I'm about to start something very, very big, and I feel, very calm and very excited at the same time. Whenever I think about it too hard that makes me a bit crazy. Crazy enough to use "very" four times in a sentence that isn't even that long. Extremely? Immensely? Profoundly?
Jon and I have been engaged for over a year now (this post tells the story, and explains any rabid goat references you may encounter on this blog in the future) but we're only just now getting started on the actual wedding planning. It's going to be in a year and a half (exact date depending on venue availability, because I'm the kind of person that says 'venue availability' now) and it's going to be a small gathering. It's going to be here, in New Zealand, in the forest somewhere quiet.
Engagement photo!
I'm going to make my dress. I've been hungrily consuming every "I made my wedding dress" blog post I could find since high school, and it feels a bit like I've come full circle to be starting my own, now. I do want to do one thing a bit differently, though. Many* of the posts I've read are written after the dress, after the wedding, and after things have calmed down a bit - this makes sense. Weddings and fancy dresses are stressful - even more so when combined. However, if you're well and truly into the fine details and want to know what the inside bits look like, what types of finishing techniques were used, what the muslins looked like, how all that is held in place, and general nerdy sewing details - I mean, it's hard to remember that stuff so long after the fact! (I also know full well that if I don't hold myself accountable with progress updates, we are going to have a Procrastination Problem.)
The first 'fancy' dress I ever made was my prom dress - can you see the embroidered beads on the skirt?
*A small selection of progress-blog type posts of dresses I've found include Melanie of Seamstress: Poppykettle's gorgeous Elie Saab inspired affair which is full of couture tips and pretty guts and satisfyingly long posts to read, Lucinda at Sew Wrong's video progress updates are excellent, and Yasmeen's @_ym.sews_ dress tag #ymsewshandmadeweddingdress Instagram history of the making of her dress is amazing and made me do actual, real-life heart eyes. Also, if you want to plunge down into a deep, never-ending rabbit hole full of delight, check out Morgan from Crab and Bee's pinterest board of all the handmade wedding dresses she found as well as this very long blog list.
I'm making my dress, and I want to blog about it in real-time. Sewing a thing that is not going to be allowed to leave its room until it gets zipped into a garment bag and carried off to the venue (there's that word again) could turn lonely, and that's the last thing I want. I know full well that there will be as many memories attached to the making of this dress as there will be to the wearing of it, and I want good memories here, guys. Especially since this whole thing isn't something I can't share with my best friend until the day we get married.
My plan, at this stage (keeping in mind that the wedding is a year and a half from now and the plan is, like, a bunch of thought bubbles connected by scribbles and question marks) is to do monthly blog updates and (gasp!) videos so you'll know how things are progressing. This also means that my mom and sisters can see and be involved in the dress even though they're on the other side of the world, and it means I'll have a way to look back on the details decades from now.
But hang on, what's this about videos? As if a wedding dress wasn't a challenge all by itself. Each month, along with the blog post, there will be a video update with progress! I just think that's going to be the best way to show you what's going on, especially when we get to the construction phase. That said, hang on to your hats, because my first video is here!
You can also go follow my ~brand new youtube channel~ if you'd like!
Aside from the obligatory 'Do I really sound like that?' moment, (and the part where I kept doing pieces over and now that I've cut everything together it seems sort of choppy to me, but it's possible I've been staring at it too long...? Also let's not talk about how I filmed the whole thing out of focus. Twice. ) I think it went well! So now that we've gotten this far - what do you think of the plan? Do you know of any wedding dress blogs I may not have read? Do you have any suggestions, required reading, or stories about dresses to share? I'd love to know!