a Wedding Dress story (cue TLC)

As much as I dislike posting pictures of myself, there's no way around it this time because I wanted to share with you my wedding dress. If anyone's interested, email me for more info.

I was never the kind of girl who grew up imagining my wedding; I never really thought about it. So, when we decided to do the deed, there was a lot to figure out. Without getting too personal, I'll tell you that my husband and I had been together for 10 years already, and were already very involved with each others families and friends. We wanted the wedding to be a celebration of bringing our lives officially together and we wanted it to be genuine and humble without veering into a crafty wedding blog inspired extravaganza of DIY.

But it was really important to me to make my own dress, to feel completely myself and present. I approached the design like I would any other piece of clothing (I hate wedding dresses that are costumes) - so I started by draping rectangles and playing with how the body gave shape to the fabric. I wanted a classical feel, something draped and statuesque, and as a late addition a very small train at back. The dress is sewn out of only 3 pieces.

The final version of the dress was finished on a Wednesday night (we married that Sunday). The fabric is a heavy silk with a very subtle stripe of raw silk woven through it, and is lined in silk charmeuse. It is rather low cut, but there is a nude organza at the bust to preserve my modesty. The only closure is the tie at back. At 98 degrees that day, I will say I was surprisingly comfortable and now I want to work with silks more. I especially love the "hand"/drape of this fabric.

the front


the side




and the back (and L. reacting to seeing my dress for the first time)






quite happily married!


photos by Natalie Bell