Another Wedding Dress

So, as I told you yesterday, this weekend I attended a very special event… I went to a wedding, but not just any wedding; the bride was wearing one of my design..! You can only imagine how happy I was to finally see my dress in action after being working on it for several months.

When Amandine, the beautiful bride to be (and the sister of one of my good friend), came to me last September asking me if I could design her gown, I immediately said yes! I only made a few wedding dresses before therefor I was really pleased and flattered that she trusted me for hers.

After a the first meeting, we decided to go for a young and yet traditional design with corset and tulle…

The challenge being that Amandine was in Brussels and I was in Milan. Which in the end made it even more special as I was sourcing the materials for the dress between our two cities. One of the first fabric I found was the tulle with plumetis (dots). When I saw it in a boutique in Milan I thought: this is it! We hadn’t discuss plumetis before but I had such a crush on it that I immediately snapped a picture with my phone and sent it to her. Luckily she loved it too.

At the same time I had started to work on her toile (you know the dress draft made in an inexpensive raw fabric for trials). Then came the moment to sew in the final fabrics.

Over this period I traveled several times to Brussels to do the fittings with Amandine, but for the last one, as the dress was almost finished but still not secured, Amandine, her mother and her sisters came to me in Milan! Even though I had to work, we had so much fun all together doing our fittings between coffee and biscotti’s. I think this is one of the thing I love the most about making a wedding dress, it’s not just about working but also creating a special relationship with the bride and her family.

One those days we did the last checks, last modifications and when they left I secured all the seams that I had done in temporary hand stitches (allowing alterations) to complete the dress.

 

Then came one of the most stressful moment of all… No, not the wedding, the flight! Why stressful? Because I had to carry the dress in an hand luggage from Milan to Brussels as I didn’t want to risk to loose the dress in the airport luggage circuits (so please, try to make more than 20 meters of tulle fit in one little hand luggage..!). As I arrived at the gate for boarding, when I thought that the hardest was behind me, the flight hostess told me “I am sorry but the flight is full, you will have to check your hand luggage into the hold”. I swear, I did try to argue with her, but by the time I explained her that “No, this is impossible, I am carrying a wedding dress and I cannot risk to loose it, or have it delayed…” She had already put her (evil) sticker on it. But she needed more to stop me! (Evil laugh!!) Not sooner said, I took the dress out of my luggage (which was wrapped in tissue paper) and I gave her the suitcase… She could have it but I was keeping the dress! So I went onto the plane, looking a little silly with this huge package in my hand and luckily I found a place for it between two little suitcases… In the end, their was more fear than harm and the dress arrived without problems. Thanks God!

When I think of it, a wedding dress is primarily aimed to please the bride, but when the husband loves it too it can only make it better… So I was really happy when the groomed thanked me during the reception. But what truly moved me is when he said “When I saw her in her dress I couldn’t help but cry as she was so beautiful..!” These kind of things are priceless.

Thanks to Amandine and Michel for inviting me to their beautiful wedding. You were both so adorable. I wish you all the best!!!!!! xxx