Embellishing...

I'm loving the personal touches to these two dresses...

I want to add my own personal touches to my dress and I love the tattoo style birds as well as the embroidered blue bird tea towels of the fifties so keeping all that in mind I've been looking to Pinterest for inspiration.

So I've started hand embroidering these bird designs with a multicolor blue embroidery thread.

Marking the dress and cutting it down...

I enlisted my daughter to help me mark my dress. I put the dress on and stood as relaxed and natural as I could, not only to be more comfortable while my dress was marked but also so the dress would fall in the correct position when marked and cut. 

We started by measuring up from the floor to the point where I wanted my dress to fall just below the knee and subtracted and inch for seam allowance. My daughter then went all around my dress marking that point with a pencil and measuring stick.

In the above photo you can see the pencil mark.

With the dress on a hanger I started cutting around the outside layer making sure not to cut the liner just yet.

After the outer layer is cut begin cutting the liner making sure you match the seams with the dress while you cut so that both layers are even.

Here you can see the top layer cut, the liner layer being cut and the petticoat sticking out the bottom.

Now that the dress and liner have been cut off I'm going to cut out the built in petticoat. It's stiff, pretty flattened due to the used condition and way too long for my rockabilly style dress. Besides I'm going to be wearing a turquoise nylon chiffon petticoat that is soft and fluffy...like the one below...

Now on to removing the petticoat... Notice how I left the bodice liner intact? I'm only cutting off the stiff tulle layers and leaving the rest for support.

We are really getting there now...

Starting to look rockabilly already...well the bones are there anyway. I love the halter top and the flare at the bottom and now it's just the right length and weighs so much less. I can really see wearing this dress in Vegas in the summer. 

So just to recap see the before full length gown with medium train, And after knee length...

Rockabilly Style...

So I've been looking for wedding dress style pics and have found a few that I think will work well with the style of dress I have. While I love vintage, beige, Lacey romantic layers it's just not a style that will fit well for a vow renewal in Vegas. We will be there in July so a full length gown with a train to get married on the strip just isn't going to cut it.  Still I just want something that is me and while watching "say yes to the dress" episodes on Netflix recently I saw a fun gal wearing a rainbow petticoat under her white dress, I just love the look so I went looking for turquoise/blue petticoats and found the following images on Google...

So I believe I'm 100% sold on this style as my dress can be altered to do this very easily. 

Stay tuned for alteration posts...

The Dress...and the Occasion...

So I guess I should start this blog by introducing myself...

I'm Thespoena McLaughlin and I'm a blog-o-holic. I've started many blogs over the years, a few of them are still going strong and you can find links to them in my sidebar if you are interested in visiting. 

I'm also a 39 year old mother of three and I've been married for 19 years.

When the hubby and I got married we lived in an apartment in a college town, having both lost our jobs our wedding was about the cheapest you could get married short of standing in front of a justice of the peace. My dress came off the clearance rack at  
Dillard's and the wedding was at a small but cute little place with fake flowers down the isles etc. it was an outdoor wedding and it was about 100 degrees at 7pm. My mom put a lot of work into our reception which was at her house and afterward we whisked off to a local hotel for a few hours. The next morning we whisked back to our apartment and proceeded to move out for the next 8 hours (I know, WOW what a honeymoon) 

I wish I could say that rocky start got better fast but pretty much more of the same for a few years, plus or minus a job here and there, add 3 kids, move a few more times etc. 

We always planned to go on a honeymoon at 10 years, but yeah...kids. Lol.

So here we are creeping up to our 20 year wedding mark in 2015 and we are determined to have the honeymoon we never got to take. 

So next year we are planning on renewing our vows in Las Vegas. 

I am going to be researching airfair, hotels, dining, and even wedding venues in Vegas over the next year trying to get the best experience we can get for our very small budget, so if anyone has any tips I'm all about hearing them. :) 

So without further ado I'll share the before pics of My Thrifted Wedding Dress...

  above: My wedding dress...being about a year and a half before our trip I wasn't really looking to buy a wedding dress just yet, but I saw this one at a charity thrift store and it was my size so naturally I had to try it on...*wink*.... it couldn't fit me any better if I had it made custom for me. I love the beading around the top, sides and back. It's really a pretty gown in it's own right but I want a more romantic, off white, layered style with lots of texture. Think tattered elegance and you'll come close to the style I like. So I plan to alter this one and hopefully get what I'm looking for.

above: medium length train, may be removed due to the "street style" "wedding" we'll be doing in Vegas.

 

above: I love that the beading goes all the way round to the back.

So this is the dress and we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Right now I'm gathering inspiration photos on my Pinterest boards and I'll share those as I come across them. :)