Victorian Gothic themed wedding

So, when a friend invites you to their wedding, and tells you it is 'Victorian Gothic' themed in terms of clothing, you have just the thing at the back of your wardrobe, don't you?

After trawling through what seemed like millions of websites, and a couple of costume hire shops, I decided I would have to make my own costume.

I'm not quite sure what Victorian Gothic looks like, but I couldn't find much in the way of sewing patterns, so I went for a 'kind of' medieval style of dress, and thought the dark colour of the taffeta fabric made it a bit more gothic. As the wedding was in mid August, when it is supposed to be hot here in the UK, I took the advice of the fabric shop staff, and lined the dress with antistatic/anti cling lining material. Of course, that meant making 2 dresses, and sewing them together round the neck. About half way through, I did begin to wonder about my sanity...



The front of the dress has a net panel, with small diamante gems and iridescent beading, using seed beads. I did the beading while working away from home last week - about an hour before breakfast and 2 hours after dinner for 3 days.


Husbands like to take pictures from the most unflattering angles...




The back of the dress is laced. We hunted everywhere for the right kind of ribbon or cord to lace it with, and eventually bought some braided cord in a pale gold, which I was dyeing with Adirondack colorwashes 2 hours before the wedding. I went to the wedding with very gothic looking deep green fingers LOL.

The bride wore a blood red dress with a basque style top and medieval sleeves. Only a few others dressed up, one lady had a black dress with some sequins and embroidery on the bodice, and several men wore frock coats, frilly shirts and cravats. I didn't feel too out of place, and the dress attracted a few compliments!