Whew, it's done!

That's right I am now a married woman!

That last month was especially stressful...

I finished the dress just in the nick of time! And although I would have liked to have more time to adjust a few more mistakes, I was not completely disgusted with the way it turned out :)

That picture is probably the best that I have at the moment to show how the dress looked. You can't see the beading at the bottom or in the back, but once I get it cleaned up I'll take closer up photos so you can! 

Here is a look back at 2 weeks before the wedding:

Before I put beading on the top of the dress, I gathered all of the extra organza that was making the dress look bulky. (I should have pinned way more when I was attaching the organza to the taffeta!)The beading that I placed over this mess made it look like there was no mistake at all. As you can tell I also worked a little sweetheart top in there too! (I realize the sweetheart top is done wrong but it was kind of too late to do it right.)  

Long before I finished the dress I got my hands on some of this stuff because it came in very handy for the beading that I attached. I feel like a cheater for using pre-beaded material from Joann fabrics, but unless you are great at beading it is the way to go. I found some really pretty beaded material that had a lot of embroidery work that I liked and am not capable of doing. Since I cut the beaded material there were pieces that would not have stayed together without some re-knotting and fray check.

Here you can see the bottom beading better and you can see what the front looked like before the gathers.

This is all I have time for right now but I plan on doing a big recap of all of the mistakes I made and some more advice for anyone who is considering making their own wedding dress. I really hope this has helped and I hope people learn from my mistakes (There were plenty to learn from!) I know that if any seamstress took a look at my blog they would laugh but I do not claim to be a seamstress or to know what I am doing really! I just want people to know that anything is possible if you try hard enough! And even with all of the mistakes I made everyone at my wedding said the dress was gorgeous (even though it was totally bulky from the side:/)

PS

Thank you so so so much again and again to the most awesome sister in the world, Candice Sanchez for all of your help! She pulled me together when I fell apart and helped me sew in the boning for my dress and she helped with everything! Also thanks to my friend Sara for giving me some beautiful beads to help finish the back of the dress and thanks to EVERYONE for your support :)

More to come please stay tuned!!