Making my wedding dress

ellisa&rob

My family has a tradition of making our wedding dresses.  My mother and grandmother made my mom's and it is beautiful.  The only problem is my grandmother doesn't see as well as she used to and my mother and I can't sew a dress from scratch, we need a patern.  We are trying to find the perfect dress in the pattern books at our local JoAnns and have come up with beautiful dresses for my fiance's three daughters but not much selection for me.  Any suggestions?

jennylee813

You can find and order patterns online at Butterick, mccalls, vogue etc (it's all one company and you can access them from the same site.

http://butterick.mccall.com/

Look in all of them, check out bridal AND dresses. Sometimes you can find what you're looking for in a regular dress pattern and add bridal touches to it.  It's the line of the dress that's important, you can always add appliques after, and your choice of fabrics will make a difference as well.

Good luck!

Avion22

My mom made prom dresses for me and for my sister -- it was awesome! Didn't have to worry about having the same dress as anyone else. I second looking on the Internet for patterns -- you should be able to find whatever you need:-)

christinamarie325

Try burdastyle.com they have some wedding patterns and plenty of resources if you need them.

Kathryn Wagner

Oh you are brave! Will say that vogue has the best patterns for bridal, if you go on ebay there are actually vera wang patterns. Some are a little old fashion but could be easily updated. I am not sure if you have worked with vogue patterns before, I think they are not as simple as other companies.

weddingmuse

I made my DD's wedding dress using a combination of four patterns:  for the bodice, New Look 6401; for the aline skirt with chapel train, Butterick 5352; for the ruched midriff, Vogue 8182; and for the bodice cups, I used the slip top of Vogue 1160.

If you don't see a pattern you like - and Joann basically has the books for all major companies, including Burdastyle and New Look - you might try working backwards.  Try on dresses so you know what you like, and then put together patterns that will replicate that look.  DD's dress was based on Watters "Harmony", only with better fabric and lace, and of course no alterations.

Otherwise, you can also look at Marfy (on the Vogue site, very expensive patterns), or from Moscow, Lekala - http://leko-mail.net/mod-e.php?t=0&a=27&n=0 - they are downloadable patterns only, but you can purchase them according to your individual measurements.  They have some different styles.

I also second PP - try eBay (also Etsy) for vintage patterns.

GL!

Sue-n-Kevin

I made my ceremony dress & a lace bolero (dress pictured below in my signature pic). I agree with weddingmuse, it's probably a good idea to try on dresses to get an idea of the style you want before buying any patterns. I happened to know what style was right for me before buying the patterns. I used 3 different patterns to make mine.

The online websites for the pattern companies have way more patterns than the books in the fabric stores. Many are out of print, but still available at a great discount. The list of websites above is pretty good. I used Simplicity, McCall's & Vogue.