Wedding Dress
This page is dedicated to showcasing my own personal wedding dress. I made this as well. This dress is one of the very
first things I made. It all started with a simple photograph.

A few of my friends are getting married soon. It has inspired me to take another look at this piece and discuss the
creation of it with you. At the time I was planning my own wedding (1997) there really wasn’t a big push for vintage
fashion the way there is today. I could not find in any of the discount, or local boutique bridal stores anything that I
liked. I wanted something really old and fragile looking. My main inspiration for this was the wedding dresses of the
1920’s. That and the wedding dress worn by the character “Jenny” in the film Forrest Gump.
I had hired a woman to make a wedding dress for me. I had given her pictures and some sketches. When I went to
try on a beginning version of the dress she had made, I cried. She had made something that looked like a Spanish
Flamenco Dancer. Not at all what I had explained or described or shown her. Desperate, I decided to try to find
another person to make this for me. I could not find anyone who could understand what I wanted. I decided to take
matters into my own hands.


One day, while looking at a bridal magazine I saw this picture of a young woman standing in front of a mirror,
wearing a t-shirt and jeans laughing at her reflection. She had this large piece of old lace over her head. I knew what
I wanted. Years earlier my mother had given to me in a bag what she described as my great grandmother’s bed
spread. In reality it must have been a tablecloth. My great grandfather was in the military, and was sent to Panama
during the time when The Panama Canal was being built (early 1910 ish). My mother tells me he brought back this
for my great grandmother and that she calls it “Panama Lace”.
I dug this out of my closet and knew I wanted to use it. I just didn’t know how. The next thing I found was a simple
dress at a local department store. It was the perfect under dress. Ivory in color, with crinkle fabric the skirt has gores
all the way around. Fabric in sheer plain ivory mixed with ivory embroidered fabric the embroidery has a leaf or
feather like look to it. This fabric reminds me of one of the LOTR costume for Galadriel. Her Mirror Dress. It
came with short sleeves.
The next step was figuring out how to merge the lace cloth with the bought dress. I centered the center lace
medallion over the neckline and draped the rest down the front and back and it instantly worked, I could see what
was going to be. I cut the center medallion out in order to attach the fabric to the under dress, I worked the
neckline from a circle to what you see here more rounded ‘v’. I removed the short sleeves and added long sleeves
made from extra lace over some sheer ivory chiffon.
I added some left over lace to the hem of the bought dress lining layer. It came with two layers the outder dress and
the lining. This gives the appearance of having three layers. Or three tiers

The rest was just worked in as I went. I remember there was a problem with one of the sleeves and I cut it too small
and had to recover from that. I know it was always a little tight on that one side because of that. To this day, when I
look at this piece I am not sure HOW I made it. LOL. But it’s true. It was a fit of good inspiration must have been.
My slippers. Bought at of all places Victoria's Secret. Hey, think
outside the shoe store box when looking for your bridal shoes.
The colors matched perfectly. They are very dirty now, but you
cannot see it in the pics. We got married on the beach and
walking back and forth to the ocean did that to them.
Our Cake
Our Invitations
My Flowers