When I was seeking the blue and white floral fabric for my wedding dress, I bought some white organza with burnt out prints. After a few weeks, I decided it was not the feel that I was going with my wedding. It was a beautiful fabric, so I kept it to use another day.
It was just a year later that I was using it to sew an anniversary dress for quality photography sessions at our family’s farms.
Fabric- Wedding Dress and Anniversary Dress
I was planning to keep the bodice piece’s fabric the same as my wedding dress. I had leftovers of it. I was using white cotton underlay with a white floral rose lace for the bodice and the off-the-shoulder sleeves.
For the skirt, I used the extra cobalt blue fabric from sewing my bridesmaids’ dresses for an underlay that would show through the burnt-out parts of the organza skirt overlay. This gave the perception of dark blue leaves and butterflies.
Pin & Cut- Wedding Dress Bodice
I have one cat that has to supervise my sewing sessions. She is either the boss and thinks she is more important than sewing.
Prep the pattern by tracing the pattern of desired size onto some tracing paper. I don’t use any sewing tracing tools- just light paper on top of the pattern and using a pencil to trace the outline and the markings. Cut of the pieces, leaving the pins in tack.
Unpin the tracing paper. Iron each piece before using to sew. Use one or two pins to attach pattern piece to fabric again for identification purposes.
Trim off the lace border from the white lace fabric. Pin and cut fabric as the same pieces as the white cotton. Repeat cutting and ironing.
Layer each piece with the cotton, right-side facing upwards, and then the lace, right-side facing upwards. Then pin.
This took me about a sewing session, so a good chunk of time during an evening, maybe about an hour or an hour and half.
Sewing the Bodice
Leaving the pins on, except where the needle is sewing, sew the cotton and lace together for each piece.
Place the wrong-sides together on the seam. Sew using a 5/8” stitch.
After this, I created a lining, sleeves, lace trimmings, and attached with right-sides together along the top. I also inserted a temporary zipper to take a fitting of the bodice.
Creating the Skirt
With the skirt’s pattern being more playful, I wanted the skirt to be similar at the waist. Instead of pleating the skirt like my wedding dress, I gathered. Sew one strain about 5/8” seam without any reversing. Starting on one end only, start pulling one side of the thread until the length matches that of the bodice.
Sew the skirt to the bodice piece only. Have you ever seen store-bought dresses where it has a wonderfully created a lining on the bodice, but no lining on the skirt, and there’s no strains of fabric or thread hanging where the skirt attaches to the bodice? Seems like a mystery right? Well, it takes some determination. Bunch the skirt together and then sew the right-sides of the skirt at the midriff and the lining together. The wrong sides should be showing, and it will be a big bundled mess! Pinning is recommended to keep the fabric together while sewing. Once it is sewed, unravel it by pulling out the skirt slowly. Try not to create any large bulge, or else it will stop pulling and the fabric will be “clogged.”
Attach the zipper. Hem the underskirt and the overskirt. Finish last touches.
The Final Fitting
After finishing a dress, the best feeling is trying it on to see what the long hours and redoing steps and stitches create. It creates something beautiful. Something to be joyful about its beauty. All’s well that ends well.
Sewing the anniversary dress was not only for celebrating the new family my husband and I were for one year, but it also incorporated the sewing skills and creativity from sewing my wedding dress.
Also, can I say farm girl hats and dresses should be a thing. It just blends my country girl personality with my modest, feminine side. When I first dove into wearing dresses just for fun, even before I started to sew, I paired those day dresses with hats.
Pictures at the Farms
We met on June 6, 2015. Four years and two days later, we married on June 8, 2019. Five years later from our first date, we had my mom take some pictures of us at her farm. The next day a professional photographer took our pictures as well, which was such a great experience after having an amateur take our wedding pictures.
Later that month, we had another photographer take our pictures at my husband’s uncle’s farm, which his dad’s family farmstead. Both days had sunny weather similar to that of our wedding day. We really lucked out with our anniversary pictures for how many rainy days we had surroundings these days as well.
I know most ladies enjoy their wedding pictures as one of their greatest treasures. I find my anniversary pictures are my go-to pictures. I find my wedding dress matched the style of wedding that I wanted. But this dress matches my country girl personality the best. Our wedding was in a church with a firehall reception. Pictures were just taken at a local park between the two. Between the crazy go-go-go schedule of the day with the number of guests, it was overwhelming yet also flew by. For an introvert girl and outdoorsy guy, taking pictures out at the farms spoke our personalities as well as our togetherness- both coming from farming families.
Photographs below are from Christa’s Captures.
