Anatomy of a Bridesmaid Dress

I spent most of November building six of these bridesmaid's dresses for

a darling couple having a Christmas wedding.

Just thought I'd share some of the steps it takes to construct a piece like this.

These dresses were tea length, so I only used 45 yards of fabric, compared to the 60 yards I'd have needed for floor-length gowns.

The initial bodice seams and markings for the ruched fabric band at the waist.

When applying the ruched band of satin, I gathered it at the seams first to help add fullness to the final ruching.

There are several types of ruching, but for these dresses, I hand-tacked the fabric down in an abstract, irregular pattern to give it a more fluid look, and to avoid the look of pleating.

The picture above is how the band looked before ruching, and below is how ruching really tranforms the band into something special and interesting.

The decorations in the sanctuary of the church were overwhelmingly gorgeous!

I was honored to be invited to attend the wedding, and I sneaked a couple snap-shots of a few of the girls in their dresses.