my own bride dress!

I've realized throughout the wedding planning process, that I'm a sucker for cute, fun, jaw-dropping, awesome photo props. Whether it's a hair piece, photobooth items, signs, monograms or clothing, if it gets my attention and I keep coming back to the picture to look at it, odds are that I've duplicated it somehow. Which is what led to me to make my latest wedding creation....

The Bride Dress on Etsy

So, I saw this darling dress on Etsy and knew two things right away: 1. I'm not ever paying $45.00 for a dress like that and 2. My mom could make that or I could make it. Obviously, I chose the latter. So, recently I had been searching different stores for a dress similar to this style, either strapless or a "tank dress". I had also been looking at fabric for something that wasn't 100% cotton and trying to find a tank top to go with it to sew the two together and literally, make a dress from scratch. Turns out trying to find fabric that isn't 100% cotton is next to impossible so I resorted to finding a dress under $10.00 that I could customize. Since I know I can and will only wear this twice, I refused to spend more than $10.00. I have to set a limit somewhere! So with that in mind, I happened to make a pit stop on a whim to my favorite consignment store Stuff one day on my way home from work. I was merely browsing because "you just never know what could be there!" when my eyes came across this hanging on the rack....

Perfect!
white dress with no stains, working zipper
and smooth front to sewn onto!

And it's from The Gap!
I'm convinced that whoever had this just cut
the tags off and never even wore it! 

First thing I did, was measure the width and height of the chest part on the dress.
Then I printed off "Bride" in this cute cursive font.

I traced it onto dark purple felt and then cut that out next.
I also have a big bag of old pins and brooches that I dug out...
this blue one is the perfect size and shape!
My very own something blue now! 

To get the dress flat and stretched out the best I could,
I put this box in it then zipped it up.
This helped keep it flat while I glued on the word
and I knew there wouldn't be big gaps.

After the glue dried, I stitched through the lettering
to make sure it's nice and secure!
And plus, now you can see that beautiful blue brooch!

Happy happy bride to be!!!!

I'm ready to party in this with my girls
at the bachelorette party!
And also can't wait for the cute photo ops
wearing this while getting ready the day of the wedding!

Here's the breakdown of the project as for what you'll need and what it cost me in money and time:
What you will need:
-a dress!
-fabric or felt to use for the word
-fabric glue
-needle and thread
-brooch or pin optional

Total cost: FREE!!!! Yes, 100% free! Once again, I had a balance on my account at the consignment store so I got the dress for free! I also already had the brooch, fabric glue, felt and needle and thread.
Total time: 4 hours....two of this was due to waiting for the fabric glue to dry. I didn't want to take any chances so in the meantime, I facebooked, pinterested, and blogged! 

So, there it is! My very own customized "Bride Dress" that I will totally rock and can't wait to show off! Now hopefully nothing tooooo crazy happens to it at the bachelorette party that calls for some serious stain removal or repair before the day of the wedding! Overall, this was a pretty simple project and will make for some fun cute photos! I'm slowly turning into one of those brides who are embracing everything white! And as I should, because you can only wear white so often and for so few events so I'm going to live it up and love it while I can! Less than 80 days to go until the wedding!!!