posted terrific photos on Facebook and Instagram. I can't work out how to save and print them, unfortunately. Any ideas?

More later