My Upcycled Wedding Dress - A More Complex DIY

I had 2 months to put my wedding together (with great help from my now husband !).  There are three wedding shops in town, but most dresses had to be ordered and I didn't have time.  What to do, what to do!  My then fiance and I were regulars at our local flea market and a couple of wedding dresses were available.  I hoped I could find something I could 'tweak' but sadly, both dresses were circa 1980 crosses between Little-Bo-Peep and Lady Diana - voluminous, over-the-top and dated.  But I chose one, paying $50 for the dress that retailed at $1200 according to the tag.  I loved the beading and thought I would cut it up and embellish a simple white sheath dress I had in my closet.

When I pulled the dress from it's bag I nearly cried.  It had a 10 foot train, two tiers of stiff tulle underneath it all, and a huge bow with 3 baseball-sized ribbon roses on the back at the drop waistline.  The skirt would give any civil war southern bell a run for her money size-wise.  It would make the tiniest girl look 3 times her size!  What were they thinking!.

But I saw the potential.  The picture above is my end result, (sadly, I didn't take a before picture because I was certain it wouldn't work out!) with the addition of a short jacket that I made from the yardage of the train.   I viciously cut away the long, balloon sleeves and high illusion neckline, leaving just the beaded corset you see. Being my husband and I are both steampunk fans, I used an historic civil war jacket pattern embellished with lace cut from the original sleeves. I cut away the skirt from the corset and un-gathering a monstrous amount of fabric and removing all the tulle.  Then I began to reconstruct.  I first made a simple A-line skirt from the yardage but realized the material was too sheer.  So I shortened the top skirt and added an underskirt and made both of them with a final tea-length. It created a lovely double scalloped row of double sequins and lace at the bottom. To add interest at the back, I used the huge bow's tails folding them in half to create a waist band and left the angled ends to hang down the back.

You would never know that this streamlined dress was hiding in that garish monstrosity I purchased.  It was a lot of work, but in the end I had a good wedding dress and the story of how it came to be was a hit at the reception.  I 'said yes' to the DIY dress!