After the disappointment of the last dressmaker I spoke to, who turned out to have a totally unreasonable attitude towards whether or not one should pay for quotes (wtf?! If it was acceptable to pay for quotes, builders would do nothing else!), I turned back to one of the first dressmakers that I found from scanning the advertising in the back of a magazine.
She makes corsets and skirts as well, and we had a bit of a chat on the phone, but today I went out to a small village east of London to meet her and talk about what I want. I have to say, I am much more hopeful that this will work out. For starters, she's just much more down to earth. We talked about what I want, which is going to be quite simple really, and she didn't have any problem with what I was proposing.
I showed her my sketches, which is all I have left after the other dressmaker threw away my collection of pictures of nice dresses torn from magazines, and I showed her my lace, the tiaras I'm working on, and talked about the veil and the stole. She didn't seem at all fussed that I want to make my own veil and stole – on the phone she'd said that it doesn't make sense for me to pay her to sit and bead, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she didn't see beading as a bit of a chore that she's now well shot of!
We sat and looked through her fabric sample – some beautiful silks and velvets, in various shades of burgundy, ivory and gold. She didn't have exactly what we need, so I am going to go to a shop called Macculloch & Wallis off Oxford Street to see what they've got. Apparently they do amazing fabrics, and for one section of the dress we'll need something really quite special and I'm hoping I'll find it there this afternoon.
The most exciting part of the visit, though, was trying on a corset. I've quite a narrow back, so contrary to my expectations I only needed a medium, possibly might even fit into a small if I lose any weight at the gym! I must say, it does amazing things to one's waist – suddenly there's this whole hourglass thing going on that certainly isn't all that obvious in my normal clothes!
I've tried on an 'under-bust' corset before, which had the odd effect of pushing my bosom into my armpits – frankly, that's not all that attractive. This one, though, was a full corset, so whilst it pushes up a bit, it creates a much more flattering shape. I can't wait to get a corset that's actually fitted to me!
Amazingly, corsets only take one metre of fabric, so one can be quite extravagant without breaking the bank. That said, we're going to keep things pretty simple, I think. I like simple and elegant – too much froth and frill detracts from the style, in my opinion.
Anyway, off now to search for fabrics. Exciting!
I've always found stationery to be very exciting. Don't ask me why, but the sight of a clean, pristine sheet of paper just fills me with joy. Blank books even more so… actually, to the point at which I have banned myself from buying new books until the ones I have are full up. My tendency is to buy really nice books and then think “I can't possibly use this for anything mundane, I have to wait for something really special”. Of course, that just means that I buy more books and never use them.
So having our wedding invitations printed was never going to be an option for me. It's not just that it's so expensive, although that point certainly doesn't swing me in favour of going to a printers, it's that it is so much more fun to make your own.
I spent some time a couple of months ago, searching the web for ideas on how to make my own invitations, but it was a friend of a friend who told me about WeddingDIY, which I think is run by his sister or cousin or friend. The site is heaven for stationery lovers – all sorts of papers and ribbons and card and envelopes, all cunningly put together in kits to allow you to make your own invitations.
This gatefold design is the one we're using for the main invitations, and the other is for the evening invitations.
A fortnight ago, I ordered three sample packs, which arrived very promptly a few days later. Last weekend I spent some time making up the samples to see how easy it is.
Materials wise, the quality of these kits is very high. The only issue I had was that the burgundy card that I'd ordered to form the back of the gatefold invitation wasn't burgundy – it was more a sort of plumy-chocolate colour than it was a true burgundy colour. And the two different ribbons widths were slightly different colours. I know that's nitpicking, but, well, I'm like that.
The instructions for assembling the kit were really clear, and WeddingDIY actually provides you with downloadable Word documents with the right layout for the size of paper that you're printing, which saves a lot of time in getting that right through trial and error!
Of course, getting the wording right on the invitations is a whole different matter. I had no idea it was so complicated! Do you go with “Request the pleasure of your company” or “Would be honoured by your presence”? Do you type in the names? Or handwrite them? Or have a generic invitation? And fonts! Which fonts do you use? Small caps for the details, big swirly script for the names? Prepositions on their own line? Time and date before venue?
Gah.
Eventually I settled on something that I think works ok, although if there are any typographers reading this who want to take a look and give me some hints, I'd be more than happy to hear from you! (Bearing in mind, this is going to have to be done in Word or Pages, rather than proper typesetting software.)
The invitations were pretty easy to put together. I didn't have particularly good glue to hand, so the paper sort of wrinkled up a bit, but I am sure that's a problem that can be pretty easily solved, perhaps by using a proper glue roller, or spray mount.
Of course, because I am both a perfectionist and a skinflint, I spent some time yesterday at Paperchase and at the London Graphics Centre, looking to see if I can get any of the materials cheaper, and searching for exactly the right shade of burgundy card. It turns out that WeddingsDIY really has a very good price on raw materials, and the quality of the scored card (for the evening invitation) was higher than the card I could get in the shops in London – just a higher weight and better colour. I did find a better burgundy card, but at twice the price and with a laid surface instead of smooth.
I think I'm going to have to keep looking for the right shade of burgundy card, although I have some leads for a paper suppliers online and will be chasing that up as soon as I get somewhere near a working internet connection. (Right now, I'm on a train… but more of that later.) And I'm going to continue to search for matching organza ribbon in the right shade. But for the rest of it, I don't think I can do any better than WeddingsDIY.
