1930's-Style Dress with Silver Lace Epaullettes.

Meet beautiful Melanie, a woman after my own design heart.
Melanie is a fashion queen, and with so many fantastic design ideas, it was a challenge choosing which ones to best compliment the sleek silhouette that Melanie wanted. We could so easily have gotten carried away with too many contrasting and conflicting details.

Melanie has an appreciation for all things pretty, but for her wedding dress we decided to stick with stylish details, rather that pretty and girly, staying true to and enhancing Melanie’s usual day to day style. It’s important to a lot of brides, and I think especially Melanie, to feel like yourself on your wedding day, so you can recognise yourself when you look back on your photographs.

Melanie’s dress has a smooth bias-cut bodice at the front to eliminate any unwanted seam lines, while keeping a slim fit, and an overlapping diamond-shaped  open back. A panel at the hips, accentuates Melanie’s slim hips, and the upper part  of the skirt hugs Melanie’s body before flaring to the max, with extra inserts and a small train.

Like me, Melanie loves a bow, and we added a floppy bow that is supposed to look as though it has been casually tied on the when dressing - but was infact tied into the right shape, and stitched into place to make sure it looked right on the day/

We couldn’t resist adding at least some sparkle, and did so by cutting up some metallic silver Cornelli lace motifs and redesigning the layout to create sparkling epaulettes with vintage crystals and pearls, and adding some of the pretty pieces of lace left over from Melanie’s mothers wedding dress.
There was only a small square of lace left from Melanies mum’s dress afer christening gowns and dolls clothes were made, so it was really special to get to use a small piece. The lace was embroidered over the capped sleeve, which has pretty pleats leading into the seam at the front.



Originally the dress was to have long sleeves, but they were changed last minute to a capped sleeve with a pleated front, and that’s just as well because from a damp and soggy May, the sun shone amazingly for Melanie’s Wedding day at Windsor and a walk past the castle on the way to the reception at Lillibrook Manor.

Photographed beautifully by Sharron of The Image Garden, find more pictures of Melanie’s wedding and others at SharronGibson.co.uk