Wedding Blog

After my very productive dress shopping experience in Syracuse this winter, I returned to the good old windy city and got to work on finding the right dress. I didn’t end up picking any of those dresses but they gave me a better idea of what I liked/didn’t like. My first appointment in Chicago was at the House of Brides Couture. They did not allow photographs, however, and I didn’t really find anything there that I was in love with anyway. Not to mention, the sales associate was incredibly pushy and somewhat rude. I actually wrote a review of the experience on Yelp if anyone wants to hear more about it.

Anyway, my next appointment was at Dame Couture on Chicago’s Northwest side. This shop specializes in custom dresses with a vintage, 40s-ish flair. I met with one of the designers for a consultation and told her what kind of dress I was in the market for. Of course, at this point I still wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted, but I showed her a bunch of magazine clippings and she got the idea. Then I started trying on some of their sample pattern gowns. The way it works there is you start with one of their basic patterns and then they customize it for you by changing the way it is cut, the type of fabric, and they can add flourishes and details.

Here is me in their “Greta” dress (please pardon my black bra straps hanging out). This was a pretty basic A-line dress in a beaded silk dupioni.

Here I am on the left in the “Vera” dress sample. In their picture on the right (from Dame Couture’s website) it is shown with a little belt thing around the waist, which I think really adds to it. The thing I remember most about this dress is that the lace was a very good quality.

There were some other very cute samples that I tried on, but I didn’t get pictures of them for some reason. This was a really fun experience and the girls at Dame Couture were so awesome and helpful.

In the end, though, I did not get my dress from them. The kind of dress I wanted would’ve cost over $3,000 and I had set $2,000 as my limit. Also, I hate uncertainty and not knowing exactly what it would be like until it was finished would have driven me bonkers.

But I would recommend them to anyone in the Chicago area who is looking for a custom dress maker.