Another Floral Wedding Guest Dress

What a fun, beautiful (and exhausting) wedding! As I mentioned in my earlier post about the rehearsal, the venue at Mountain Terrace was simply amazing. The views were pretty and tranquil, the deck sparkled with white Christmas lights after sunset, and the glowing dining room inside was decorated perfectly, from the too-cute succulent plant place card holders to the pretty gold & white table runners and beautiful flower arrangements. So lovely.

It was an emotional and exciting day, and somehow that makes me even more glad I sewed my own dress to commemorate and celebrate such a fun and meaningful event. The day held a lot of firsts for me.

• First time I had my makeup done professionally and WORE FAKE EYELASHES! Felt like I was a movie star.

• First time I was in a wedding and did a reading as part of the ceremony. Yikes, I was nervous.

• First time I ate Princess Cake, which was so delicious!

• First time I saw my dad out on the dance floor, tearing it up and cracking me up (in the best way). He was great!

• First time I got to really hang out with some of my (half)sister's relatives basically since I was a baby. So fun!

My sister picked the

Avett Brother's song "January Wedding" to play as she walked out with my dad, and I totally started crying (somehow without ruining the multiple layers of eye-makeup). That song just gets me every time.

Once I got used to (as much as I could) my intense makeup, I found that I was rather pleased with my overall outfit for the wedding. My me-made dress ended up being pretty perfect -- certainly not made perfectly, but great to wear. Except for the fact that I was pretty cold (dramatically refusing to put on my coat) when we were outside for the ceremony, my outfit looked and felt good throughout the night. It was nice to not be wearing something the least bit uncomfortable and I just loved looking down at the pretty, painterly floral print.

For the dress, I used New Look 6000, just the plain sleeveless version. I stitched it up in a floral cotton sateen that had shades of purple, dark blue, black, teal, and white. The entire dress was lined in bemberg rayon, which was a little easier to do than on my rehearsal dress, because this dress is just one main piece, rather than being broken up with a waist seam.

Mistakes I made in sewing this dress include: not lining up the top of the zipper properly, so that it accidentally extends up past the back neckline opening and shows (oh well), and, again, not getting the length of the lining quite right, so that it bunches and shows a little in the front when I'm wearing the dress.

I don't know if this qualifies as a mistake really, but I also took two fitting shortcuts in sewing this dress. I added little darts around the neckline, which luckily don't distract the eye thanks to the busy print. This reduced the neckline and upper bust gaping that was going on. I also stitched the dress side seams including the lining along with the fashion fabric, as one - almost like underlining. This made it easy to take in the sides without needing to sew a ginormous seam keeping the lining separate from the dress.

The dress is hemmed similarly, with a single hem including both the lining and fashion fabric. I just did a machine hem because, again, the busy print almost totally hides the stitching.

Cheers - to a fun wedding and a great dress! I'm glad I forced myself to finally sit down and sew the darn thing, rather than wimping out and buying something instead (I'd considered it). The fabric was somewhat of an unusual choice for me. I don't really have anything else like it in my closet, but I'm glad I chose it! The colors are pretty, the cotton sateen was easy to sew with, and the print hid all of my less-than-ideal sewing decisions. It was a win-win-win, if you ask me!