Your eyes are bigger than your stomach

[channonyarrow]

I am so freakin' tired of people who think that they can't sew, but they can TOTALLY make a wedding dress that will do A, B, and C, AND WILL LOOK GOOD.

If you can't sew a straight line (and a LOT of them) you have NO FUCKING BUSINESS sewing rows and rows and rows of ruffles to a skirt. NONE. NONE AT ALL, NOW PUT DOWN THE 'I AM BRIDEZILLA' CARD.

If you have NEVER SEWN more than a gored skirt, you ARE NOT READY TO TAKE ON CORSETING.

If you get tired of sewing, quickly, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE WORKING WITH AS MUCH TULLE AS YOU THINK YOU NEED.

If you are pregnant and making a tight-fitting dress NOW for a wedding in THREE MONTHS, YOU ARE INSANE AND YOU ARE DOING THE WRONG THING AND IT WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER WORK BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SIZE YOU WILL BE.

If you think that you must cut a skirt round rather than straight at the waist, just BACK THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE SEWING MACHINE.

No one gets to have "the wedding of their dreams" when they have crappy dreams. Seriously. If you are 5'4", believe me, you do not want to wear an elliptical cage crinoline skirt, covered in rows of preruffled lace because you have no LEGS, and the dress will look FUNNY rather than beautiful. It's your wedding - go try on lots and lots and LOTS of dresses, even if you will never buy one, and find out what looks best on you, THEN COPY THAT STYLE. Do not simply say "I've always loved X, so I'll look great in it!" and go with what you want. This is the day that you will NOT be happy if you find out (for the thirty fifth time) that a dress like whatever you just picked makes you look like an extra from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one listed in the credits as "Stumpy".

If you really cannot stand what looks best on you (ie, a bell skirt looks really good and you swore that you would never wear one) THEN you are free to start leaving the land of the sane behind and deciding that, at 5'0", you want to wear a dress that only works if you are extremely tall and thin (seriously, unrelated to weddings, the next short, fat person (and I speak as a tall fat person) I see wearing a 1930s dress is going to get STABBED, because it is ALL WRONG for your BODY, SO STOP IT, you cannot wear that dress if you are larger than an A-cup!) but when you are fifty you will not be happy with the pictures.

Go conservative for your wedding. TRUST ME.

Also, if you can't afford pre-ruffled lace (at about $.50 a yard) for your dress and you are spamming LJ to get people to send it to you in, like, four different colours, you have no business at all getting married, let alone reproducing. JUST STOP IT.

Argh. People wonder why I hate other people.

In other news: jkivela gets a *snug* because he is happy-making. Now I must think of something to give HIM.

Comments

[koemiko.livejournal.com]

No one gets to have "the wedding of their dreams" when they have crappy dreams.

Favorite quote from this post.

You'd think this stuff would be obvious?

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I'd think so, but then two of the women I work with got married in the last year, and their description of the pressure from the wedding industry and everyone who felt that they never got the wedding of their dreams (ie, their mothers) to do something INSANE is telling me that I'd think wrongly. There is SUCH a push to have a super-great-way-expensive-fairy-tale wedding that people think that if they can't afford a five thousand dollar dress they'll MAKE one, as if that dress only costs five grand because the designer put their name on it.

No. That dress costs five grand because of the work that goes into making that style of dress, and the cost of the materials used to make it, and, admittedly, a little bit because of the designer. But I have heard too many diy wedding horror stories (ie, "no one would notice if the dress wasn't beaded all the way around the hem with the hand beading I was doing, but they WOULD notice if the groom had no pants so my dress was only three quarters embellished by the time of the wedding because it took a LOT longer to bead than I'd expected to) to make me think that wedding dresses should be bought in any case except two:

1) You are making a really simple dress, out of any fabric you want, and it is not ten bajillion layers of tulle;
2) You make wedding dresses full time and have the time to devote to doing exactly what the fuck you want to make your wedding dress, plus the skillz to pay the billz.

