wedding dress disaster

I can sew. I've made several items of clothing, costumes, and tailoring. And I am telling you with the most sincere respect to sell these pieces on etsy or craigslist and buy yourself a dress. Wedding dresses are complicated and time consuming on a good day. You will drive yourself absolutely crazy trying to piece together a gown (that you don't even know what it looks like?!)


Seriously - David's Bridal has $99 gown sales several times a year if you don't give a *kitten* about the style of the gown.

I can sew. I've made several items of clothing, costumes, and tailoring. And I am telling you with the most sincere respect to sell these pieces on etsy or craigslist and buy yourself a dress. Wedding dresses are complicated and time consuming on a good day. You will drive yourself absolutely crazy trying to piece together a gown (that you don't even know what it looks like?!)


Seriously - David's Bridal has $99 gown sales several times a year if you don't give a *kitten* about the style of the gown.

That's true. Also, if you go around this time and closer to December, they are putting the styles from the past year on sale to make room for the new dresses.

I got my wedding dress for $200.

I can sew.

I would never sew something that came without the pattern, the instructions, or that someone else cut out.

Do you even have a sewing machine? and I mean a good one, not one that costs $69 at costco.

Seamstress is the way to go if you like the dress (how do you even know what it looks like???)

The dress even after it is sewn will need alterations to fit you, do you have a dress dummy? that is your size? and your shape?

I second the garbage suggestion and the burning suggestion. Those are the best help you can be given.

This is great advice. Take it to a seamstress. They may not even want to deal with it, but if you don't know how to sew, then I'd suggest you take it where someone does know!

she saw me looking at the fabric and knew i had been researching "how to make you own wedding gown".. i think by making it myself it would be a special touch.. the bag contains two dresses.. the top is complete on one of the dresses and the bottom is complete on the other one.. i just need to know how to peice them together.. but im getting no where with all the smartass people on here trying to be funny! i appreciate it everyone! its good to know theres still good hearted people out there!!!

Let me get this straight, you want to figure how to make this?

Ok, snarky comments aside, this is a bad deal.
I'm going to guess that wedding dresses are super hard to make, even for a seasoned seamstress. What you have is a huge project that you're not ready to take on. Plus, the dress is probably hideous. Do you know what the end result is supposed to look like? How do you even know that the dress will fit you? What if it's a 1980's style dress? Would you want to wear it?

If you have never sewn a thing in your life a wedding dress is a huge challenge. Ask MIL if she sews. Maybe it could be a project for the two of you. If she sees how unrealistic it is it might be easier to get rid of it. Did it come with the instructions?

I don't know your situation but if this is your only option for a wedding dress I would definitley ask for help from someone in person. Some older lady from church etc. Who knows how etc and has a machine.

It's obvious that you want this challenge for your wedding day and it will totally impress your MIL and anyone else who hears how you did it. GO FOR IT! What is the style, train length, fabric (satin, lace?) and size? Finding a local seamstress to advise you is a good idea. There are always questions. Post pics when you are done please.

All joking aside


You probably have a pretty wicked $7 Halloween costume now if you can figure out how to put some of it together!

look if you dont know how to sew or how to help dont comment on my post! THANKS

You said YOU don't know how to sew, so you shouldn't comment on this post either I guess.

I am a fashion designer, and I can tell you that absolutely no one will be able to tell you on here how to sew the dress, so your best shot is go on youtube or lessons, and search a basic video on how to sew and finish off the seams. Practice on some other fabric joining the seams, and also practice pressing (ironing) it (also look up videos).

You will need to measure the waist or side of the pieces on both portions of the dress (whichever you are sewing), if they measure the same than sewing it shouldn't be too much trouble. If one of them is bigger than the other, than you will either have to take in/trim at the side seam, or use shirring (youtube search something "how to add shirring in sewing"). You will do the shirring to the one that's bigger, it will create nice even little gathers, if you don't want the gathering the bigger waist piece will have to be taken in (sewn/trimmed) a the side seam. Again, this is something you can find on youtube, search something like "how to taper seams", or something like that".

