Making a wedding dress part 1: initial design

When I said that I worked on the wedding dress for six months, I am not being entirely truthful. I started draping on a dress form in January, but the design process went back a lot further than that. S had asked me if I would make her wedding dress a while before her fiancee proposed. They got engaged in October 2008, and a lot of 2009 was spent talking about what S wanted. We went to a wedding fair in February 2009 which was really quite terrifying. S tried on a few dresses there and I made a couple of sketches of details that she wanted.

From wedding dress sketches

I'm not the world's greatest sketcher, and in my defence we had had a few drinks by this point. S knew that she wanted empire line, no bustling or volume at the hips, with a modest train. She stuck to these requirements throughout the design process. Other details changed. Initially she wanted straps, she knew she wanted to marry in a catholic church so wanted something fairly modest.
I came up with some ideas

From wedding dress sketches

From wedding dress sketches

Other requirements were no lace up back (she didn't want it to look like underwear) and no buttons. I love buttons and had thought that buttons could be the focal point of the back, but if there were to be no buttons I made a decision that the opening would be at the side, not centre back. I didn't want people staring at a zip for a full catholic mass (invisible zips are not truly invisible!).

This sketching process was rather ad hoc, I would make a few sketches before meeting up with S for drinks. In June 2009 we went to another bridalwear shop to try things on and look at bridesmaid dresses. At this point there was still a chance that S would fall in love with something from the shop and my services would only be required as bridesmaid.
S tried on a few styles, and decided that she would like a strapless dress after all. I didn't panic too much as the plan was never to have the dress hanging from the shoulder straps, any of my sketches could be adapted to strapless. The next couple of months were devoted to looking for fabric resources and sorting out all the many other things that are involved in getting married. I wouldn't get round to draping until January 2010.