In Her Shoes: Creating My Own Wedding Gown

For those who don’t already know, I got married on June 30, 2018 in Beijing! My initial planned to share only thoughts and lessons learnt at the work place here on LinkedIn. But planning a wedding, especially creating my own wedding gown, has provided me with precious experiences that I can leverage at work. Contrary to what most would think, creating a perfect gown can require as much dedication, planning and analysis as building a company valuation model. Here is the journey I had and thank you sharing the experience with me.

Step 1: Have a Clear and Feasible Expectation

My favorite gown designer of all time is Elie Saab. His brand is classic, elegant and dreamy. But when I was shopping for my own gown, I didn’t even bother to look into this option. An authentic Elie Saab gown can cost a fortune and it’s only distributed in certain cities in the world, Toronto not included. I am an ordinary bride with limited budget and time, so I decided immediately not to waste my energy on this.

Not having a real Elie Saab doesn’t mean I can’t have the perfect dress. I built a folder with pictures of gowns I love from everywhere and concluded that three elements mean the most to me: ball-gown style dress, big bow on the back and pearls. The bow-back and pearls things are tricky so a dress maker that allows customization is also important to me. After that I put together a list of stores I want to visit and bring aspiration photos with me to cut right into conversation of what I wanted.

Here are some aspiration photos I used:

Step 2: Communicate and Visualize Your Ideas

After trying out dresses at several boutiques, I finally met designer Francesca and Jackie from Whyte Couture in the WedLuxe Convention in Toronto. Their show-piece, which is an elegant ball gown with petals made from gold and silver threads, immediately attracted my attention and after inquiring about the price, I decided that I should look no further. Although they do have the option of making something completely from scratch, I decided that I will use their show-piece as a foundation and only change the back and neckline. There are two advantages from doing so: 1. It’s almost always easier time and money wise to build on something already exists than creating out of blue; 2. Your dress maker already knows what to do so the chances of unexpected surprises are minimized.

Another thing to note is that you should always plan additional time regardless of what your dress-maker promises. Sometimes is nobody’s fault but things can happen and you don’t want them to ruin your wedding. My dress is scheduled to be completed at end of April but it wasn’t done till beginning of June because one of the designers had an unexpected family emergency. Luckily I had a family member travelling back to China otherwise the dress will probably not make it on time through regular courier like UPS. If you have a local dressmaker/designer you like, stick with that and give yourself plenty of time to plan.

After our initial meeting, we have visualized how the dress will look via drawing below. We have also written down the details such as fabrics and cutting on the side for later reminder. Together we stapled the drawing with the inspiration photos and your dream dress is about to be born. Here's how our sketch looks like:

Step 3: Dress Fitting and Getting the Right Materials

A good customized experience should involve at least three fittings: one at the beginning to get an idea, second during the process of making and the last to fine-tune at the end.

On top of getting my measurements, my designer Francesca created a corset with plain white fabric on me to make sure the top fits perfectly. Aside from that, we also measured my height bare feet, with flats and with my wedding heels. This ensures that I won’t get tripped over in most of the circumstances. A beautiful wedding gown is a piece of art that involves craftsmanship and patience. If a store that brands itself as customized but doesn’t even bother in-person fitting, you can most likely be certain that it is false marketing.

As I mentioned, we created the gown based on a piece that was done by Whyte in the past. Since I am no expert in lace and silk, I put my full trust in my ladies and asked them to order the same fabric from vendors they worked with before. However, the pearls became a dilemma. Either artificial or real pearls are expensive in Canada and sold in small packets. To ensure we don't run short of supplies,I decided that we have to at least 50% more than the estimated pearls used. Thus, I finalized three vendors in China and send pictures of their pearls to Francesca so that she can pick the one will work.

Keeping in shape is another key to bring out the best in your wedding gown. Lots of brides wait till last minute to on insane diet to drop weight quickly. And this is certainly not encouraged. Balancing wedding planning on top of work and life is energy-draining. Overall, an unhealthy diet increases the odd of getting sick, skin irritation and bad temper, which can be disturbing to your big day.Here are some photos of the dress in progress. Note that the neckline is pined-on and we adjust the pearls several times to make them work:

Step 4: Receiving the Dress and Getting Ready for the Big Day

After all the waiting and hustling, your dream dress is finally there. I would suggest the following order of making and assembling different parts if you decide to change through the process:

If you are less decisive, you can always consult your dress maker for professional idea on what looks the best.

If your dress was shipped over rather than being picked up from a store, make sure to hang it for a few days so that the dress can come back in shape. If you can manage to put it on a mannequin, the result would be even better. Here's a photo of my final fitting:

At last, you might ask, how does it really related to work? I guess the biggest career take-away I had in this process is what it means to truly owning a project. In the past, I was always just a part of the project, filling a gap in creating the budget, planning the resources or executing the project.I didn't know how difficult it is to be the ultimate person owning a project and building the big picture until I created my own wedding gown. Trade offs among time, budget and relationships happen all the time.I received push backs from the vendors and sometimes my family. I got frustrated for unexpected expenses and delayed deadlines. But eventually I was able to stay calm and overcame the barriers to face my happily ever after.

My wedding day is one of the happiest day in my life and my wedding dress my favorite dress of all times. Creating this dress is far from being a real wedding designer but it has added some precious memories that I will treasure forever.