Bridesmaid

As our wedding was just a little one, I decided I didn't really need a lot of bridesmaids, and asked my sister, Liz, to just be there for the little tasks (like holding my flowers when i said 'i do') and she was happy to do this job! thanks liz.

Of course, she needed a dress though!

My mum was wonderful to offer to make this for me so I could keep concentration on my own dress, and other tasks. I drew up the pattern, and echoed some of the design features of my own dress - mostly just the dart positions. This meant that we had lots of freedom to have the design features that Liz wanted like some little sleeves and a full skirt.

I did have final say on the fabric though. And this was another difficult task! Fabric shopping can be quite hard work.

I had thought about a Liberty print because they are all so pretty, but also considered a real sixties pop flowers fabric, as i know this is more something Liz would like. We found this fabric by Liberty called Susanna and were quite close to going for it...

But i had a bit of a feeling it wouldn't be quite right on the day, picturing the flowers we were having and thinknig of my dress - all much more 'pretty'.  And i would sit and look at Liz and think that a smaller, closer pattern would suit her better. So i went back to the drawing board. There are so so many beautiful designs, but it seemed like there was something not quite right with a lot of them - either the colour palette was too autumnal or monotone, or the pattern was too small, or it was all too pink (Liz prefers to wear blue to pink so i was trying to accomodate this so she would be pleased)

After a lot of deliberating though I narrowed it down to these two:

Poppy and Honesty:

Claire-Aude:

During my research period I stumbled upon this grand blog and this helped bolster my faith in my vision. And as they had gone for the claire-aude, i decided to opt for the Poppy and Honesty - this one did seem the prettiest to me. Now I look back at all these options I know that we did the right thing!

It really worked out beautifully - Liz looked so lovely, and she found her dream shoes to wear with it. And somehow the flowers we had collected seemed to be the same colours too - so it really felt that it was all meant to be. I am pleased i trusted my instinct on this one!