How to Wear a Family Wedding Dress
Wearing a family wedding dress is a great way to add a sense of family and history to your wedding. An heirloom wedding dress will add a vintage feel to your bridal style, as well. Wear your family wedding dress as is, altering it only enough to fit you, or have it redesigned to give a sense of the old and new. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Remove the dress from storage and lay it out on a bed or sheet. Inspect the dress for damage: stains, snags or holes. Use a sticky part of a post-it or a piece of colored tape to mark the damaged areas you find, so you won't have to search for them again later.
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Decide if you want to want to simply alter the dress to be your size and wear it in the same style, or if you want to redesign the dress to be more personal to your look. Discuss the options with your mother, grandmother, or whoever owns the dress. Also, discuss the options with any siblings or anyone else in your family who may have planned to wear the dress again. If someone else intends to wear the dress as well, you will not want to change it too drastically.
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Take the dress to a professional cleaner and see what they can do about removing the stains. Have them clean the dress, pointing out any tears and holes so that they don't worsen them. Do not have them repair the holes; this can be done by the dress seamstress once you have finalized your design.
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Outline a budget that you want to spend on your wedding dress. Redesigns and alterations can be pricey, so it's important to set an amount before you get your heart set on a certain style. Factor in the amount you will also be spending on the veil, shoes, undergarments and other accessories.
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Make an appointment with a professional dress designer. If you are choosing to redesign the dress, bring a few pictures of dress styles you like. Also, bring a picture of the gown when it was originally worn, in case any restoration needs to be done. This will also give you and the designer a feel for the era that the dress was worn in. Work with the designer to come up with a few different styles or alterations she plans on making, and have her draw you a few sketches of her ideas, along with pricing information.
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Take the sketches home, and if your budget requires it, prioritize what alterations or changes are most important to you. Of course, you'll want to have the fitting alterations no matter what, but beyond that, choose where your priorities lie when it comes to adding buttons down the back or extra lace on the bodice.
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Go in for several fittings during the alteration process to make sure you are not doing any extra work or paying for anything that does not need to be done. Your final fitting should be done a few weeks before the wedding.
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References
- Photo Credit wedding dress image by Mat Hayward from Fotolia.com
