Organza waterfall fishtail wedding dress

This is Hannah’s organza waterfall fishtail wedding dress which was a ‘restyle’ rather than made from scratch. She found the almost perfect dress in a bridal boutique but brought it to me to have the skirt changed to the organza waterfall loveliness she craved.

Official photography by Adebayo Deru

Whole circles of crisp pale ivory organza were cut and edged with crinoline ribbon and then sewn to the front. The back is all waterfall spirals with the lace from the bodice above fading into the organza in a peplum style.

Original design sketch for the proposed changes to create the organza waterfall fishtail wedding dress. I always create a sketch for my clients. It’s essential to ensure what we are both expecting from the work matches up!

Before: Hannah’s dress ‘before’ with the simpler layered tulle skirt, at her fitting in the bridal boutique where she found the dress. I undertook sizing alterations to the base dress before I started work adding the organza skirt.

After: my work on the dress added drama and texture to the lower skirt. We added 7 large organza waterfall frills, each edged with stiffening ‘horsehair braid’ so they spring out and away. I re appliquéd, by hand, lace taken from the original skirt by hand onto the curls of the new skirt.

Details of the work to the organza waterfall fishtail wedding dress

The stiff ribbon you can see sewn along the edge of each waterfall section is called ‘horsehair braid’ or crin/crinoline. It provides a clean finish and a light wieght stiffening to the bouncy organza curls. horsehair braid is so called because before the invention of plastics it was actually made from horse hair. The hair was easily harvested when the manes and tales of horses were groomed. Then it was woven in stiff, light weight ribbons for use in dressmaking.

To see another waterfall organza wedding dress, head over to Richelle’s bespoke wedding dress

To find out more about having your wedding dress restyled or altered see my alterations page.