Archives for March 2021

All About Bustles: English Pick-up Bustle

Up next in our bustle series is the English Pick-up Bustle! Previously, we have shared the Ballroom Bustle and the French Bustle. Today, we want to dive into the elegance of an English Bustle.

The English Bustle is a wonderful bustle solution for wedding gowns that are fitted through the hips and have a long train. It is often very flattering on sheath, mermaid, and trumpet silhouette wedding gowns. If the fabric on your dress has a very straight fall, the English Pick-up Bustle can create these beautiful waterfall-like columns to compliment the clean and classic look of your gown. A simple, yet sensational bustle!

The English Pick-up Bustle is created by picking up the train and pinning it to the outside of the wedding gown. The dressmaker will take fabric from the middle of the train and pick it up to pin on to the wedding gown. The number of pick-ups and pins will vary depending on your fabric and length of train. From the pinned point the rest of the train elegantly drapes down and floats just above the floor–ready for the reception and to dance the night away of course! 

Pictured is the Bride Danielle with her wife Holly. Danielle is wearing her gown that was originally one size too big and we altered it to fit just right. We created an English Pick-up Bustle for this sheath silhouette wedding gown. The long train makes it perfect for this elegant pick-up bustle. 

Every bustle is entirely unique from the next. When you buy or create your wedding gown, it won’t come with a bustle. The dressmaker or alteration specialist will create the bustle of your choice for you. We created this blog series to help inspire you to see different ways a bustle can live on a gown, to give you ideas of the infinite bustles out there, and to share the bustles that work best for certain silhouette style gowns. If you haven’t already, check out our previous ‘All About Bustle’ posts!

All About Bustles: Double French Bustle

Continuing our bustle series, we have the French Bustle, aka the Victorian Bustle or the Under Bustle. Previously, we have shown you two versions of the Ballroom bustle for a sheath gown and Ballgown silhouette. Today, we want to talk about the French Bustle and particularly a Double French Bustle on a mermaid style wedding gown!

A nice contrast to the Ballroom Bustle, the French Bustle is all about volume and beautiful folds to compliment a more fitted wedding gown with a natural waistline. Sometimes there is just one fold with multiple points securing it up or other times there are numerous folds such as the bustle we are featuring with a double fold. This largely depends on your fabric, the length of your train, and personal aesthetics of course. This type of bustle is the perfect option for A-line, trumpet, and mermaid silhouette wedding gowns. It also works best for longer and fuller trains so you have more fabric to create the elegant folds. The French bustle wonderfully accentuates the feminine figure and creates a poignant touch of texture to a more form-fitted gown. 

To create this type of bustle, you pick up part of the fabric lower down on the train and attach it higher up the dress to create these beautiful outer folds of your wedding gown. The points are secured underneath the dress instead of on the outside of the gown. Your dressmaker or alteration specialist may attach a ribbon underneath the dress that can be used to help the bridesmaids secure the bustle up for the reception. Once secured, you are ready to dance the night away with a gorgeous bustle to compliment your unique wedding gown!

Recently, we have been working with a Bride on her wedding gown. We created custom sleeves to compliment her dress with beautiful white applique flowers throughout. We then created a double french bustle for this mermaid style dress. A perfect solution to compliment this charming wedding gown! For more bustle ideas, visit our previous ‘All About Bustle’ posts. Happy Bustling!

A Green(er) Wedding Gown

Photography by Emiliano Russo.

Are you trying to reduce your carbon footprint this year? Simultaneously are you fantasizing about that perfect, shiny new wedding dress for your upcoming wedding? Well, you can have it all and more!

One of the best ways to wear a green(er) wedding gown is to find a vintage gown! Maybe your mother, sister, or friends have their wedding gown and would be happy to give it to you. Or maybe a quick trip to your local second-hand stores will give you a promising vintage gown. Or even a quick browse online at Poshmark or Ebay. Keep in mind, the dress does not need to be perfect, the right size, or even the right style. All of this can be adjusted and created later on.

Once you have found your vintage wedding dress, you are already one step closer to a greener and dreamier wedding gown. The next step is finding some inspiration and visuals of your dream dress. If you were to start from scratch, what would your wedding dress look like? And right now, don’t even worry about what your current vintage dress looks like. Gather a handful of images or even draw some of your own sketches. Consider the neckline, the silhouette, the bustle, and any extra embellishments. Once you have all of these details, you are well on your way to merging your two dresses.

