How Brides Are Redesigning Wedding Dresses to Make Their Dress Dreams Come True

It can feel like once you have “the dress”, that’s it. Game over, no more changes.

Thankfully, though, that’s not the case. In fact, remaking wedding dresses has become quite popular in recent days. Delayed weddings mean more time to change your mind. And more brides-to-be than ever have done exactly that. If you’re interested in the prospect of remaking a wedding dress, scroll on for more info about the process and how we approach redesigns.

Everything You Need to Know About Remaking Wedding Dresses

Why Are More People Remaking Their Wedding Dresses Lately?

Though we’ve all had enough talk of the pandemic, it is one major reason why future brides are choosing to remodel their dresses in 2021 and now into 2022. We’ve seen brides who have purchased their dress more than two years ago in anticipation of a 2020 wedding! Safe to say: Things change. With wedding planning shuffled around, people have changed venues, themes, guest list sizes — you name it, we’ve seen it. Sometimes after all these changes, the dress doesn’t quite work with the concept as a whole anymore. Remaking a dress is a perfect option for tweaking a dress you may have bought years ago to make it into something more suited to your current wedding plans and personal style.

In addition to COVID remakes, we’ve also seen an increasing number of hand-me-down redesigns. Whether for sustainability or sentimentality, we’ve seen brides-to-be reusing and repurposing old dresses from decades prior.

With redesigning, it’s possible to turn your mum’s old wedding gown into something that suits your taste. Similarly, it’s a great way to recycle fabric from dresses that might otherwise be thrown out. The 1980s were notorious for excessive fabric, and it’s not altogether uncommon to find good-quality (but outdated) gowns at charity shops and garage sales.

 What Does the Remaking Process Entail?

Though different in concept, the remaking process looks very similar to the process of designing a custom gown. With only a few steps involved, it’s no more work or headache for brides-to-be — apart from deciding what you want, that is.

● In-Studio Consultation: First, we have a consultation in our home studio. We will inspect and fit the dress on you to determine what aspects we want to keep and what we want to change.

● Gathering Inspiration: Next, we will talk through your vision to get a clearer vision of your dream design. Everyone comes in with a different level of clarity, so this step is all about narrowing down what exactly you’re after. During this step, we often look at other Saving Grace designs and try samples from our collection to work in theme with styles that already exist.

● New Design Mockup: Once we have an understanding of what you want in your re-made gown, we sketch a new design and source any fabrics that will be included. Once you’re happy with the design and proposed fabrics, we seek one final approval for the design and quoted price. And then we get to work making your dream come true.

Past Saving Grace Remakes

It’s impossible to choose a favourite among the remakes we’ve seen. Every design — and story behind it— is so unique, that each one amazes us for different reasons. One memorable design was a bohemian-style remake of a client’s mothers dress from the 70s. With a personal connection to Ashleigh as well, whose mother attended that wedding, the dress was very meaningful for both the bride and Saving Grace as a brand.

We also made a new dress that was almost completely constructed from the bride’s own mother’s gown. By keeping almost every element, from linings, to dyeing the original buttons to match the new gown and down to the zipper and corsetry — with even some fabric leftover for flower girl dresses!

A recent redesign was on a gown purchased pre-COVID that no longer worked after a few postponed wedding dates. With a few tweaks, we were able to recreate it into something suitable and comfortable for the bride and the rescheduled wedding. By keeping the skirt but making an entirely new bodice, we were able to maintain the original vision while giving it a more suitable update.

How Long Does Redesigning Wedding Dresses Take?

The amount of time it takes to redesign a wedding dress is largely dependent on what the already-existing dress looks like, as well as the client’s vision. Depending on how extreme the redesign, we typically ask brides to book a consultation 3 to 5 months before the wedding date. This ensures that we will have enough time to complete the dress while allowing some flexibility for alterations if needed.