Wedding dress designer London – Long sleeve top for Danielle

Danielle needed my help as a wedding dress designer near London to create her a custom long sleeve bodice that would fit perfectly over her wedding dress. Danielle’s wedding dress was beautiful even just ‘off the peg’ but it needed a little something extra to create a bit of drama on her wedding day.

long sleeve bridal top separates on classic english bride

Working with Danielle, I designed a long sleeve wedding top in pale ivory crepe. We carefully matched the fabric in colour and texture to blend perfectly with her wedding dress beneath. The over-bodice has a modest boat neckline at the front which contrasts with the plunging v-neck back. I suggested we add real buttons and loops as a feature fastening. Adding the same fastening to the back and to the sleeve cuffs brings the whole design together.

I had to be very careful to ensure the neckline of the wedding dress beneath worked perfectly with the bodice being put over the top. As an experienced wedding dress designer, checking for this kind of thing is part and parcel of what you pay for with my personal service.

Danielle said “I wanted to thank you SO SO SO much for all of my alterations on my dress. It was absolutely perfect and I had so many comments, mainly from people very confused at to whether I had two dresses!!”

scottish bride bespoke wedding dress and groom in kilt
confettis shot modest wedding dress traditional bride
long sleeve bridal top with boat neck and button cuff
custom wedding top with buttons and low v back
custom wedding dress surrey dressmaker
beach wedding separates low back wedding top

How to create two looks on your wedding day

Danielle wore the top I made for the wedding ceremony but then took it off for the evening party. This kind of ‘big reveal’ is a fun way to work different looks for the parts of your wedding day. that have very different vibes; an emotionally serious ceremony and a fun filled celebration later on.

classic bride wears a diamante headband tiara hairpiece
The dress underneath Danielle’s bespoke wedding top, and the diamante hair band I made

Many modern wedding dress designs very revealing than has been common in the past with plunging necklines or flesh revealing lace. As a wedding dress designer I often advise that layering a more modest, bolero or top is a good compromise. However you should only cover up or reveal to please yourself! We should not allow the pressure of expectations from others to influence our choices. I wrote a blog post all about dressing to please yourself. I hope to support brides who like to go against the grain!

It was so lovely to work with Danielle on this commission. Seeing the finished article being worn on a wedding day always give me such a little buzz of pleasure. Being a wedding dress designer in the London area means I get to help brides from all different backgrounds. This dress was worn with a Scottish groom in a kilt! I would describe this style as ‘modern traditional’ – being simple doesn’t stop a design being dramatic!

A little bit extra from a wedding dress designer London

I also undertook the sizing alterations on Danielle’s shop bought wedding dress. It gives me immense satisfaction to work with well made things. I love taking something that isn’t quite perfect bringing it to bridal standard perfection.

As well as usual sizing changes we added a diamante belt to Danielle’s dress. After cutting to length there was just enough of the trim left for me to create a matching head band for Danielle. It wasn’t part of her original plan but it’s the kind of added extra I pride myself on being able to see the potential for. I no longer often make hair accessories but it was fun to get the tools out again for this occasion!

wedding hair accessories made from belt

Pictures from Danielle’s fittings.

Images from the final fitting of Danielle’s dress and the original design sketch

bespoke dressmaker surrey dress fitting real bride
original design for long sleeve bodice by felicity westmacott

If you are in need of a wedding dress designer in London please do get in touch. I’d love to help!

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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
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