I am so excited for this entry! Most young girls would say that they dreamed of their wedding dress since they were little. For me, I didn’t really have a perfect picture of what I wanted, but I knew how I wanted to feel: I wanted to feel the most beautiful I’ve ever felt in whole entire life.
Back when Gman and I went to school together, we realized we knew a lot of the same people before we actually got together. One of those friends was a lady named Yanet. I knew Yanet because we were in the same major together; while I wanted to become a writer, Yanet wanted to be a wedding dress designer. We always said she would make my wedding dress when the time came, so you best believe that when Gedalya and I got engaged, she was one of the first people I reached out to!
Yanet currently runs a her wedding dress company, Yanee Atelier. I went through the same process her clients go through when ordering a custom gown.
She and I met up to talk about my vision for the dress and what I was looking for in the design. Since we planned a fall wedding and our palette was burgundy, navy and gold, , Yanet thought that having an off-white colored dress with gold accents would be great. I never really thought about having a gold dress, but since I love the color gold so much and it was part of our palette, it was the perfect suggestion! We also picked the right shade of sheer tinted fabric as a base for the bodice embroidery. It’s so the design looks like it’s floating on the bodice, but will be held secure by the sheer tinted fabric.
For the silhouette of the dress, I wanted something off the shoulder with sleeves. I also knew I wanted a dress I could feel comfortable in to dance in, sit in and eat it, so I it needed to fit me like a glove in certain areas of my body, but loosely from the stomach down. I went back and forth about having a train on the end of my dress, but decided in the end to nix the idea.
For the details of the dress, Yanet showed me this beautiful gold fabric that we could use for the bodice of the dress and two layers of chiffon at the bottom. She also had a great idea of cutting out some great ideas she saw in wedding dress magazines and having me pick out what I liked as a way to build the design. I went for an off the shoulder look, with an embroidered front bodice and V-neck back.
The whole process from design to execution took about a year. With ordering the fabric from the UK and with our busy schedules, finalizing the details of the dress after every fitting took a lot of time.
Yanet was patient in allowing me to point out adjustments that needed to be made, and of course, with her design eye and taste, she was able to alter and customize the design of the dress to my requests. With the bodice fabric being as delicate as it was, cutting and sewing took a lot of time. Also, because we were customizing the full bodice, Yanet had to cut out embroidered and jeweled pieces from the fabric and position them on the dress to create the design we wanted. She also added some of the design at the base of the bodice so the design would trickle down the skirt.
The dress came out so perfect! The dress fit well, ended up being everything I dreamed it would be and made me feel beautiful, just like I wanted. What I love most is that my wedding dress is something Yanet and I specifically designed and created together. I am so glad she was able to be part of my special day and helped make me feel like the gorgeous bride I only ever dreamed of to look!