Weddingbee boards

Hello bees! I wanted to share my dress journey because, lets face it, I'm super duper excited about it! A little backstory:

I got my dress for free! My mom became friends with her bestie L when they were 12. 15 years later, they both had daughters within a month of each other: myself, and MY best friend S!!! Anyway, best friend S and her mom L were friends with a local wedding dress designer, Dan Thompson. Well, Dec 2010 he was moving out of state, and L was helping him pack things up. He had about 20 dresses or so set off to the side. L asked him "where would you like these?" and he replied something to the effect of "well, they are sample dresses and I don't have room for them so throw them out." L said "ohhhhhhh no!!!! We'll take them and donate them/give them away for you!!!!"

I was at college at this time, and my SO and I had been dating for about a year and a half. My mom called me up and told me about all these free dresses hanging around in L's house. I asked her, "Is there a tulle ballgown?" Sure enough, there was!!!! I asked SO if he'd be weirded out if I got the free dress, and he said no :) In fact, he thought it was incredibly cost effective haha. So, my dress has been hanging around (harhar) for some time until we are now ready to be making alterations for my sept 2013 wedding. (I guess its still a bit early, butttt....)

So here is the progression so far! Here's the base dress:

We called it the "Bare Slate Dress" because I've always wanted a tulle ballgown, but we get to embellish it exactly as we want :) I am a sparkly gal, so obviously adding glitz and glam to the dress was a necessity! The "veil" I am simply holding to my head. I got 5 yards of fabric at JoAnn Fabrics, and I used some of it for the bodice of the dress, and the rest will be for the veil. The veil will be kind of how im holding it, attached to the back and then allowed to just flow down and out the entire length of the train. And here is what has been done so far, as of Sat:

 sorry for the half picture, I was posing with bestie S, who is also my MOH, and I don't know if she wants on the internet :P She's quite gorgeous though!

the back detail

haha I was trying to see the back detail here

Closer detail. The 5 yards of fabric from JoAnn's was only $30, and the two peices of appliqued bling were 17.99 and 29.99 I believe (my mom purchased them from Ebay). The dress isn't quite done, she has to hem it and smooth out the bodice (which will happen when it's hemmed) and we're debating adding slight touches of sparkle to somewhere in the skirt... maybe similar sparkle like the bodice, but to do that we'd be spraying it with fabric adhesive and sprinkling glitter onto it! Like starting at the waist and fliltering out into the skirt. Trying to be subtle... well, as subtle as glitter can get.So we're not quite sure yet.

But other than that the dress hasn't needed any alterations as far as fitting me! It is a tiiiiny bit tight at the waist, but I am trying to get into shape. The problem would be if I lost toooo much weight, I'd have to take it back lol. So hopefully I can get toned without losing any more than like, maybe an inch on top. (My thighs are a different story... but at least their size doesn't effect the dress, they're hiding under 6 layers of tulle and crinoline hahaha.)

What do you ladies think?!?!?! I am SOOOO EXCITED to finally share!!!

Thank you ladies!!! I've been floating ever since I tried her on yesterday :D

I went to Alterations by Dawn down in Hagerstown, MD. She's AWESOME! And such a wonderfully nice woman as well. I'm feeling beyond lucky we found her in a google search, and I would absolutely recommend her to anyone from the MD/South PA area!!!

You ladies are so nice, thank you so much!!!

@ParisM:  Thank you! Im trying to be very budget concious, and I really did get lucky with the free base dress!!! I'm not exactly sure how much the overall alterations will end up costing, but I thiiiink I might slip in just under $500 for the whole shebang?

@FutureMrsAP:  Both of those sound wonderful! I do have small swarovski crystals (another ebay find!) that are slightly champagne/light pink in certain light... they could potentially be glued! Either that or we're thinking of the fabric glue spray and then hand sprinkling very light glitter on... not sure if I would filter it out from the top, or do it along the hem and filter it up? I'll probably have a poll at some point.

Thanks so much everyone!!

Oh sweet!!! Had you lived there long? It's so cool to "meet" other bees from the same area!! And yes, sparkle addict is a great way to put it!