Wear Your Mother's Wedding Dress?

So, I'm engaged. Head over heels in love. WOOT WOOT. Okay enough of that. I decided to honor my hippie side and have a green/eco friendly/recycled wedding. Determined to locate a used wedding dress I grabbed my MOH and 2 of my bride's maids we went on the search of our dresses.

I checked out pintrest first and I found these for inspiration:

http://pinterest.com/pin/116530709079747123/

http://pinterest.com/pin/116530709079752880/

Beautiful, and fitting for a back yard, 4th of July BBQ style wedding, yet still classy. So I had an idea of what I wanted. But I was still open to other ideas as well. 10 thrift stores later, I was exhausted, we had 2 bride's maid dresses but nothing even REMOTELY like what I wanted. This is going to be harder than I thought!!! But WAIT, what if I have something at home... something I can re-design or make myself? Enter.... the dress my grandmother wore for her wedding, then my mother wore for her wedding. So we run to my grandmother's home and dig it out of the closet. (excuse the lack of makeup, you can't really try on wedding dresses with makeup on) I put it on.

WOWZA. This is me standing on a kitchen chair! See in the 60s when my grandma wore this, she had a hoop skirt and a bustle underneath. Not really appropriate for a backyard, eating BBQ ribs sort of deal right? But see how those ruffles lay in lines? I was hoping for that, and sure enough! Head over to a seamstresses place (lots of driving). [P.S. I showed this pic to my fiance and he thought I should wear it like this!! LOLs, men ;-) ]

I stand up on a block and the first thing she does is remove about 10 lbs of lace and tulle and satin lining.

WHAT a difference. It's starting to seem workable now. A little pinning, a little tugging later and we have a workable first draft.

Not bad huh? So she still has to shorten the arms, hem the satin liner, and sew into being the pins around my chest/arms. We're going to hem the satin lining to be about 2" shorter than the lace hem, but it's workable. I won't get the alterations back until January though, so I guess I'll just twiddle my thumbs till then, and keep you all in anticipation!

Here it is on the hanger, fully pinned.

I am excited!! how about you? How have you up-cycled things from your parent's or grandparent's to give them new life?

 

------ 2/4/2013 -----

 

The update everyone has been waiting for! New pictures after some of the modifications have been made.

 

 

 

Because the original dess was made to be worn with a bustle, it makes this dress a drastic hi-low cut that is so in right now! What do you think?

 

 

P.S. I'll update this page when the new pictures come in, not adding new blog posts. So check back often!