My boyfriend and I were invited to be guests and witnesses at my friend's wedding ceremony. I felt so grown up, I've never been a witness before!! It was a garden wedding, so of course that called for a beautiful floral dress... who am I kidding, I would have made a floral dress even if the wedding was in the snow!
The bride looked stunning, the ceremony was a beautiful, and the weather was just perfect. Thank you Melbourne! It was an afternoon ceremony, then photos all around the city, followed by an intimate dinner.
The dress I made for the occasion is the By Hand London Georgia, but with a maxi skirt and a thigh high split. Originally I planned on making the Anna, but after seeing how gorgeous the sweetheart neckline is on the Georgia, I changed my mind.
I added 53cm length to each skirt piece to make the dress maxi length, 50cm would have suffice, but ya never know!! Ended up taking up hem about 4cm I think.
It was pretty risky to make Georgia using rayon when the BHL recommend "medium weight fabrics with a little bit of stretch - cotton sateen, twill, drill, poplin, upholstery cottons, denim, courduroy, silk noil, brocade and jacqard" but I went ahead and cut out my rayon any way. YOLO!
I was especially scared because I made one change to the skirt - instead of using the pattern piece from my Vday Georgia, I retraced the skirt centre back piece and didn't do the sway back adjustment!! You may remember that my muslin/toile fit pretty well around the back, but it had a few wrinkles which I thought would be gone if I did a swayback adjustment. So I did the swayback adjustment on the Valentines Day Georgia, but that ended up making the back of the dress poof out. I thought if the muslin/toile fit well without the swayback adjustment then I may as well not do the adjustment.
It was very nerve-racking cutting into my rayon. I only had 3m of the rayon and no backup plan. If the skirt didn't work out then I would be a dress-less wedding guest.
I started cutting into the rayon on Sunday afternoon. I was not in the best of moods - I was grouchy and hangry and wasn't paying attention. I turned up the iron too high and melted my 'trace and toile' onto my iron board cover and iron, so I had to trace my pattern again. I angrily pinned my maxi skirt pieces on to the rayon then went out to get lunch, watched some TV, then after I calmed down I started cutting.
The skirt came together without drama, didn't have issues with joining the curved seams like last time - who would have thought working with rayon would be easier than cotton. Go figure!
The skirt skims over my lower back and bum perfectly. The weight and drape on the rayon is dreamy! So happy.
The bodice only needed a couple of minor tweaks.
On this version, I took out 3cm wedges on the front centre bodice, total of 6cm removed from the neckline and front bodice (info on adjustment here).
This fixed the neck line gaping and also took away the extra ease under the arm.
When I did the final fitting I realised that the straps had stretched! Bugger!!!! It was soooo annoying, the straps had stretched a whole inch (2.5cm). I didn't have time/didn't want to unpick the lining and bodice so I folded/shortened the straps and hand stitched them down on the back bodice.
There was a lot of hand stitching involved with this dress - lining, split, hem. Worth the effort though.
The dress was perfect length, didn't trip once during out 3 hour photography journey around the city and the thigh high split was just high enough to show some leg but not flash any naughty bits ;)
The sandals I wore with the dress look like they were made from the same fabric as my dress, so cool!
I feel so honoured to be part of my girlfriend's special day. I wish her and hubby all the happiness in the world. I wish I could share with you more photos from the wedding, my friend looked incredible, gorgeous, beautiful, hottest bride I have seen; but the photographer has all the professional pics. I got BF to take these on his phone when we weren't required for photos with the bride and groom. Thanks for AirDropping these to me baby!
Project details -
Pattern: By Hand London 'Georgia'
Size: Bust 2/6, Waist 6/10, Hips 2/6
Fabric: 3m rayon (140cm width) but I have about 1m leftover (originally bought fabric for Anna)
Notions: 16" invisible zipper
Cost: fabric $30, zipper $5
Pattern Modification/Adjustments:
- lengthened skirt pattern pieces by 53cm
- thigh high split
- small bust adjustment
- took out 2 x 3cm wedge in front centre bodice piece
Hours: approx 15 hours
Completed on: Saturday 22nd February 2014
First worn: Sunday 23rd February 2014 to my friend's wedding ceremony
