Weddingbee

“Epic!” – The New York Times

“Visually Stunning!” – The Toronto Star

“A Gigantic Pain In The Ass!” Miss Hummingbird

Since we got engaged in May, I’ve been on the hunt for a dress. I’ve bought wedding magazines, I’ve searched the internet, I’ve even gone dress shopping and while I’ve seen some nice stuff, mostly I’ve been plagued by this kind of “meh” feeling.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some beautiful things but I haven’t really felt like any of it was for me, and anything I tried on had sort of a costumey vibe to it. Standing in a change room with a ball gown on and a veil on my head, I couldn’t help but feel like somewhere a faceless announcer was voice-overing “And tonight, the part of the bride will be played by Miss Hummingbird.” There were always bits and pieces that I liked (like the tied sash on one dress or the light organza feeling of another), but I never loved any of the dresses as a whole. It was weirdly disconcerting, like I was a Square Peg in the Round Hole World of Wedding Dresses.

However, happily enough, while reading some of the boards over at Offbeat Bride, someone mentioned that over at Olivia Luca, they had a Design Studio feature, so I ambled over to try it out and was pleasantly surprised with what I found. Using their nifty software, you can actually construct a dress, picking out the bodice style and skirt style as well as the fabric and colour to come up with something that looks how you want it to look. Plus, it has a little calculator that can tell you how much your custom dress would cost in real life and if you like it, you can buy exactly what you’ve designed.

Now maybe it was because I’ve been watching the first season of House of Elliot on DVD or maybe I enjoyed it because it allowed me, the world’s worst artist, to feel like I could actually create something beautiful (seriously, I took art for four years and my stick people are still crooked), but I absolutely loved getting to pull together something I would genuinely want to wear.

However, even with all my playing around with things and coming up with some seriously rocking dresses, I still felt like I was missing something, so I kept searching for wedding day inspiration. 

To be continued . . . 

(I totally hate to do this and split things into parts, but I’m still working on my final dress sketch as it were and I have to talk to my seamstress about its construction, so I want to be able to show you guys the final version. However to hold you over until then, I’ve included some pics of some of the dresses I “designed” through Olivia Luca. Enjoy!)

• Letter Perfect
• Money Matters….