Among all my other projects, I’ve been working on Polly’s wedding dress, but I couldn’t blog about it because it needed to be a secret until her wedding.
Now that Polly’s all happily married to Mr Polly, and had the loveliest wedding (with swing dancing!) I can show you her gorgeous dress. Yay!
Polly’s dress was such a fun commission to work on.
I love non-traditional brides, and Polly had such a charming, individual, perfectly her vision for her entire wedding. Polly is a seamstress in her own right, and loves vintage textiles. The invitations included pattern pieces (cute!), and she made her bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets out of tea dyed silk flowers, vintage buttons, and old doilies and pieces of antique lace, including some from her mothers wedding dress. Awwwww….
Lucky for Polly, one of her best friends and bridesmaids was noted Wellington hat designer Amy Jansen-Leen, and Amy did Polly’s hair and headpiece, and collaborated with Polly and I on the dress design.
Polly and Amy's drawing of the design.
Polly picked the most gorgeous fabrics for her dress, all in shades of pale golds and butterscotch: a dupion silk, illusion tulle, a gold lace, and a fabulous beaded silk crepe chiffon.
The fabrics were all a dream to work with, and Polly was a dream to work with, and so open to all my suggestions about the dress.
I got to have fun and add little ‘seamstress’ touches like appliqueing lace motifs onto the sleeves…
And making a false bolero trimmed with self-fabric piping…
And working the extra beads and pearls from the skirt into the lace overlay on the bodice.
When my part of the dress was finished Amy took the scraps and made gorgeous flower pins to go at the top of the slit in the skirt, and to go in Polly’s hair.
And Polly looked fabulous on her wedding day. But you’ll just have to take my word for that! 😉
I love the fabric and the false bolero with the trim is lovely. How would you “attach” the false bolero to the dress without adding bulk to the back?
That’s just gorgeous. Almost makes me want to work with brides again! (How do you advertise to only get interesting, off beat brides?)
Only advertise on offbeatbrides!
Absolument adorable! Steph, I know what you mean. Choose a quirky label? Put “Boring brides, GO AWAY!” on your ads? hehehe.
This is exactly–exactly–the kind of dress that makes me wish more than anything that I could look good in an empire dress. What a beautiful dress for a creative and cool bride!
This gown is exquisite…I hope we get to see a picture of the happy bride!
What an absolutely gorgeous dress. I love the colouring and the lace and the tulle. I do hope that you get pictures of the bride inthe dress to post on your blog, I am intrigued to see how the hair and head dress compliment the gown and how the beautifully individual bouquets go with everything. Such interesting ideas…
That dress is truly gorgeaus, and somehow looks decidedly 1910s to me… in a very good way. I love the detail on the sleeve!
A Polly not dressed in Sin but sinfully deliciously! Love the onion skin silk and gorgeous laces and textures, I love the mods you did to the original silhouette. It is very, very pretty and as one of the lucky ones who has seen actual wedding photos, it passes the most important test, it suits the bride’s personality and sense of style as well as her figure. You are a very clever minx!
Hi everyone!! Polly here!!
I have just found this wonderful story about my dress. It was so exquisite and I loved it to bits, both on the day and this weekend when I wore it again for ball of the school at which I teach.
I will send pics so you can see it in the flesh, so to speak.
Thanks to a most delicious maker of superb things!!! It brings a twinkle to my eye every time I spy it hanging on the wardrobe door.
xx
Polly
I’m so glad you found this post! I really enjoyed making your dress, and working with you. You were the best client possible – great taste and a wonderful personality!