The Dress

When we last discussed “the dress”, I had received the mock dress, and a large piece of paper to draw the design for the dress. After several tries of taking measurements and realizing that some of my undergarments were ill-fitting (thanks to a video skype with Katherine), the dress was out of my decision making realm and into Katherine at Whirling Turban’s creative and capable hands. I was a little timid in my design as I know nothing about dressmaking, and I certainly didn’t want to frustrate Katherine and wanted her to be able to express her talents. I drew something simple following her instructions. My first design was very line oriented which actually worked against how the ribbon design worked for her dresses so I tried toning it down a bit. She took my simple design and ran with it…I love it when people get to enjoy a project and I hope Katherine enjoyed working on mine. She requested to take artistic license and I totally agreed. It also meant that I really didn’t know what the final was going to look like. To some this may have been a bit scary, but seeing how talented whirling turban staff are, I was simply more excited to see what they would come up with.

When I was told the dress had been shipped, it was like waiting for Christmas. Turns out my wonderful post office claimed to have given me a notice which I NEVER saw. After a bit of tracking, I noticed that the dress had been here for 9 days at the post office….immediately went to rescue the dress that morning. Scott made me wait yet another hour before I could open it since he had to film me opening it. It sat on my office chair…waiting…..and just sitting there unopened. Try not to laugh at my hair in the video.

The first picture right after opening the dress box.

One last thing I need to do is to get the dress hemmed. I’ve contacted one lady but haven’t heard back yet… so spoiler alert….below :).

The Crinoline

The other big thing to talk about is the crinoline. Whirling Turban recommended a place for crinoline, but because of the color of my dress, I wanted to find something that would go perfectly. White was out, since the dress ribbon is black. Black was not ideal because it is my wedding and that much I think would have been disturbing. I wanted to be different, but not shove it in people’s face.

I found a wonderful shop on Etsy (if you don’t know Etsy, get to know Etsy. Your life will only improve) called Swank Underpinnings run by a lady named Ann Swank. I contacted her and sent her a piece of my sample fabric. She custom dyed and made a crinoline just for me. She also took the time to find just the right color of ribbon for the dress (which the ribbon makes all the difference if you look at plain crinoline versus Ann’s creations). She made a 4 tier crinoline which is a bit fluffier than the 2 tier. She’s made some for rockabilly weddings where the dresses stick way out with stiff tulle, but we decided the softer crinoline would work best for me.

Crinoline made by Ann Swank of  Swank Underpinnings

The final conclusion

I absolutely loved this experience. I feel my dress expresses me rather than some tired tradition that I have no connection to. I would recommend this to anyone who is actively interested in making a dress that is unique. I do think being web and computer savvy helped a lot though. Definitely brush up on the interwebs communication like Skype and Google video/chat if you want do this. The video Skype with Katherine was a huge turning point for the dress IMHO and made me feel very good about the dress progress.