My wedding dress was more than I could have ever imagined, which is saying a lot since I spent a lot of time imagining it. I found my dream dress on Pinterest in college, but it was one of those really annoying pins with no information whatsoever. None. So I had no idea who made the frothy, delicious tulle masterpiece that I would one day call my own. I kept pictures of it in my lock box from college, screen-shot on my phone, in my email inbox.
Talking to other brides, and the salons where they purchased their dresses, I heard that I should try on several different styles and fabrics, see what felt the best. They could tell me that all they wanted but I knew what I wanted and I was not going to settle for anything less.
Flash forward a few years. I’m now engaged, and ready to have my dress. I still didn’t know where it came from. A couple years back, I emailed Kelly Dempsey from Project Runway. She was so sweet and and gracious and indulged me by doing my little #wcw interview. I had seen some of her wedding work (it was gorgeous) and hit her up once again with my idea for a dress. She said that her custom wedding dresses started at $2k. While that was within a reasonable price zone, my mom reminded me that wedding dresses need alterations. That would mean several trips to Boston during one of the busiest years of my life. Again, Kelly was gracious, as I told her I would go in another direction, and just asked to see a picture of what I ended up with when it was done because it sounded beautiful.
Early in my engagement, maybe the following weekend, my mom and I decided to go get a celebratory lunch and maybe pick up some wedding planning books. There’s a relatively new development in Gaithersburg called the Downtown Crown and we decided to go to Palidar there. We happened to park right outside of Couture By Posh Bridal. They happened to have an appointment in an hour.
I tried on maybe half a dozen dresses, without planning to, and found my dress. I loved the butterfly wing detail on the back and the tulle skirt was nice but it wasn’t *quite* my dream dress yet. I fell in love with that back though and the dress was strangely under priced to the point we actually asked them why.
Side note: Remember when I said in the post about the groomsmen that we had “Easter egg” symbolism in the wedding? One of those Easter eggs was butterflies because Kendall joked with me that I was a kitty-caterpillar one day when I was totally curled up in a blanket and I couldn’t be a butterfly until we got married and then I would be his butterfly bride. I needed that butterfly dress!
Luckily, I have an irl fairy godmother. This woman had previously altered several pieces for me- including a bridesmaid dress that originally made me cry (not happy tears, sad tears) when I put it on off the rack.
When I told Ms. Nicole of Designs by Nicole that I thought I found my dress but it wasn’t quite my dress yet, she came up with a solution. We would cut the original dress to be a short surprise for the reception, and she built my dream skirt (an even better version) to go over that for the ceremony. She used different shades of white and pink tulle to create what we called a watercolor effect and added a bow and embellishment. We were originally going to add some sparkle to it too, but the embellishment on the waist was just enough that we didn’t need to do that. For the reception, I tied on a little sash with a similar embellishment.
The whole process of getting the dress and altering it took about a year. My dress took longer to come in than what we were quoted, and they had me order it so large that major altering needed to be done so it wouldn’t fall off me. I, at one point, was told that my dress was not a priority by the salon because my wedding was later than other dresses they were waiting on. Not a totally pleasant experience from the salon, honestly.
Thankfully, Nicole pulled it off seamlessly. I got my dream dress, I felt like a princess, and I would recommend my fairy godmother to everyone who needs special alterations or customization.
One funny thing before I get to the pics…
My mom and I honestly had no idea what the end alterations were going to cost. When Ms. Nicole sent my mom an email that a balance of $6000 was due, my mom called me hysterically laughing and just was like “honey you are expensive but you truly have a couture, custom gown so it’s worth it.” I’m glad she had such good humor about it because I didn’t sleep that night. When she went in to pay Nicole, we found out that she’d been up late working on an entire bridal party of alterations with some crazy deadline, and was so tired she’d accidentally added an extra zero in the email. Altogether, my dress was under budget and exactly what I wanted.
I really loved showing off the back of the dress + the bow… it was also super fun to dance in
photos by Darrell McDavid Photography
Check out what I'm loving right now on Amazon!
