19 weekends and counting: Headband & Bridesmaids…

So I decided to make my own headband/tiara…..

I saw a beautiful one in a local bridal shop Tilly Mint, but it had a £400 price tag, I thought to myself “I could do that” and so off I went to buy some beautiful crystals from Beadworks in Covent Garden and a headband from Claire’s Accessories, originally it had little pearl beads on so I took it apart and removed the pearl beads. I spent a day on the sofa in front of the telly and ended up with a half finished product….

But I think the colours are too ‘cold’ so I’ve bought some warmer coloured crystals and some gold wire to hopefully ‘warm’ it up. I’ll keep you posted…..

On a side note, if I weren’t having my dress made I think I probably would have bought my dress from Tilly Mint, the staff were SO helpful and lovely and kind. And the inside of the shop is just delish! (Also, my mum used to call me Tilly Mint when I was a little girl so it’d be kind of sweet!)

Now, Bridesmaids and their dresses……

It was all sorted, then it wasn’t now I think it is again. Here’s the story….

I started with 3 bridesmaids, now I have 4 fabulous girlies to help me on the day…

Initially I toyed with the idea of a 1950s style pencil dress a la Vivien of Holloway…

But my Bridesmaids were worried it would draw too much attention to the hips, and I was worried that they’d feel constricted in a fitted dress.

Then I thought about 50s style full circle dresses…

But I didn’t want our wedding to start looking 50s themed, please don’t get me wrong, I love the 50s vibe, it’s just not the look I’m going for with our wedding.

Then I saw a Jason Wu dress, that looked like the perfect compromise in terms of shape…

I loved it, the Bridesmaids loved it….done!

Then the hard part….the fabric!

It took lots of trips to the fabric shops on Goldhawk Road, London (an amazing treasure trove of fabric shops, selling fabric at reasonable prices) & lots of samples from my dressmaker and I finally found a great bold, colourful floral….

…fabulous but I thought it would be too much for 4 dresses, I decided to use it for my Chief Bridesmaid’s dress and so the search began for a fabric to match the floral. More trips to Goldhawk Road and more samples from my dressmaker, found a lovely silk in the perfect colour, but with a not so lovely price-tag. Cue another (stressful!) trip to Goldhawk Road, after visiting EVERY fabric shop on Goldhawk Road I finally set upon a lovely purple fabric and bargained the man down to £5 per metre. Phew!

Then there was the dressmaker saga. Well, not so much a saga, as a lack of foresight leading to complications, leading to the need for a new dressmaker.

My wedding dress dressmaker, Annie Wallwork of Ann’s Couture was originally going to make them, it made sense, she is fabulous, so of course she was the natural choice. However she lives in Cornwall, my Bridesmaids live in London, my Chief Bridesmaid lives in Germany this equaled a pain in the neck getting them all together anyway, never mind shipping them all down to Cornwall for a weekend, this would have been fine had it not been for the RIDICULOUS train prices! £100 return from London to Truro! PER PERSON!

Cue a couple of hours spent on-line for nice, purple Bridesmaids dresses that don’t cost the earth, apparently purple is not ‘in’ this season, not yet anyway.

Then…a brainwave! My fabulous friend Miss Miri who works mainly in costume for the Theatre and who is a dab hand with the dewing machine…. a few emails later and I have a new dressmaker for the girls, who can do the fittings at my house! Emails sent to the girls with provisional fitting dates…everyone is free…dates in diary…phew!

Lessons learnt…

1. If you want a simple life, stick to a white wedding dress…every colour goes with white so you have a lovely wide colour palette to work from.
2. Buy your dresses from the High Street, have an open mind.

January 21, 2012. 50s, Bridesmaids, DIY, Dressmaking, Fabric, Wedding. Leave a comment.