Blog - Musings from the mind of a bespoke dressmaker.

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Wedding Dress for Sara

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Sara commissioned a simple and elegant ruched dress in ivory silk dupion.

Official photographs by www.andygaines.com

The dress has a fitted and boned bodice and a-line skirt. The bodice material is ruched to one side with cross-over detail. The wide neckline opens from a shallow v-neck to off-the-shoulder straps that just sit on the edge of Sara’s shoulders.?The back of Sara’s dress extended into a train and fastened with a concealed zip.

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Sara with her lovely bridesmaids who’s gunmetal grey dresses were also hand made (though not by me). Sara did however buy the silk dupion that they are made from through me, choosing from the hundreds of fabrics I have in my sample books.

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

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Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: something blue

Sara’s dress came with a hidden ‘something blue’, a pretty ribbon rose sewn on next to the wrist loop used for picking up her train when walking outside. She also had a bustle button for hitching the train up off the floor with no hand needed for dancing.

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Here you can see Sara using her wrist loop to keep her train off the ground while they have photos outside

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: original design sketch

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: ruched ivory silk with off the shoulder neckline and sweeping train

Sara dancing the night way unimpeded by her train which is safely bustled up out
of the way.

Making Sarah’s Dress

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: pictures from the toile (practice) fitting

Pictures from Sara’s toile fitting
What is a toile??It’s a practice run! After I take your measurements I draft a flat paper pattern for your dress. The pattern is then cut out in a cheap fabric (usually calico) and sewn together for a fitting. Any adjustments needed are pinned on and copied over to the paper pattern ready to be used on the real fabric. The toile stage saves expensive mistakes with your real materials and means you can check the fit and style are perfect with time for a complete change of mind if need be!

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: pictures from the fitting process

Pictures from Sara’s final fitting

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: pictures from the fitting process

Views of the back of the dress showing the train spread out and also bustled up for dancing.

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: on a stand in my studio

The finished dress on the stand in my work room

Wedding dress by Felicity Westmacott: finished and ready to go

The finished dress, steamed, stuffed and ready to be collected

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It's giving bridal Sun Goddess 🌞 Just look at that colour!

One of my favourite bespoke wedding dresses to date. I made this opulent bronze gold look for an equally gorgeous bride who wanted something a little different for her wedding day. 

My favourite features have got to be the statement bow on the shoulder and the cartridge pleats around the waist. This style of pleating helped add volume to this unbelievable iridescent dupion silk. Cartridge pleating was popular in the first Elizabethan era and always gives a touch of the historical to any garment on which it's included.

I also included a bustle hook (you can see what the dress looks like up in the last clip), which totally transforms the dress and makes it much easier to move in when it's time to dance!

This is bride was a dream client - elegant and adventurous, with a touch of the dramatic 😉 drop me a DM if you've got wedding dress dreams that you're dying to bring to life!

#weddingdress #ukbride #bespokeweddingdress #bridetobe
I thought it would be fun to see the differences between various bridal petticoats and hoop skirts. Meet the Aurora wedding dress, she's one of my favourites, especially because of the excellent dramatic vibes she gives. So she felt like the perfect dress to experiment with.

The Aurora dress already has some layers of netting built into the dress, so she's already got a bit of volume from the get go. But I wanted to see what difference adding more underlayers would have.

The first addition was a single hoop skirt. Hoop skirts come in all sorts of variations - the single hoop is pretty much what it sounds like. There's a single hoop at the bottom of the skirt, translating into more width at the bottom of the dress.

Then I took off the hoop skirt, and put on a 5-layer petticoat. This thing is a monster! But adds so much more airy, fluffy volume.

The second hoop skirt I tried was a bell hoop skirt. This one has hoops built in all the way up the skirt, creating more of a...you guessed it...bell shape.

And then finally, for the ultimate princess vibes, I tried both the 5-layer petticoat and the bell hoop skirt together. It's giving fairy tale bride, for sure. Perfect for twirling in whilst you dance with your prince, princess or princep.

When ordering a dress from me, talking about what kind of silhouette you want is really useful. And I've got loads of seamstress secrets to achieve pretty much anything you can imagine!

#weddingdress #dipdyeweddingdress #seamstress #pinkweddingdress #princessweddingdress #balloonsleeves
"I cannot begin to put into words how thankful I am that I found you to make my wedding dress of my dreams. The dress was perfect in every way and the colours looked glorious in the Cornish sunshine. Everyone fell in love with the dress and I even got likened to the Porthleven mermaid! It even stood up to rambling down cliffs. You truly are a genius and I can never thank you enough."⁠

Nicola wanted an elegant and figure-hugging mermaid wedding dress made in pale ivory lace. To add colour to her look, she chose a vibrant yellow, orange, red and purple dip dye skirt. 

If you want to see how the dress looked on the day of Nicola's wedding, have a look at my previous post. I love how the colours of the dress really stand out against the dramatic setting of the Cornish coast.⁠
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If you're also looking for a completely unique wedding dress, then you've come to the right place. Starting with your ideas and working together during the entire process, I'll design and make your dream wedding dress. Drop me and DM and let's have a chat!
⁠
~⁠
Photography - Thomas Frost - @t.frost.photography⁠
Venue - Beacon Crag B&B, Porthleven - @beaconcragweddingvenue⁠
Flowers - Fullers Flowers - @fullersflowers⁠
Hair & Makeup - Amy Needham @amyellenhairandmakeup
Part 2!

In Part 1 I spent all day prepping my bridal window display. There was a looot of dismantling and tidying involved before I could even begin to start thinking about which wedding dresses I wanted to include in my Pride themed window. Now that's all done, let's just enjoy all this glorious colour!

Which outfit is your favourite? I would love to see a bride wearing both the skirt and veil in one, fabulous, rainbow look.

And, of course, happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈

#pride #bridalboutique #surreybride #sussexbride #altbride #alternativebride #colourfulbride #bespokeweddingdress #weddingdress
emailme@felicitywestmacott.co.ukTEL 07762 543230TOUCHGet in
from design to completionbespoke wedding dressesFelicity Westmacott
Dorking, RH4 1RT241 High Street• Visit the Studio •
Dorking, RH4 1RT241 High Street• Visit the Studio •
emailme@felicitywestmacott.co.ukTEL 07762 543230TOUCHGet in