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Here comes the DIY bride...

May 18th, 2009 in design     
_nikki_ Nicole Smith, contributor
Love it! 4 users recommend
Photo: Jesse Leake Photography

Putting a personal stamp on your own wedding can be a fun and exciting challenge--especially when you decide to make your own wedding dress.

On the Etsy blog this week is the story of Eleen and Jimmy and how they planned their wedding with DIY projects made from friends and family.

To get the dress of Eleen's dreams, she sketched out her design inspired by designer gowns and started the project using an out-of-print pattern. To get the perfect fit, she and her mother drafted a duct-tape dressform following this Threads tutorial here.

Has anyone else created a duct-tape dressform of themselves? Or did any of you create your own wedding dress?

Also, check out CraftStylish through the summer for many more celebration-inspired tutorials and projects.

posted in: design

Comments (6)

judymorency writes: I made my own wedding dress in 1975. Since the wedding was between Christmas and New Year's I took advantage of the seasonal colors and decorations. Just last year, I gave the dress to a young lady who had very little money for her dream day. It looked like it had been tailor made for her. In 1993, I started sewing wedding dresses for friends and family. As a gift to my niece, I created her dress, six bridesmaid dresses, and usher and flower girl dresses as well. For each dress, I started with a picture of what my niece wanted and created from their. The girls in her wedding party ranged from size 6 to size 22. That heavens for dress forms; I live 1,000 miles from my niece so I worked off of measurements only. Three months before the wedding,I traveled to Wisconsin and did a fitting of all the dresses. I had only minor adjustments to make when I arrived five days before the wedding. The day was wonderful, the dresses were beautiful and I don't want to see periwinkle satin for a long time. Three of the bridesmaids had me rework their dresses into cocktail dresses after the wedding. For their first Christmas, I took all the scrap fabric and made a quilt for the newlyweds.

Posted: 9:26 am on October 20th
quiltingfinn writes: I made my daughter's wedding gown to save money (?) and give her what she dreamed of. It was silver silk and combined a Burda and a Simplicity pattern. The basic style was victorian. We had to dye lace to match the silver color. The reward was a huge hug and a "Thank you I couldn't have had the dress I wanted if you hadn't made it". I learned alot about fitting from one of her friends and got to play with making silk flowers etc. My sister's still are talking about it three years later. We also DIY'd almost everthing else for the wedding. Posted: 6:38 pm on June 1st
_nikki_ writes: Hi Eleen,
It's so great to hear from you! You did an amazing job creating a very personal and stylish wedding. Congrats! Posted: 4:20 pm on May 27th
eleen writes: Thanks so much for posting about our DIY wedding story, Nicole! I LOVE Threads *and* CraftStylish and was thrilled to see this here! Posted: 11:36 pm on May 20th
mominabook writes: I, too, made my wedding gown. My father had given me $200 to get married on, and I managed to have some left over to start married life. Oh, for the good ole' days. Made my own cake, coerced my piano teacher into playing for the ceremony and held the reception at my sorority house (dry house). Fitting was no problem -- back then a size 10 fit perfectly. How it all has changed. Posted: 11:11 pm on May 18th
catspajamas writes: I designed and made my own wedding gown 43 years ago ... and even though I say it myself, looking at photos I would say it still looks pretty good today! I sewed it on my mother's Bernina sewing machine, which was old even then but which is still sewing to this day. Posted: 9:30 pm on May 18th
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