Vintage-Style Green Wedding Dress for London Bride

Bride Becky is a Womenswear designer herself, so to be asked to design her a bespoke wedding dress, and be given so much trust in it’s detail was wonderful!

Becky was clear from the start about the colour of her wedding dress being a soft sage green, but we looked at lots of vintage beaded embroidery inspirations before settling on the final design, we were wanting to do a modern take on something with a little bit of 1920′s style, and lots of subtle shimmer.

For the under bodice, I wanted to be quite daring with a very deep ‘V’ and an angular neckline, which would be overlaid with the softer boat neck of the slightly sheer and beaded georgette. I dyed a pretty piece of rose French lace to match the sage green, as a neckline insert to hold the neckline together, and play down the deep opening with a pretty detail.

Becky had found some vintage lace motifs to use as inspiration for the beading of her wedding dress design, and they worked perfectly! I had a vintage marcasite art deco dress clip I’d collected which was waiting for the right project, which we used as a central piece on the waistband.

We were really lucky to have Becky’s contacts at her design workplace to produce the bead work for the dress. I created some beaded swatches and got my colouring pens out in order to draw out detailed layouts for embroiderers to follow, which was really fun! The main motifs were roses and leaves, with scattered rain drops falling from the neckline and down the skirts. Across the bodice, the design ran diagonally, highlighting the more dramatic neckline of the under bodice. The back opened in a keyhole design with two long beaded crystal tassels hanging down.

The beads we chose to embroider onto the green georgette were antiqued silver glass beads, and the motifs highlighted with grey Swarovski crystals. Crystal daisies were also embroidered in pink, grey and khaki. I loved adding the hint of pink - another little twist!
Becky had also chosen a boxy vintage fur jacket from Sally Lacock, to which we had the last minute idea to add a spare motif to so that it lay asymmetrically over one shoulder, and she wore a handcrafted jeweled bridal headpiece made of strings of beads and vintage brooches, which Becky made herself.

The vibrant and clashing colours Becky chose for her London wedding were just my absolute favourite! From the chartreuse and gold shoes, to the orangey corals in her bouquet, and the sage green of her dress, to the deep pink lipstick, even the vintage toned brown suit worn by the groom Edd, and the teal and gold tones of Hackney Town hall in London. All was captured perfectly by the talented Glasgow Wedding Photographers The Curries

Becky now runs a really successful home-sewing clothes pattern business called Paper Pattern Scissors.