Design your own Wedding dress

Hi everyone today at Traveling Wallet we will be talking about wedding dress design.

Design your own wedding dress

• Let’s talk about why you would want to
• Tips for how to

Why design your own dress?

The Cost

Do you know the range for the cost of already made wedding dresses?

The average is $1,100

But designer dresses can even be north of $6,000. ( Boing, as eyes pop out of sockets)

The average cost would have been 20% of my budget.

I designed my own wedding dress and as it were my actual dress cost was $173. Which was more like 4% of my total cost.

Its funny I thought that designing your own stuff meant it would be more expensive. Guess I was wrong. 

Uniqueness

I’m going to play to the crowd here and say most women ( major generalization I know) are mortified about going to a party and someone else wearing the same dress. Not likely to happen at a wedding, but if you design your own dress then no one else will have it! Plus you can insure you have all the different features, something that is very hard to do when shopping ready made.

It would be one of a kind.

Accomplishment

Come on, how awesome would it be when someone says “oh I love your dress its so beautiful ,where did you get it? or who’s it from?” And you say I designed it myself. Extra point if you make it yourself too.

How to design your own wedding dress.

Find some inspiration

I looked at pictures for ideas of features I liked and wanted to include. In my case a low back, mermaid silhouette and tiers? ( not sure if that is correct term). But the one thing I couldn’t find was an off the shoulders dress. So find yourself some inspiration.

Sketch up a design

I drew multiple sketches up trying to get my mind around the features I wanted to include. Perhaps you need a bit of drawing skills but as you can see by my picture it’s nothing like what you would see in patterns ( those things people buy at Joann to make clothes at home)

Add specific features. Outline the material, color , and any embellishment.

Find a seamstress

Once you decide you want to design your own dress and have it made, verbalize your goals to people. This will help you use your network. I found my seamstress through a friend who was also getting married and who’s mother was getting services also.

Vet her/ his work most have other jobs in progress hanging from racks. Look at them. You don’t have to agree just because you are there already. Poke around and look at the quality of the work.

Ask the following Questions

• Ask about the schedule?
• Have you worked with this material before?
• How many times would you meet?
• How many fittings would you get?
• Can she meet your deadline?
• Find out cost based on material and time and know you upper limit?

Hire someone

Draw up a contract . Sorry but verbal is just not good enough. This is to protect yourself specially if its someone you don’t personally know. I was fortunate everything went well enough, but I did have some issues with a different vendor which I also didn’t have a written contract. It should include most of the information up top.

After this the seamstress gave me options. I had to pay some money up front so she could buy the materials. Or she said I could buy the material myself.

I bought material, this is where my dress color was decided. I wanted a color initially: red, orange, yellow. Champagne? I’m not going to lie probably has something to do with my infatuation with Asian culture.

But I also wanted a specific material cotton eyelet. This material is predominantly sold in white. As in I had more options with white. So white it was.

Don’t make these mistakes

Since this was my first time ever in this situation I was timid. Don’t be timid you are paying the agreed on price.

On the last day after she had finally put everything together and I stopped by I wanted to try on the final product, but she had dry cleaned it already she said. So I just pulled it out of the bag and looked at it. It look great. Then paid and was on my way.

When I got home I tried it on anyway. I was disappointed to find the shoulders were in the wrong place so I had to make some alterations. I’m not shy around a needle so I was able to fix it but I felt upset.

• Put it on ! Check it again before you pay and leave.
• Speak up during the process!

When you work with a seamstress you are working with a dress that is being built not a finished product that needs alterations. So stuff is being pieced together. Speak up  during this process, I want the neck line lower, less ruffles. You have lots of opportunities to make the needed adjustments and when its done it should be made just right for you. You shouldn’t have to unstitch and resew.That is what I got hung up on.  You have to put it on when its all done. Rookie mistake on my part.

To be 100% honest the real recommendation I should be making is wear a dress you already have. I got a bit wrapped up in the fantasy of it all too. But in retrospect most of it is just plain old unnecessary. But lots of people don’t want to let this dream go so I hope this helps you to save as much as possible while following the dream.

Guys send your ladies over to this post because even though it was lady centered, it really helps everyone out to cut costs on any item on the wedding budget.

 Can you include a picture of you in your wedding dress in the comments*? Seriously!

* I honestly don’t know if that is possible in the comments but thought I’d ask anyways.