I am so excited that I can finally share with you all the amazing behind the scenes that went into my wedding dress shopping process. As you know, I worked with Firas Yousif on Newbury Street in Boston to create my wedding dresses. But what you haven’t seen yet are all the behind the scenes of my fittings and meetings in his bridal boutique. My first two blog talk about the custom wedding dress process, but now I can finally show you all the good stuff! Read on for lots of custom wedding dress behind the scenes!
1) Wedding Dress Shopping: Muslin Fitting
In my first wedding dress blog post, Wedding Dress Shopping: The Custom Process, I talk about the muslin fitting but here are some images that I wanted to wait until after the wedding day to share so that the whole look would stay a surprise! This is what the gown looked like in muslin, we made some fit and design tweaks once I had it on. And take a look at the coat in muslin, a lot different from the real deal!
Muslin fittings are important because they take the designs into real life so the designer can see how it looks on the client and make any design and fit tweaks necessary, sometimes big tweaks are necessary, other times only small ones are needed. For me, we made a lot of fit adjustments and a few small design tweaks.
2) Wedding Dress Shopping: First Fitting in the Real Material
A few weeks after my muslin fitting, I came back in and was fitted in the actual looks. This was the first time I was seeing myself in the real fabrics and it was just the best feeling ever! The material sparkled and glimmered in the light and the coat was even more magical than I ever could have imagined. This visit was all about fit, we took everything in a bit and made some tweaks here and there to get ready for the final fitting.
3) Wedding Dress: Final Fitting
Last but not least, I came into Firas’ boutique about two weeks before the wedding and one week before were would head off to Italy for my final fitting. This fitting was all about making every little detail perfect. We moved some flowers around on the coat, added in a tie for the coat to the dress (the trains were connected by a small tie) and added in the comb to the hood.
Fashion takes time, and the final adjustments were made while I was wearing the dress right there in the boutique! It was such a blast seeing my actual wedding dress truly come to life!
4) Transporting the Gown
Once it was time to head to Rome that meant bringing the dresses on the plane with us. Whenever you bring a wedding dress with you on your way to a destination wedding, you need to bring them as your carry on personal item and if possible let your airline know ahead of time so they can make special arrangements for you! We flew with British Airways to Rome and everyone was absolutely amazing and so helpful!
5) The Wedding Day
Thanks to Firas and his amazing talent, both pieces traveled extraordinarily well! Even after flying across the Atlantic and spending a few days driving around Tuscany before we even got to Rome, the pieces were in immaculate shape, neither one had a wrinkle to be found and looked as if we had just picked them up from Firas on Newbury Street that day! So we just hung them up at the Hotel de Russie and I stepped into the gown and then put the coat on the morning of the big day, no ironing or steaming needed. Having a dress that would travel well was of the utmost importance as I would be all the way in Rome and thanks to Firas choosing the perfect fabrics, I had nothing to worry about and I looked fabulous all day! Stay tuned for lots more to come!
Our professional photos from the wedding day are coming soon, so stay tuned for those to see these looks in all their glory throughout our special day in Rome. In the meantime, be sure to read the other wedding dress blog posts if you haven’t yet! Start with Wedding Dress Shopping: Why Go Custom and then head to Wedding Dress Shopping: The Custom Process.
