How I made my own green Victorian-inspired wedding dress

We'll be featuring her wedding in full next week, but for now let's find out the backstory behind Tribesmaid Rowan‘s amazing custom dress.

The journey of my dress began in a fabric shop where I discovered a luscious, sage green velvet embroidered with leafy vines and flower buds. I left the shop and went home, but couldn't stop thinking about that cloth. The next day I went back to look again and buy a small sample of the fabric. The salesperson told me it was the last of the fabric, there would never be any more, and it was 20% off that day. I took a deep breath and decided that rather than try in vain to find the dress of my dreams, I was going to make it. I bought 8.5 yards of the fabric, everything the store had on hand.

I sew for a living, but I make accessories, not garments. I don't follow patterns. I had never attempted a complicated multi-piece garment like what I ended up with. I teamed up with my good friend Sarah, a fabulous Victorian costumer, and haunted the Pinterest boards for examples of awesome Victorian garb. We sat down to check out my Pinterest board and figured out what was possible, given the patterns she had on hand and my figure. We used truly Victorian patterns for all of the pieces of this dress.

I purchased lace for the removable bustle train, and cotton fabric for lining. The lace trim of my train was recycled from vintage lace curtains. With Sarah's advice, I made the bustle train.

There were several mishaps along the way, included making the wrong sized pattern and having to add an additional layer to the train. And later ripping out hours of hand-stitching when one side of the lace trim started five inches higher than the other side. In the meantime, Sarah was making my overskirt from the embroidered green velvet. We discovered that I had a piece of my costume already made — a long formal silvery-sage ballgown skirt. This would go beneath the velvet overskirt. Sarah gifted me with some gorgeous cotton trim embroidered with morning-glory vines and flowers, over 100 years old, and hand-stitched them around the edges of the overskirt. She also hand-stitched green velvet ruching around the edges of the skirt to tie it in with the overskirt and bodice.

I was on the lookout for a corset that would fit me. I'm an F-cup, so fitting something to my bust was very challenging, especially considering my tight budget. I custom-ordered a civil-war era corset, but although it was made to my measurements, it was all wrong for my figure and the dress. I didn't know what to do at that point.

A month before the wedding, with lots of work still to be done and a million wedding tasks to complete, we realized that we needed some extra help for the most complicated piece, the bodice. We contacted Sarah's friend Bethany, a talented seamstress and Victorian costumer. She agreed to take on the project. As it turns out, she worked at a nearby costume shop, which had Victorian-style corsets for rent, and in my size! They even agreed to purchase my custom civil war corset for store credit, so it only cost me a few dollars extra to trade corsets.

Well-fitted corset in hand, we met for measurements and planning, and she got to work. Fourteen working hours later, she had completed the bodice and I went in for the final fitting. It was a bit loose in the back, and she hemmed in the back to make it fit right. She'd made cloth-covered buttons with dress fabric for the front of the bodice, and trimmed the sleeves with more of the antique morning glory lace. And, as a wedding gift, she had also made me a little bag that matched my dress to tie around my waist, which was a life-saver on my wedding day (lip balm, pocketknife, lighter, phone, cabin key, and vows — except I forgot my vows! But that's another story.)

In the last days leading up to my wedding, Sarah hand-stitched ruching into my velvet overskirt, giving it an organic, earthy feel. My custom green knee-high elf boots finally arrived in the mail.

I finished my headdress. It was built on a headband and included peacock and rooster feathers, faux pearls, vintage silk flowers and leaves, and a few real dried flowers from the first bouquet my husband ever gave to me. I decided on earrings (ginkgo leaves) and a necklace (vintage faux pearls) to wear. My gown and headdress were busy enough that I wanted to keep my other accessories simple.

It was completely nerve-wracking to have so much planning and labor to do, right up until the last minute. About two weeks before the wedding, I didn't think it was going to get done. Disaster loomed. And then somehow, through magic, community and sheer will, everything came together and created this.