Wedding dresses/outfits

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This was a experience that I will live to tell my grand children.

The truth is, I wanted the "perfect" wedding dress but couldn't bring myself to pay such exorbitant prices for the quality stuff.

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Before I move on, let me rant about the wedding business. I don't understand why there are wedding boutiques which buy stuff from China manufacturers/ Taobao and mark up prices ridiculously. I get that it's easy to cheat brides because of how emotionally/financially invested in this big day, but it's annoying when they tell you it's done by an in-house designer, when you obviously saw it on discount on Taobao.

Secondly, I've realised that local wedding boutiques in general are behind on wedding trends by I dunno, 2-3 seasons? They import stuff from China/Taiwan, both of which are not exactly your fashion capitals. Unless you go to the super designer boutiques where they customise your gowns, the stuff there just looks old and yellow. This season's supposed to have tons of sheer/nude/non-white looking wedding dresses, but I didn't find any! (this season's stuff are really <3, unless the gown is too sheer/nude and you can literally see your boob shape or thighs. Still don't understand why anyone would wanna look like something out of the Emperor's New Clothes.)

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Ok end of rant! To be honest, I didn't start visiting boutiques but went to pinterest instead, because I was put off by the prices (2.5k to rent a few gowns, can I knock my head against the wall). I started to look on Taobao for good knock-offs of these dresses. It was extremely hard to find. Out of 100 dresses, you will probably find 3-4 that you like, and most of them don't have user reviews, which was my main concern.

Amazing gowns only if you have money to burn:

Instagram: @etherealthelabel

an amazing gown by JessicaCindy. Would have loved it even more if it had more inner lining!

Before I talk about my own gown journey, I wanna cut to the chase about the better places to visit if you want guaranteed quality stuff, dresses in line with the season, and willing to pay around $1-$2k+ to own a dress (in my opinion, much better than renting ugly wedding dresses from Singapore boutiques). You can always sell it at half the cost on Carousell! Too bad I didn't end up using these options because I didn't have time to explore by the time I lost faith in Taobao wedding dresses, but trust me, unless you have $4-5k to burn on a JessicaCindy customised gown (her dresses are really something!), these are the better options out there:

1) BHLDN: Anthropologie's wedding brand. For the quality, the cost is really reasonable, stuff is up to date, style is abit bohemian, vintage/ classy, depending on which designer's you end up picking. Shipping costs over $200 from the US, but I should have got my sis to drop by their boutique when she was there. That is my greatest regret! :'(

Mad love with tulle, lace and chiffon!

2) 2nd hand gown websites: Not Carousell (though I'm probably gonna sell my dresses there, haha). Since there is lack of good quality gowns in Singapore, it's logical to assume you will not find stuff beyond people trying to do preorders for Taobao gowns, or just a small community of people selling their designer gowns (still expensive, btw.) That's where sites like preownedweddingdresses.com and stillwhite.com.sg (US based) offer much more variety. Since there is a huge pool of people listing their dresses, it's subjected to price competition, so you get much better deals! Plus, most of them probably wore their gown just a few times, and hence still in pristine condition. Some examples

• I've seen this on The Proposal renting at $2k
• Long time ago, I wanted to own an Anna Campbell wedding dress cos i was super into the vintage sort of look, but extremely out of my budget (7k?). They design extremely pretty backs, and intricate beaded neck/boob areas: Here, here, here, here

What I highly recommend before shopping online, though, is to know what cut of dress suits your body shape and personality. Some designs look good on models but not on normal people. Important to go to some bridal shops to test the cut and the feel. When i tried on my first dress, I was quite shocked at how stiff it was cos of the in-built corset. Of course those dresses are the traditional mermaid cuts or A-line/Princess gowns. Nowadays, the trend is no support, as sheer as possible, lol.

Also, the next time you should do is get yourself measured by a professional seamstress, so that you are able to compare against the measurements online. As much as possible, get the reseller to provide her own measurements for comparison.

On hindsight, I realised that different gowns are really made for different types of personalities, and you really don't have to be too influenced by what you see other people wear. I would have preferred a soft, flowy type of white dress, chiffon/lace probably with a sheer/patterned back, bohemian style, no corset - it would have suited my rather carefree personality, allowed freedom in movement, and wasn't too princessy or mainstream. I didn't get to wear it in the end cos I never found this dress!


