Non-traditional Wedding Dress?

[Thistledew]

I would appreciate your opinions on the dress I am hoping to get made for my wedding. We are having a fairly non-traditional event, and as I really do not suit white, I want to go for something with colour. I would also like a dress that I can wear again for black tie events.

I have put the pictures of my design on my profile (hopefully they are showing - please do say if they are not).

The dress will be made from a fairly stiff fabric, so it holds the mermaid tail to some extent. The train that you can see from the rear view will be made of a light-weight, translucent fabric, probably in a creamy colour to complement the dress. It will go over my shoulders and then round under my arms and across my back in a kind of shrug/bolero style. I want a kind of nod to tradition albeit not a fully traditional wedding dress. The train will be removable if I wear the dress in the future.

I'm sure the colour of the dress will not be exactly as in my photos, but I am hoping to get a bronzy-gold colour. I am blond with green eyes and very pale skin, and look good in 'autumn' colours.

The proportions of the dress are exactly as it will appear on me - I took a photo of myself, then traced around it to create the outline of my design! I am 5"9 tall.

Any thoughts? Do you think this will work?

Well it looks like a nice dress but you could probably buy something rather than bother getting it made as it's a fairly simple shape and style. The problem when you go down the non traditional route is that it becomes just a dress as opposed to a wedding dress.

Thanks for the reply, ruby. I am getting a family friend to make it, as it is very hard for me to find off the peg dresses of that style to fit as I am tall and long in the body.

And it will be a 'wedding dress' as it will be the dress I get wed in, so there!

Any other opinions? I know it is not the same as putting up a photo but I would appreciate some reassurance that I won't look completely daft.

You won't look daft, but I'll be honest and say that I think clothes designing is a bit of a dark art - it's not easy to design a dress that looks really good, as opposed to a dress-shaped object that you are wearing. I personally think that your design looks extremely restrained, and I wonder if it is going to look as special as you hope.

I wore a very non-traditional outfit for my first wedding, but it wasn't designed by me. Frankly it looked a lot better than the wedding dress I had made for my second wedding.

If your family friend is a professional dressmaker or if you are a designer yourself, fair enough - but then I doubt you'd be asking for opinions.

How many dresses (not necessarily wedding dresses) have you tried on? Have you been to Harvey Nicks and just let yourself go and try on everything you can find? Because there may not be many dresses/outfits out there that fit you, but then you only need one.