The final step in crafting your green(er) wedding gown is to visit your local dressmaker or alterations specialist. Bring your vintage dress and bring the inspiration for your dream dress. With their expertise and skill, your dressmaker will restyle, alter, and redesign your vintage dress into the wedding dress of your dreams. They will completely transform your dress so that it feels like a custom-made gown just for you! You can flaunt your new dress with the comfort of knowing your dress is much more eco-friendly than a brand new dress and likely you are saving yourself some money by repurposing a vintage dress. Greener is the way to go!

With 20+ years of experience, Jennifer has a plethora of dressmaking and alteration skills. She has taken dresses from a size 12 to a size 2, she has seamlessly blended brand new lace with lace of a heirloom gown, she has embellished dresses with 10,000 Swarovski crystals, and she has crafted the most elegant dresses from scratch. She has years of experience to turn any vintage dress into a gown made for you! For any restyling or alteration needs for your vintage wedding gowns, please send Jennifer an email at love@jenniferoberg.com.

Beautiful Gowns on a Budget

When Brides begin the unforgettable journey of discovering their dream dress, they may start searching online, through magazines, Pinterest, Instagram, or wedding blogs to get some inspiration and ideas. Often if you follow the links to find the price of these dresses you’re hit with a weighty and shocking price tag. And maybe the bridal shop you go in to for a fitting has a dress you fall in love with that is way out of your wedding budget. These prices can make you feel discouraged about searching further at some of the brands’ and designers’ shops you adore. BUT we have a secret for you!

Before you shut out any of these shops and designers, ask them about sample sales. Sample sales are a wonderful way to get a beautifully designed dress on a budget. Sample dresses are the gowns the brides try on at the store but these gowns are never actually for sale. At the end of a season or when new dresses come in, the bridal shops will have a sample sale where they sell all of these dresses for a significantly reduced price. Sometimes these dresses are up to 70% off! If you don’t mind knowing other brides tried these gowns on a few times then it is an absolute steal. 

So Brides to be, don’t get discouraged about pricey wedding gowns, instead call up your local bridal shops and boutiques of your favorite designers. Ask these shops if they have sample sales and find out when they usually have them to give yourself a timeline. It could be that the dress you have always wanted is suddenly for sale and at a price that fits your wedding budget just right!

We recently had a client come in for bridal alterations on her wedding gown she found at a sample sale. Our Sewing Assistant Sophia is cutting 4 layers of the tulle skirt on the wedding gown. A gorgeous gown bought at an affordable price. It is absolutely possible to find a beautiful gown with an affordable price.

Embellishing Your Wedding Gown

Every bride is so different and unique! It is rare to find a gown that speaks fully to one’s style. We love to encourage our clients to discover their styles and add that little flare to make their dress feel unique to them. There are so many fun ways to add that extra gleam to your wedding gown! 

Perhaps it is having an intricate bustle, a bodice covered with crystals, a fiery red silk sash, or some elaborate beading throughout your gown. The possibilities are immense! What is important is realizing what you feel is missing or doesn’t feel quite right. Then, your dressmaker or even your family and friends can help you envisage what this extra embellishment to your dress could be. And finally, your dressmaker can actualize this vision and ultimately let your uniqueness run through every inch of your wedding gown!

Custom sleeves being created.

Jennifer working on the custom sleeves for the bride.

During the last few weeks we have been working with an adventurous bride, creating custom sleeves to be added to her wedding gown. The sleeves are made out of a stretch sheer net with white applique flowers attached. A simple, yet very unique touch to a wedding gown. In the photos you can see how the white applique flowers elegantly wrap around her arms. It seamlessly blends into the wedding gown to create this beautiful continuation of the dresses flower design down to her wrists. The appliques even show off her fantastic pomegranate tattoo on the back of her right shoulder.  This is a wonderful example of adding something special to your wedding gown!

The custom sleeves we created for our client’s wedding gown.

More details of the custom sleeves.

For any assistance with embellishing your wedding gown to fit your unique style, please get in touch with us. We love empowering our brides to find their unique voice within their wedding gown. To book an appointment, send an email to Jennifer at love@jenniferoberg.com.