This was my story..

So, since 2008 I've had this crazy idea to make my own wedding gown. It never materialised as by the time I got to planning the wedding it was 6 months before and I was juggling between work and planning.

On hindsight, if i had a year, I'd probably had explored that idea, played around with tulle, chiffon, lace, and no corset. It would have been an Anna Campbell inspired dress. She doesn't play around that much with dress shapes, and the cut of her dress would have been easier to manage (empire line, my favourite!), but the beauty would really have been the hand sewn appliques around the boob and back area:

If I had a second life I would have done that.

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What I ended up doing:

In May, after 2 months of assessing, I bought 3 wedding gowns off Taobao:

Bridal Dress 1: Mermaid cut lace, with mesh top and back

It came looking exactly like that. The back was a bit of a patchwork, and not as nice as I expected.

The gown was pretty good quality, with the exception of the mesh front. Because of the extremely structured built-in corset and the fact that I didn't customise to my proportions (no such option), the dress body length was abit longer than mine, and hence the mesh gathered strangely and it looked weird. The dress was as usual, too long for my short self.

Despite its flaws I thought it flattered the curves well. This went to my alterable bucket in case I couldn't find a nicer dress.

Bridal Dress 2: Sheer off-shoulder mermaid cut

Let's just say the dress was badly made. The person who recommended me the size based on my measurements overestimated and the dress was too big everywhere. No chance of revival.

Evening Dress 1: Non-structured, slightly sheer mermaid cut, low back dress in forest green

This was the more up-to-date dress of the 3, having that sheer quality, and beaded design. Since I customised the colour, it was customised to my size as well, and fit me super well! 

I was very pleased with it, except for 2 things:

1) It came with absolutely gaudy appliques - getai sequins and cheapo plastic beads. My sweet mummy overcame odds of long-sightedness and spent a few hours removing them for me, so what was left were the glass beads (which were pretty), and these cloth flowers which reminded me of the forest.

2) It was dyed very badly. Wearing it for 20 minutes made my hands green. I was aghast. I refused to wash it repeatedly cos I wasn't sure whether it could handle the washing machine. Cos of that I had to deal with green knees on my first night with Han Yang. (Lately I finally washed it cos it was smelling really musty, thank God it survived. Hoping the next owner doesn't get much of it.)

I love the bare back!

I was still on a quest to find the perfect white dress. Went on Taobao again:

Bridal Dress 3: Tulle bridesmaid dress in white

I bought this design, supposedly a bridesmaid dress, in white, and added a train behind. it made me look like a dumpling.

And then I procrastinated for 2 months. At the back of my mind I knew I had to settle this, but I was super busy with other things! By the time I got back to dress-hunting, it was already the beginning of August. At that time, I had already altered Bridal Dress 1's length, and snipped off the mesh front and back, so it was incomplete. Despite working on this dress, I was still not convinced that I couldn't buy another nicer dress that suited me.

I ended up looking back at BHLDN, and knowing that it was risky to buy direct, I tried carousell, and I found this!

Lucca Maxi by Watters

tingmakeup.com

The beading is crazy intricate, I was blown away!!! She had it in my size and it was already altered to my height as well. I really wanted to get it. The only thing was, it was not in white (which I really wanted it to be, but this was actually made to be a bridesmaid dress, but many brides wear it cos it's just breath-taking). Also, I didn't know whether it was flattering to my body shape. 

tingmakeup.com

I couldn't get to try it cos the lady selling it didn't allow try-ons. My sis didn't think it was wise that I bought another dress without trying, and so I let it go. 

I will never know how I look like in that dress. :'(

My sis was really my saving grace. She told me to stop all online activities, and to get my butt out to try on real dresses at the bridal shops so that I knew what dresses I liked instead of wasting money and precious time. She accompanied me on a Sunday trying dresses, where I was sorely disappointed by the range that they had. I was becoming a bridezilla, and super cranky. God bless my dear sis, who took the brunt of my snappiness. She kept telling me that I looked lovely in Bridal Dress 1, and whisked me to Spotlight to find lace for the alteration. I bought it, but was so adamant on looking online again.

