A DIY Wedding Dress extra

Don't read this one, lover boy

Okay. So I try to thrift…pretty much everything, and our wedding is no exception. I’ll make a post about all the decor I’ve thrifted at some point, but today, I’m going to brag about my dress.

After several months of checking Craigslist/FB marketplace every night, I finally found a dress in my size, with the general skirt shape I wanted, for $150. It was so cheap, despite being a high-end brand, because it had been in storage for a couple of years and had several stains on it. Here are the FB listing pics:

I first spent several hours with a soft toothbrush getting the stains out. Then I gave her a tea bath to bring down the color from a bright white to an off-white. You can’t tell a big difference in pictures, but in person, it was a big change! Then the scary part—I cut off the straps, removed all the bust padding, and pinned the neckline/back of the dress into the shape I wanted. My mom, who has far more sewing experience than I do, then took in the bust even further, and sewed the top and back for me (using pieces of the belt I’d removed to make the scalloped edge). Once we had the shape I needed, I purchased some summer-colored fabric paint for $30 and several embroidery panels from a lovely German Etsy shop for $70. I also used the same paint on the mesh/beaded back of the dress for continuity.

Finally, after hours (and hours) of embroidery painting, I pinned all my panels in place. And now we’re sewing them down!

I am completely enraptured. It’s exactly what I’ve been picturing in my head, and I’m so pleased that we’ve done it for $250. The dress budget I wanted to stay under was $500, so the fact that I pulled it off at half that cost is just…really cool.

I’m also working on a waistcoat for B that will have matching embroidery on the back, and a collar for Deacon because obviously he can’t be left out.

Here’s a video of the whole process thus far. I’ll definitely make another video once it’s finished and I can twirl around in it, but this is the first time in the process that I can step back and say, hey, this is actually going to work like I’ve been picturing it! And I needed to share that with someone other than my mother. :)

Thanks for letting me brag, internet friends.