Cocktail wedding dress in pale blue and lace for Isabelle

pale blue cocktail wedding dress with layered skirt

I am a huge fan of wearing a bit of colour for your wedding, so this pale blue cocktail wedding dress hits all the right buttons! The dress has a cute, vintage, 1950’s wiggle dress vibe and suited Isabelle perfectly.

Simple and sweet bridal mini-dress with tiered ivory lace skirt. Pale blue silk satin shows through the lace with a lightly boned bodice giving support and shape. The final length for the cocktail wedding dress was mid-knee but the pale blue silk finished above the knee for a glimpse more leg. The lace over dress has a high round neckline and short sleeves. I highlighted the waist with a delicate scalloped lace trim to compliment the edge on the skirt tiers and sleeves. The wedding dress closed with a concealed zip at centre back with a keyhole opening in the lace above and single button closure.

chantilly lace bespoke wedding dress exchanging rings
short cocktail wedding dress london made to measure bride and groom
simple wedding dress with lace surrey with bouquet
laughing bride something blue bespoke wedding dress pale blue silk

I loved seeing the pictures with Isabelle’s bouquet. I remember talking to her at the fittings about flowers and colours that would compliment her pale blue wedding dress. I suggested using eucalyptus leaves as they have a lovely soft grey-green colour. I was really pleased to see her florist agreed with me, as there they are!

How we designed Isabelle’s cocktail wedding dress

Isabelle came to see me with an off-the-peg dress she had found, which she loved but it wasn’t quite right. Isabelle’s mum came to the consultation too and she was pleased at the idea Isabelle might end up wearing something a little more special than an off-the-peg dress.

inspiration dress off the peg hanging up

Isabelle knew from the start she wanted some colour . She was weighing up between a pale pink and a pale blue for the cocktail wedding dress. It was easy for us to choose the lace as by a huge coincidence my usual fabric supplier had exactly the same lace available as the inspiration dress! I have sample books with hundreds of lace fabrics (and other fabrics) to choose from.

Although I don’t make copies I do encourage brides to share any images or ideas they have found elsewhere. In this case although most of my design work was guided by the inspiration dress. Isabelle wanted enough changes from the original design for me to feel comfortable. She preferred a straight across neckline for the underdress and we reduced the sleeve length during the fitting process to just a cap sleeve.

original design sketch for cocktail wedding dress by felicity westmacott

Making Isabelle’s Wedding Dress

Working with lace always presents a few challenges. For this cocktail wedding dress I had to make sure I was lining up the cascading tiers and scallops. I also wanted to ensure a balanced placement of the motifs in the bodice area. I used a concealed zip to ensure a couture level invisible finish for the back fastening.

With thanks to Miranda Virgo who took Isabelle’s professional wedding pictures

pale blue cocktail wedding dress with scalloped lace overlay

If you’d like to talk about your own bespoke wedding dress ideas, for a cocktail wedding dress or another style just get in touch.

If the colour is what drew you in have a peek at some of my other blue wedding dresses, they are very varied!

Victorian pale blue wedding dress

Teal flamenco inspired wedding dress

Fairytale pale blue tulle and sparkle

Aqua blue ruched satin

or a another chantilly lace dress

or another short dress

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Felicity Westmacott

I write about all aspects of weddings, dressmaking, fashion history, and the human relation to clothing. I welcome comments and debate.

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@kathykyle_studio is a local artist who walked into my shop one day and asked me to make her a dress. She's a textile artist, and she was having a launch party for her latest collection, and wanted something extra special for the occasion.

Kathy makes wearable art. She paints beautiful, intricate designs and has her designs printed onto silk scarves. Her pieces are full of meaningful motifs about feminism, life and so much more.

Making this dress was such a wonderful collaboration. Kathy created a new design (5m x 1.5m in size) to be printed onto fabric, and brought me a vintage pattern she wanted to use. The pattern was actually reversable, with options for both a V-neck and boat neck. It was very cool to see Kathy switching her dress round for each part of her launch day.

I love working with fellow artists!

#dorking #surrey #textileart #bespokedress #customdress #printedfabric
Here are just some of my creations from the past year! I feel so lucky to get to make such interesting and varied garments as my job 🥰 colourful wedding dresses, unique mother of the bride ensembles, as well as alterations to make a dress feel more like home.

If you used my services (as a bride specifically) between Oct 1st 2024 up until now, I have a little favour to ask...
I've been nominated for the 2026 Wedding Industry Awards, in the "Independent Dressmaker/Designer" category and the people in the time period above are the only ones who are eligible to vote for me. 

So, if you have a spare few minutes, and you enjoyed both working with me and the outcome, then you can vote for me via the link in my bio. There are different voting links depending on whether you were a bespoke or dipdye booking, or an alteration booking. 

Industry recognition is one thing, but recognition from the people I work with is even better 💜
(and if you've already voted for me, thank you!! It means the world!)
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.⁠
⁠
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
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