dolin bliss

A Wedding Dress for Miss Frances

So much has been happening and as usual, I haven't blogged about it.  I will need to catch up on everything.  But for now, here is one of my big projects that will be finished soon.  

- A little sneak peak at the wedding dress I am making for the adorable Frances.  The dress (which is all hand basted together, at this point) is on the left, it will have an overlay of silk crinkle chiffon.  On the left are the options of what the overlay will look like and she gets to choose.  

Today Miss Francis is coming over for her final dress fitting, before her big day on September 26th!  I am so very excited.  She is a dream to work with and I can't wait to see her on her big day, dressed in her signature color.  

- Here is the proof of the poster version of their invite.  Photo courtesy of the talented Olivia, who also designed our wedding invites.

I am also making a cocktail hat for her, that will incorporate her dress fabric and peacock feathers.  So pretty!

My other really big project is a bit of a secret for now.  But I can tell you that I am working with Jennifer Paganelli, the fabulous designer behind Sis Boom.  More to come on this.

Have a great weekend.

Our wedding made Offbeat Bride!

Just found out that our wedding was mentioned on the Offbeat Bride website!  Such a great honor, since I referenced this website many times during the planning of our DIY wedding.  Thanks to Danielle (not sure who you are) out there in cyperspace for submitting my posts about our wedding to Offbeat Bride.  It is so nice to know there are like minded individuals out there into the non-traditional weddings!

Wedding Reception!

Ok, so you guys have seen some wedding pictures, but I owe you some pictures of the wedding reception. We wanted a very small wedding and dinner after the ceremony, we only ended up having about 25 people at the wedding and dinner.  BUT we also wanted to celebrate our wedding with all of our good friends and family, so the next evening we had 70 people over to our house for the reception.   

Here is a picture of our backyard all set up and ready for everyone to enjoy.  Matthew strung multi-colored paper lanterns entirely around the backyard.  Rosemarie (my new sister-in-law) made the tiki bar in the back right of the photo, she also volunteered to be bartender (which is no easy task with our friends).  

Here is a close-up of the table center pieces.  We wanted a very casual, yet festive look.  My step-sisters made the dahlia flowerpots for us.  We also had polaroid cameras on most of the tables, so Olivia made some signs so people would use them.

We wanted a couple of hours of live music playing while people arrived and settled in.  So Matthew hired Odile Lavault from Baguette Quartette to play accordion.  Even though we had a vintage fiesta theme, we had a bit France thrown in there.  I loved it!

A little moment between us during Olivia's toast.  

Then on to dancing in the living room.    

More dancing with the beautiful Sasha.

End of the evening out at the tiki bar with my husband.  Notice the missing hat, by this time I had removed my hat and changed into ballet slippers.  You can also see the lovely gift my fabulous husband gave me on our wedding morning, on my right ring finger.  It is a vintage deco black onyx ring with a diamond in the center.  

All the above pictures are from Karen and Olivia's Flickr sets.

What a fantastic evening we had!  Sigh.

We are Hitched!!!

Hello, I am just now coming back to the real world after our wonderful wedding and mini honeymoon!  So you want to see some pictures of the wedding?  All the pictures shown on this post today were taken by my close friend/hairdresser/photographer Eric Hooten.  Here they are:

Getting ready with Olivia helping me.  The amazing Olivia was my best lady (I hate the way matron of honor sounds), she designed my invites and generally just helped me out all around with everything.  I love her!

This is a fun photo, right before we head over to the school house.

L-R: front row- the bride, step-sister Lisa, step-sister Jennifer (both of these lovely ladies did all the flowers).  back row- Jon, Karen, Olivia and Skip.

Walking into the school house together to get married.  We wanted to walk down the aisle together.

After the ceremony we rode off on our bikes for a moment alone.

Our dog Mikey even got to be there to celebrate, with a custom made bow tie to match my dress.

Some random shots around History Park.

Foolin' around with Skip.

Aww, me and my best friends!  Karen performed our Ceremony and Olivia was my best lady.

The wonderful setting inside the school house.  Please notice the fabulous dahlias on the chalkboard that Skip and Olivia drew on that morning.

I think that is enough with the photos!  But geez, there were so many fun and great ones.  

It was such a fun and perfect day for us.  After the ceremony Matthew's sister and brother-in-law hosted a dinner for us and the wedding guests (25 of us total) at there house.  Which was so wonderful and mellow, we all had some good food.  Then we went to Original Joe's to sign our marriage certificate.  The next day was our reception at our house, for about 70 people, I will have to post some pictures of that on another post. 

I have to say it was hard work doing most of this wedding ourselves.  But it was totally worth it, because the wedding was entirely ours and what we wanted.  I loved my wedding dress and hat and even after putting in over 100 hours making them by hand, I wasn't one bit sick of it and I got to wear it two days in a row.  

Less Then One Month Till the BIG DAY!!

L1050549.JPG, originally uploaded by itsolivia.

That lovely picture was taken at the end of my bachelorette party, when my sweetie was picking up his drunk and sweaty (from lots of dancing) soon-to-be bride. By the way, my girlfriends made my bachelorette party the most fantastic day and night! A few of us started off by getting some spa treatments at Bliss. Afterwards we relaxed at Andy's house and got ready for the evening. They took me to a wonderful dinner at Orson (so delicious, I highly recommend this place) and THEN dancing at Elbo Room for Saturday Night Soul Party!