Once that is done you will have to learn how to pin the dress properly before sewing, youtube this as well and practice all of it on extra fabric before you do it on the actual dress. When it's pinned, you have to make sure you leave at least 1/2'' seam allowance), this way the dress will be more stable, your sewing machine has guide lines on where your fabric should line up when you are sewing it. Look up a video and learn about seam allowance.

When you sew it, take it slow if you have to, also do not forget to double-back-stitch (using sewing machine) to secure the beginning and end of the seam sewing.

Just watch basic of sewing videos, and practice before you do the dress. It takes a while to get used to the machine speed and feeding the fabric through it. Also watch videos on how to properly put in thread on your machine, otherwise you will be spending hours fixing the machine.

If you don't have a sewing machine, and plan to do hand sewing (not recommended), than look up videos on how to hand sew, but this will take quite a while to do, so borrow someone's machine if you can.

This is best advice I can give you, watch bunch of youtube videos. Also if you took this to a seamstress, they could join the two seams really easily, 100X times faster than you and I will, and I consider myself a damn good sewer. Also check out craigslist, many people on there can do it for cheap. If you have your mind set on doing it yourself, get a sewing lesson from someone (craigslist or even Joann's offers lessons). If you don't have the money, just watch youtube, and practice! You know when you will be ready.
It's hard...but NOT impossible, what's impossible is trying to explain it in words on here instead of actual lesson
Good luck!

ok so this has nothing to do with weightloss but i need help lol.. i went to a yard sale and bought a bag full of wedding dress fabric for 7 bucks.. the lady said its already premade all you have to do is sew it back up the side.. well i got it all out and my head is spinning.. its all in peices and i have no idea were to start.. i dont know how to sew lol.. any one know what to do wit this mess... how to make it a dress again...

I know how to sew, and I sewed my own wedding dress, but I can't imagine how I could help you with this online. Do you have the pattern? If you do, you should be able to figure it out. Do you absolutely love the fabric? If not, I wouldn't go to the considerable trouble this project will take. I devoted 2 solid weeks to my dress, and it was quite simple. There is probably a good reason why a dress was being sold in pieces.

Men! lol.. duct tape can't fix everything...lol

I also sew and have for years. I have made my own dresses out of taffeta and silk in the past.

What you will need at a minimum to do this yourself:

1. A dress dummy or someone who knows how to tailor to pin the pieces to you.
2. A good quality sewing machine. Singer is nice and so is Elnita.
3. Cheap fabric which you can cut into matching pieces of everything. No one without years of experience should sew the nice expensive fabric first. Buy the cheapest Walmart cotton you can find, sew and fit it, and then make the dress in the silk.
4. The instructions. You will have a disaster on your hands if you don't have them.
5. A soft measuring tape
6. Armies of straight sewing pins like these: http://www.amazon.com/Sewing-Essentials-Straight-reusable-Storage/dp/B0028DJCNI
7. Sewing scissors, and high quality thread (coats and clark) in the same shade or 1-2 shades LIGHTER than your fabric.
8. A seam ripper

Steps:
-Get the pattern out and read all the directions. Lay the pieces out as they would be when finished (make a human body)
-Cut out the pieces in cheap fabric. Following the directions make the entire dress out of the cheap fabric first.
-Pin the pieces together, making sure to note all the sides and which gets pinned (they will have different colors or shading for the inside and the outside).
-Pin good side to good side and sew with the bad sides facing outwards.
-Pinning on curves (such as the waist) takes practice. You will need to push your fingers into a curve and pin on that.
-If the fabric is fraying, get yourself a bottle of "no fray".

Every single dress is different and there is NO WAY to know what you are doing without either the instructions or years of experience.

What I recommend:
If you lack the instructions I seriously recommend you seek out a seamstress and get professional help. While we sewers might be able to help you figure out what pieces go where, but without the instructions you really are screwed. The dress may not even be in your size (and pattern sizes often run very small).

Do you have the instructions? Could you post a picture?