Make your own wedding dress

Seriously lady?  Make my own wedding dress?  Have you gone completely insane?  Not exactly.  Look, I can't sew a thing either but some people can, or know someone who can, and sometimes even considering the idea of creating your own gown can save you money.  What's that saying?  Necessity is the mother of invention.  You'd love to spend $5000 on a gown but that's impossible so we need a new game plan.  Consider the following story, this extremely talented woman wanted an extremely expensive dress.  Instead of buying it, she made a knock-off and it is gorgeous.  Look at these side by side photos!

Click here for more photos of her creation.

But what do you do if you can't sew?  Consider heading to a fabric store and browsing through their dress patterns.  I did this all through high school for proms, homecoming dances, Winter Wonderland, etc.  I wanted a certain type of dress and I didn't want a dress that looked like every other dress I saw in all of the stores.  Actually, I was probably going to have a hard time finding what I wanted anywhere in a regular formal dress shop.  I wanted something classic, black, kind of Audrey Hepburn.  But that's not exactly what was in stock for sixteen year old girls in the mid-90's.

So I had to improvise.  I first browsed through magazines, found some ideas, then I would draw a design on a piece of paper, take that to the fabric store, find a pattern similar or mix two patterns together to find the exact look, and I took my idea to a seamstress.  She made my dress and with the cost of the fabric, the whole thing was around $60.  Not too bad for a dress that was totally original, exactly what I wanted, and didn't break the bank.  And really, how cool is it to say you designed and created your own wedding dress?

There are so many resources out there, free stuff too!  You can download a wedding dress pattern for $4.99, from big names like Vogue.  Here's a link to get you started, but really, a quick google search and you're on your way.


If I could go back in time, I would absolutely create my own dress.  My whole wedding, with 250 people and a budget, had to be planned completely in three short months.  I do not recommend that kind of stress.  But looking back now, I wish I would have taken the time to really look into other options.  For instance, the blue dress with straps in the picture, this is a classic look that I believe could be replicated for a wedding dress.  In fact, I'm going to try it this summer when I get my sewing/crafting room up and running.  Think it's do-able?