Since I have been really bad at posting to my blog lately and it won't get any better in the next month, I wanted to let you know to check back with me at the beginning of August. I promise to post pictures of the finished wedding dress and the wedding festivities, but right now I just need to concentrate on our house and all the wedding details. Please come back and see me in August.

A trip to Lacis and some volunteer work...

A few weeks ago I went to Lacis in Berkeley to find some supplies to make the cocktail hat for my wedding.  If you haven't been there, Lacis is an amazing resource for all types of textile arts both new and old.  They even have a small museum there that shows all sorts of amazing lace and textile exhibits (I saw a beautiful Irish crochet exhibit there, a couple of years back).  The book selection alone could keep me occupied for weeks!  The only drawback is that it is expensive and I could spend thousands of dollars there, but it is so worth the trip to visit, just for some amazing needlework eye candy. 

Here is what I picked up while I was there:

All sorts of goodies (from left to right)... a turquoise vintage beaded design, turquoise silk ribbon, red veil netting, black elastic, red flowers, red silk ribbon and vintage turquoise sequins.  YUMMY!

Last week I decided that I need to get out of the house more and make some friends here is San Jose, so I did two things... 

#1. I went to my local yarn store Commuknitty and participated in there social knitting (every Sunday from 2-4pm).

#2.

I am now going to volunteer at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.  I am very excited to be a part of this place and the women that I met the day I went in to apply were all so friendly and welcoming.  My  first official activity will be this coming Friday evening.  Some of the downtown galleries and museums stay open late and are free the first Friday of every month, so if you are free come on down.

Working away... 70 plus hours on my dress so far!

DSCN0021, originally uploaded by lulubliss.

I swear I am not lying that is basically just the amount of time I worked on my dress during the week of my couture sewing class. I ended up working so hard that week, that I was sick for a few days after the class.  I still have about 40 more hours of work to put into the dress before it is done.  No wonder couture garments cost so freaking much! 

I can't begin to tell you how wonderful the class was! Susan Khajle was our instructor and she is such a wealth of knowledge in couture sewing. I wish the class continued. Another great thing about the class was that you learned different techniques from the other students projects too. There were a total of 13 students and everyone was doing a different type of garment. I was on a high all week and it has been hard going back to life as usual. Check out my updated "Making of my wedding dress" Flickr set for more images.

Wedding dress officially started!!

Check it out...

www.flickr.com

I will be updating my flickr set as I make progress with my dress! I am very excited for my Couture sewing class next week. It will be a long week, but totally worth it. I love learning very detailed techniques of a dying art.

Wedding Dress Fabric has Arrived!

And boy o'boy are they pretty!  I am in love with the colors.

The outside body of the dress is going to be the turquoise silk fabric and the lining is the red silk.  I ordered both of them from C & J Textiles.  The turquoise is the CJ 1500 double face satin in peacock, and it is amazing!  It has a stiffer hand and decadent feel, it will be perfect for the 1950's style dress I want.  The red lining is the CJ 100 crepe de chine in color # 267.  It is real soft and more drapey.  I am so excited about making my dress!  I am going to draft the pattern and make the first muslin in April, in time for my couture sewing class I am taking in May.

Let the wedding stuff begin...

I have vowed not to fall into that whole wedding industry crapola!  I did have a weak moment and bought a Martha Stewart Weddings magazine, what a waste of $6!  For me, there was nothing inspiring or original in it and most of the articles are available on-line, for free.  The ads in the magazines alone, are enough to make me sick.  SO, NO MORE BRIDAL MAGAZINES ALLOWED!!! 

Since I am going to make my own dress, I tried looking at the overall silhouettes of the dresses in the MSW magazine, to get some sort of idea/inspiration of what I want.  Boy, was that a mistake! What is it with all the frothy, strapless, expensive and horribly ugly dresses?  I know everyone has different tastes, but all the dresses look so similar, are so expensive, and look very cheap.  I know I have a different take on this than most people, but being a pattern maker with almost 15 years experience in the garment industry has made me hyper critical of fit and construction.  Don't get me wrong, there are beautiful, more traditional wedding dresses out there.  Most of the ones I have seen are custom made by small independent designers. 

On a happier wedding note... Here are a couple of resources that are more up my alley:

I got my mitts on both of these recently released books, without having to spend a dime! 

The DIY Wedding book, by Kelly Bare, was given to me by my friend Natalie (she wrote the forward for the book and is giving away a free copy of it on her blog).  I have been waiting for this book to come out, so I could buy it!  But last weekend, while I was at Natalie's house, looking through her bookshelf, I saw her copy of it and asked to borrow it.  She laughed and said I could keep it.  After all she got married last year and I am the one who needs to start planning my wedding.  I haven't finished reading it yet, but it is great!  There are so many good ideas and resources, that I know it will be an invaluable book for me to have.  Of the two books this is more of a "how-to".  It touches on all of the big components that make up your wedding (planning, what to wear, invites, food, drink, music, photos, flowers, etc.) and gives you ways to make each of those as DIY as you want.

Offbeat Bride, by Ariel Meadow Stallings, I just got last night from the library.  I started reading it this morning on my commute and I am really enjoying it.  This book is more of what her personal experiences were with having a non-traditional wedding, while offering tips and ideas from other "offbeat brides".  Ariel also has a blog on her website with a lot of info and pictures from offbeat weddings.  It is very inspirational, to see the vastly different and non-traditional weddings (even if they all may not be your taste). 

Both books emphasize planning a wedding that expresses who you and your soon to be spouse are, not what tradition or some crazy wedding planner tells you you should be.  HALLELUJAH!