So what did it cost, how long did it take, how many tears were cried* and how many needles broken? This post should provide some insights.
*I didn’t actually measure tears cried
I am two types of people – I am the person who veers towards Excel for every problem to solve, and I am also the person who writes a hand-written diary and to do list every week. So for this creative but mathematical project I did both of those things. I’ve shared a lot on the creative process already so here are the data highlights.
Timeline of steps:
I started about a year before the wedding, with an aim to have the dress mainly finished 2-3 months before (so that I could not worry about it, and also so I had a bit of time to make other things like the ties, wedding stationery and my second dress for the evening.
May was my busiest month in terms of making, and I think that’s because it was when I was making the main dress i.e. the most motivating part! I also had a self-inflicted deadline of finishing my dress by June so I could focus on other makes for the wedding.
Hours spent per task:
Whilst I was quite accurate on the sewing time needed, I massively underestimated the thinking time; not captured in the chart below are the hours and hours sat on the Tube on my way to work looking at pictures and thinking about my next steps. So if you’re planning a special make, definitely factor in some buffer time for mulling over your design. Below is the breakdown of each step and how long it took me spread over multiple sewing sessions. Surprisingly, only 39% of my time was spent at my sewing machine on the real dress; the rest was toiling and hand sewing (& faffing).
Breakdown of the cost:
I didn’t set a budget for my make, so pulling together this chart was enlightening for me too. No doubt I have missed some bits and pieces as I frequented Tooting’s Sewing and Craft Superstore approximately once a week for a year, but this is a rough breakdown of where I spent my money. The haberdashery is a rough cost and probably overstated as I bought a lot of bits I didn’t end up using.
Disclaimer: I received a discount on my New Craft House main fabric but paid full price for the rest, so my cost for the dress was around £450. The cost I’ve included here is the full price of the fabrics to give a realistic view on the total cost of the dress.
I spent my money mainly on the fabrics which is no surprise. The veil was very much an afterthought and only cost me £32 which compared to shop bought ones is a bargain. It also only took me a couple of hours to make. The bag fabric was enough to make 2 bags; one for me and one for my maid of honour.
So that completes my wedding blog series! I hope it has given some insight into the process. I had never worked on a single make for so many hours until this, and it definitely pays to be organised. If you’re embarking on this journey yourself, I fully recommend keeping a log of your progress as it’s helpful to refer to during your make, and interesting to revisit after!
Kate Eva 
Congratulations and thank you for sharing this experience. Your dress is absolutely gorgeous and you are brilliant and very brave to have seen it through and got to the end with you and the dress in one piece.
31 years ago, my best friend talked me out of making my own dress, even though I had been making wedding dresses for my friends for about 10 years – we were all poor students and no one could afford to buy a dress.
I would only have had 12 weeks, but knowing me as she does, she took me to meet a seamstress friend who ran the bridal shop at Moss Bros in Covent Garden who then told me the tale of having made her dress and then 3 days before the big day deciding the waist wasn’t tight enough, she unpicked the whole thing and then ran out of time. She ended up walking down the aisle with the whole dress held together with safety pins. I ordered my dress that day knowing that I would never think my home made dress was perfect enough.
Enjoy your wedding, if it hasn’t already happened.
Alison xx
Thank you Alison! And thanks for sharing your story. I definitely had that fear that I wouldn’t achieve perfection but came to the realisation that ultimately no wedding dress is ever perfect, even shop bought, it’s just that when you make it yourself you’re hyper aware of the flaws. I was very conscious of it looking amateur because people knew I was making it, but in the end it turned out exactly as I hoped. The wedding was in September and it was a perfect day! Thanks for reading and commenting!
These blog posts were such a great read! I loved the idea of using the final toile as that wedding dress shopping moment, and the design of the skirt is absolutely amazing :’)
Did you do any pre treatment to your fabrics? I just bought the fabrics for mine and not quite sure which way to go!
Thank you so much! I didn’t pre wash or treat my fabrics, I figured I won’t wear it again 😄 but obviously there was lots of ironing so I did iron them before cutting out in case there was shrinkage