DIY OMBRE DIP DYE "WEDDING DRESS"

These are my old ballet shoes, from high school, that I just added studs to.

I came across this Marchesa dress years before I was engaged. It’s not a wedding dress, but I was so obsessed with the style. I adore Marchesa designs because of their light and airy materials, draping, and construction. Most of their evening gowns look like art pieces, since they’re heavily inspired by origami prints and shapes. 

Once I got engaged several years later, my mind didn’t budge. This still remained my main wedding dress inspiration, but I made many adjustments to mold it into exactly what I wanted. After brainstorming my vision, I began researching the process.

STEP I | READY-TO-WEAR OR CUSTOM DESIGN? | 1.5 YEARS AWAY

Trying to find the wedding dress I was envisioning was a fail, so I figured it would be easiest and cheapest to split it into a top and skirt. There was an Etsy shop that could do black ombre, but after they sent me a video of their spray painting method, I realized that I could DIY it at a significantly lower cost.

The first piece I bought was a white tulle skirt from a Ukrainian Etsy shop for $92.69. They have a wide variety of colors to choose from, and they custom make each one, based on the length and waist size that you want.

I then browsed for a white top similar to my inspirations, but had no luck, so that’s when I turned to custom designing.

STEP II | DESIGN SKETCH | 1 YEAR AWAY

I found a bridal shop, called Connie Tao Designs, that could custom make my top and dip dye my skirt, but communicating with them was extremely frustrating. Over the span of eight months, they didn’t design shit, aside from giving me this half-assed sketch that I had to repeatedly ask for. Can’t relate to all of their five-star reviews…

Then over the holidays, my aunt showed me her wedding album and told me that she designed her accessories, wedding dress, reception dress, and bridesmaid dresses all by herself. Unaware of the terrible experience I had with Connie, she asked if I needed help with anything, and that’s when everything magically started coming together.

STEP III | SOURCE FABRIC | 6 MONTHS AWAY

We went to JOANN to find fabric that matched my skirt. The closest ones we could find happened to be on sale for $38.66. I also got extra fabric, so that I could test the spray paint later on.

STEP IV | DESIGN TOP | | 6 MONTHS AWAY

My aunt took all of my measurements to create a pattern from scratch. She then used it to cut and sew scrap fabric first. After double checking that the sample fit on me, she proceeded with the actual wedding dress fabric from JOANN. It took her just one day to complete most of my top, which was such a relief after dealing with Connie. My aunt is an incredibly generous, hardworking, and talented person, and I’m so grateful that she put in so much time and effort to help me.

STEP V | FINAL FITTING | 2 MONTHS AWAY

Once the design was finalized, we realized that I needed lots of fashion tape to hold the top to my body. This wouldn’t be an issue if it was a regular wedding dress, but because I split it into two pieces, the backless top didn’t have fabric along the bottom to anchor it. I had to buy fashion tape for the first time, which was a life changer. If only I knew about this hack before…

STEP VI | TEST SPRAY PAINT | 2 MONTHS AWAY

My skirt had three layers of tulle, so I cut the same amount of swatches from our leftover fabric to test the spray paint first. I bought black and gray cans from Home Depot to try to create an ombre effect. Glidden was the only brand I saw that carried these specific colors, while also being suitable for fabric. The black was perfect, but the gray was really light, so I had to spray three separate layers.

STEP VII | SPRAY PAINT SKIRT | 2 MONTHS AWAY

I hung my skirt in my aunt’s backyard and started with spraying black along the bottom. Then I sprayed all of the gray color, until it ran out. I had to spray a second layer of black, since the gray slightly faded the first layer. This entire process took about two hours, and the paint dried almost immediately.

In the end, my customized “wedding dress” checked off every single one of my boxes, and then some…

+ significantly under budget

+ hid food baby

+ accentuated tattoos

+ minimal, but still made a statement

+ comfortable / breathable / moveable

+ easily used bathroom without assistance

+ easily / quickly did outfit change for wedding dance

Photography | Katie Clare Photography

xx

Dana

DIY BRIDESMAID BOXES

This was a really fun project for me, since I love planning, crafting, decorating, branding and packaging. I wanted this unboxing to be a special and memorable moment for my bridesmaids, so I tried to personalize everything as much as possible. I know that starting the wedding planning process can be daunting for most people, so here are some creative and affordable ideas that can hopefully inspire you.

What’s inside the box?

1. polaroid pictures | $5.32

If you download Shutterfly’s mobile app, you can get unlimited prints. All you have to do is pay $5.32 for shipping. Since I’m always taking pictures, I thought this would be a cute way to reflect on some of the fun moments we all had together.

2. mini bottles | $14.48

Most people like to celebrate with champagne, but not all of my girls can drink. I bought sparkling apple cider from Dollar Tree, for those who are sober, and champagne from BevMo!, for those who like to get tipsy.

3. hair ties | $10.72

Not only are these useful, but they’re really cheap and easy to make. Most Etsy shops that specialize in elastic ribbon, have lots of colors to choose from. Just make sure that the description says “elastic” because they all look the same, and I accidentally bought non-elastic ones before. I chose the ⅜” width, and 1 yard per color is enough to make 4 hair ties. I just cut them into 9” pieces and then knotted them at the end. I then cut construction paper into 4” x 3 ¼” pieces to hold the hair ties in place.

4. candles | $36

I bought these lovely candles from a female Black-owned business called KSM Candle Co. They have such a wide selection of handmade soy candles and a long list of descriptions for each scent. It was really hard to narrow down my choices, but the ones that I bought were Mojito, Citronella, Sunny & Mellow and Black Currant Tea.

5. matchboxes | $11

What’s the use of candles without some spark? I actually bought the matchsticks and matchboxes separately on Etsy, since I couldn’t find the plain pink boxes that I wanted. This method was significantly cheaper, since most of the matchbox packages I saw required customization or large order quantities.

6. paper lipsticks | $7.44

This is a beautiful Valentine’s Day DIY that I stumbled upon on Pinterest. Instead of typing “Will you be my Valentine?”, I just changed it to “Will you be my bridesmaid?” I am a huge lipstick lover, so I thought this would be a fitting way to pop my question. I bought all of the construction paper from Michaels, since they have a wide assortment of colors and textures to choose from.

How did you package it?

+ boxes | Etsy

$6.53

+ ribbon | JOANN 

$9.98

+ shredded paper | Paper Source

$3.99

+ tags | I DIYed all of my tags, but if you want to save time, you can buy them in bulk. I cut the name tags into

2 ¾” x 1 ⅝” pieces and the “Drink Me” tags into 1 ¾” x ⅞”  pieces. 

$0

The total was roughly $100, and including taxes and shipping, it cost about $30 to arrange each box. 

xx

Dana