Becky's Wedding : The Designs

On Christmas Day 2008, my best friend Becky told me she was going to get married. My first response was to tell her and her fiancé that my gift to them would be Becky's dress.... then I congratulated them both.

Whenever I begin a job the most important questions I ask are:

When is the wedding?

What is the budget?

And do you have any ideas or design features in mind already?

For the last question it is usually easiest to gather some images, either of dresses that you like or simply of features that you are drawn to, or shapes you know are flattering. These can be as vague or as specific as you like.

In Becky's case she had very little idea of what she wanted her own dress to be, she did know that her bridesmaids would be in black and the grooms men probably would have red cravats. We decided to try and include one of these colors into the detail of the dress.

I set her the task of looking through dresses and send the images of one's she liked with notes as to why. In the mean time I looked at several ways to include color onto the dress. Once I had Becky's images I came up with several eclectic designs.

These deigns cover such a wide range, this was so I could see what direction Becky wanted to go in as well as giving her some more unusual ideas she may not have considered. As you can see I thought of a variety of ways of incorporating black into the dress from simply beading to the more striking heavy black stripes.

Becky preferred the simpler cut of the 5th dress but liked the idea of the black beading on the bodice, perhaps even using lace, though she was undecided. Something else we did at this stage was to go to some wedding dress shops and try some dresses on to see what she felt comfortable in. This proved to be very useful as Becky realized she particularly like the lace look. She also decided she wanted a train, which came as a surprise to both of us.

I went away and came back to her with a second set of designs, this time a little more refined.

As you can see I added the train in as well as still experimenting the black on the bodice. She began to have a much clearer idea of what she wanted and gave me a more detailed idea for her neckline, shape and design features. So back to the drawing board.....

Becky liked the first dress so I drew up a final design including a back view and the fastening option (which we had already discussed)

This was the final design that I showed Becky before I started on the calico mock-up of the dress. The design features such as the beading, the ribbon and the button fastenings (which would either be in black or red to tie in with the rest of the wedding party).

The design process is unique to each individual dress. It is a constant process always being altered and refined throughout the construction, depending on fabric choices and the expansion of ideas. This is what makes the process so much fun and ensures you get a unique dress suited to your personality.