Finished Object Friday: Hawaiian Wedding Dress...

I am posting this blog with my friend's permission.

Two of my very good friends got married in Hawaii last week. Unfortunately, we were unable to attend the wedding, but our friends who were able to go posted a lot of updates and we were able to be their vicariously through them. Based on the pictures we saw on facebook and from what others said, it was a really beautiful event and everyone had a good time.

Now that that's over with, Lala, the bride (who was my maid of honor when I got hitched), got lucky and found her dress online. It was a really cute dress! Tea Length and retro, and very very Lala. It had been worn once for the seller's own wedding, but it was in damn near mint condition, and the original owner was selling it for a fraction of the cost of what it sold for in stores.

See? Isn't it cute?

Originally Lala and I had discussed putting blue fabric that matched the her wedding colors between the under skirt and the lace overlay. Doing so would have required me to hand sew the blue fabric to the dress, because there was no way I was going to take a seam ripper to that dress. Seam ripping gauze is bad. Seam ripping lace? No, thank you. I didn't want to try it and possibly ruin the dress. 

About two months before the wedding, Lala mentioned that she was worried that the idea she had had wouldn't work out. I reassured her that it would, but that if it didn't, or it didn't look good, we could always do blue trim at the bottom instead, and a sash. After thinking about it for awhile, Lala decided to forgo the blue layer and just do the trim instead. We decided to go with a thicker blue trim at the bottom instead of a thin one, and a wide blue sash that was long enough for her to do a really big bow in the back. 

My husband modeling the dress before anything was sewn down. 

It's been awhile since I've sewn anything slick like satin. The bodice of broken teeth doesn't count, since it was velvet-ish, and while velvet can be slippery, it's a whole different animal. For the trim I had to pin it every inch or so, and even then it still shifted around on me a lot. Suddenly, where things had been flat and perfectly fine before, there would be all this fabric, and on areas where I thought there might be too much fabric, there was not enough. The seam ripper became my best friend with this dress. 

Satin also likes to fray and shed, so I'd stand up to take a break from sewing or cutting fabric only to find my shirt and pants covered in blue threads. I'm still finding blue dust bunnies floating about the house, and we've vacuumed several times since I finished the dress!

The boys, of course, helped out whenever they could.

Despite the problems I had though, the dress turned out beautifully. Lala was very happy with the results and everyone complemented her on her gown!

Though, the story of the dress doesn't end there. When she came to pick it up, Lala warned me that it might get a little wet. 

"Oh, are you going to do a trash the dress thing?" I asked. I think trashing the dress after the wedding is a pretty cool concept, and it makes for some beautiful photos. 

"No, no, we're just getting married on a beach, and we may take pictures in the water." She told me. "I don't want you to get upset."

"Pffffffffft. It's your wedding and your dress, you go on and do whatever you want." 

And then I saw the pictures from the wedding...

So cute!

And all I could do was laugh - because clearly my friend's definition of a little wet is very different than mine :)

Yup, it got wet all right.

It turns out that she decided to trash the dress after all (though it wasn't really trashed as it survived being dunked in the pacific) and they had an absolute blast doing it :)

So to Mike and Lala, our best friends who have been there with us through thick and thin...

Congratulations!

Be sure to check out Tami's Amis for more Finished Object Goodness!!!