Other than that, you are heading for a bicycling chimpanzee of a disaster if you make your own wedding dress so you can have the wedding of your dreams.

Obviously, this is a subject on which I have opinions. *g*

[germankitty]

Oh God, WORD.

I had my wedding dress hand-sewn, by a professional seamstress, because I could not find one that fit me AND that I liked in all the stores I hounded -- or at least not at prices I could afford.

I'm 5'11" and wore a size 18 at the time. I LIKE plain dresses -- ie, I've known I'm not the ruffly, lacy, flouncy type since I was 16. However, all affordable dresses had tons of lace, ruffles, flounces, bows, the works.

I found ONE dress in a magazine that would've done; the store/manufacturer even offered to have it made to my measure (added length for one) at 10% surcharge. The family liked it. My fiancé liked it. My gran offered to pay for it, even. BUT -- I couldn't bring myself to shell out $1000 just for the gown, and that was 25 years ago! Add to that the crinoline it required, the veil, shoes, underwear ... no thanks.

So I just bought the veil and had my seamstress copy an evening gown I already owned and loved -- in a style I knew suited me. The whole cost? $250 including sewing, because I bought curtain voile in the decorating department instead of chiffon and just added silk for the bodice and sleeveless jacket I wore over the low-cut back. I did splash out almost as much on my veil -- which I now could easily afford. And I looked good and loved my dress because it was as simple and elegant as I wanted it to be.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

See, exactly. If you go DIY (and I don't blame ANYONE who does) go for something that suits YOU, and your budget, and do NOT try to recreate a fairy tale wedding. Yackyackyack. It ruins the point, and the fairy tale costs thirty grand because you SPEND all that money, not because it's fine assigning random price tags to things. And you had the good sense to have someone else do the dress, better than it would have been, and had a reason to do so (I'm in the same boat with my height), and a style that worked - that's GOOD diy.

It sounds like it was a very nice dress, and very well suited to you.

[germankitty]

It was -- at least I like to think so. :) (I uploaded a picture, but have no idea how to fit a link in here, sorry.)

A friend of mine made her own wedding dress the year before -- but she used to be an experienced and talented seamstress who owned an adjustable clothes dummy to fit her dresses on. Plus, she could go to a professional tailor (the lady who'd taught her) for help.

[koemiko.livejournal.com]

I think most wedding stuff should be bought. Although, on my sister's dress, they DID screw up. Because she'd ordered her dress months earlier, they gave her already mostly fitted dress out to another girl who it fit, whose order was due earlier. Thus, when my sister got her dress, it didn't fit. But anyway.

My stepmother was into a "professional cake baking" phase. Even had fondant and the whole works. (Okay, her fondant tasted pretty crappy.) She offered to bake my sister's wedding cake.

My sister had eloped, but still. This was her reception, where all the family could come... how hard would it be to spring for a cake? Instead, we got this sloppy mess of a cake with a 5:2 frosting-to-cake ratio that my stepmother had stayed up until 3:00 that morning making.

Furthermore. She DID get a dress. But she didn't wear it at the reception. Instead, she wore this dress that was skintight and showed her belly fat that my Mom had bought her in high school... y'know, back when it looked good?

She goes around proudly telling everyone "My Mom bought me this dress!" My mom is, of course, doing a palm-forehead. And even THAT has a backstory to it.

But yeah. Weddings = Major Potential for Screw Ups = SOME planning

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I've seen DIY weddings that have been REALLY pretty, but it only works if you're NOT trying to create a fantasy wedding. If you're trying to replicate the $30K wedding with all the trimmings, forget it.

It sounds like in your sister's case that was an unfortunate group of events. Eek.

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

:muah:

saw your comment about lack of pictorial vocabuary and decided to help, can't read a good rant without a nice icon to set the mood, eh?

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

*snug*

Thank you. I feel more expressive already!