Wedding dress redux

 

Almost 3 years after originally restyling my jade and gold skirt into a dress to wear to a wedding, and a year and a half after outfitting it with straps, it was finally ready for another public appearance...at another wedding!

As is the story of many of my special occasion outfits, I didn't decide on this dress until almost the last minute. For most of the weeks preceding the event, I had planned to wear a fancy, dark-floral tea-length dress with a high-low hemline and plenty of tulle to fill it out. But in trying it on the day before I left town for the wedding, I realized it was much too stuffy for an outdoor wedding in the June Texas heat. I needed a dress that could breathe.

I proceeded to try on almost every dress in my closet, with increasing panic as I realized all of them were too casual or too formal for the event. Although I'm not sure why (probably mainly because I wanted to wear something new—it's a wedding tradition!), I hesitated to try the green-and-gold until I was fresh out of other options. But this dress was past due for a re-wear, and after trying it on and feeling how much more ventilated it was than my first choice, I knew I'd made the right move. 

The only problem was the fit. I had never been 100% happy with the way it turned out, as there was just something about it that made me look fat. "Just something" was, to be specific, the straight-across neckline combined with the empire waist, which made both my bust and my tummy look huge. This time around, I figured out the solution: a wider waistband to make it a little more form-fitting.

Instead of letting the sash twist up into a rope-like shape tied at the front with an awkward bow, I stretched it neatly across my chest and tied it in the back. This made all the difference in the world!

It occurred to me that the sash would behave much better if it was secured in place, so very late the night before my flight to Texas, I hand-sewed it to the dress with a few stitches of gold thread (I almost forgot to do this OR pack the dress, which was truly a crisis averted when I saw it sitting on my sewing table as I went to bed). And I carried the needle and thread with me to the wedding, just in case I needed to make extra adjustments. But I didn't! The entire night of the wedding (even during some energetic dancing), my dress stayed where I put it (thanks, halter straps!) and the sash never strayed.

If you think this is energetic dancing, you ain't seen nothing yet!