#foolishbride

So I chanced upon this US website, JJhouse, which made customised dresses and found this:

Dress 4: Empire cut dress with chio back

This was 16th August. I asked my sis, and she still didn't think should buy online after my multiple failures, but that she would still support me if I went ahead. #BestSisEver

It came. on 30th August. From SUZHOU, CHINA. 

I laughed at my foolishness.

 The cut was lovely, but the size was too big and the chiffon was of bad quality.

Back to square one. 

I was this close to putting $550 to get the BHLDN dusty pink dress, but I couldn't bring myself to spend any more money. I had already wasted so much on so many crappy dresses. I was also extremely panicky cos I had no other options left. My sister listened to my predicament, and didn't blame me for not listening to her. She just encouraged me to alter Bridal Dress 1 again.

So I did.

After I removed the mesh, the dress did not have any structure to hold it up as it was a mere tube with a low back. It needed some sort of collar/material over the chest for security. I didn't want the back to be boring backless as well. Thank God for Pinterest for I amassed many designs to work with. This was the night of September 1st. Yes, I was to be married on the morning of September 3rd. Decided to go ahead with the classic mandarin collar since my mind was too tired to think, and I liked cheongsams anyway.

Follow Hui Xin's board white/lace on Pinterest.

I didn't take many photos even though it was an 8 hour process. I hand-sewed everything as the lace was too delicate for the machine. By the time I was done, I felt like a zombie with a long day of appointments ahead.

Started with the Mandarin collar. Thank God I had some extra satin material as the base because I altered the length, and I had randomly bought super duper stiff interlacing from Chinatown one fine day.

See the sunlight streaming onto my bed? It was time for my breakfast appointment already. By that time, I was done with everything except for fixing the lace back to the dress and fixing the button for the mandarin collar.

In between appointments, I came home and did just that:

How it looked:

Front

Back (not very obvious!)

This was really a journey of ups and downs. As frivolous as it seemed, it was one of those experiences that you learnt a whole lot about yourself. Why, oh why, was looking perfect so crucial? It took me alot to give this to God, those moments of wrestling and being a brat and crying out: Why couldn't He just let me chance upon the perfect dress?

The funny thing is, 

I found out that I did.

I remember groggy me, the night that I was drafting the design, wore this dress with its pins still intact, excitedly exclaiming to my sister "I THINK THIS IS IT, THE PERFECT DRESS!" I was really so happy at the outcome, I cried tears of joy. 

At the start, I really wanted something bohemian as I wanted all three dresses (white, tea ceremony, and dinner) to show a different side of me. but I guess God sometimes just has his own ways of turning things around - that because I had a hand in personalising it, that even though it was that same old cheongsam cut, it ended up showing another side of me as well. :) ah, how God turns my expectations around to make me contented.

Moral of the story:

1) Start your search early.

2) Don't buy your dress from Taobao.

3) If you have money to burn, buy from the designers in Singapore/ get it tailor made (in that way you can go for fittings and be assured it won't fail you)

4) If not, you can either make your own dress, or decide on a cut before buying online.

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Side story:

I bought a cheongsam from Taobao too.

Cheongsam Dress 1

I liked the bare back, but I really hated the structured corset and boob area again! I removed them, and I had to wear a heavily padded bra to fill out the hollow of my non-existent boobs. I also decided to outsource altering the length to a friend's mum cos the train was too dramatic.

A few days before, I decided to fall back on a dress I bought during CNY, which I never wore then cos the red made it look too much like wedding.

Cheongsam Dress 2: Lace in red

I bought it from double-woot.com and took out their sleeves. I absolutely love how their dresses fit me like it's tailor-made, and so affordable. I also have this dress in purple :p.

 Can't wait for their CNY designs again!

Cheongsam Dress 3: Batik

Thought that since I spent such a long time on this, and since I was blessed enough to have 2 tea ceremonies, I decided to veer off the red that I was so insistent on and wore this instead.

Moral of the story again:

1) Don't buy your dress from Taobao.