How much does it cost to design your own wedding dress?

A custom wedding dress is the dream of many women. What many of them don’t realise is that it’s fully within their reach regardless of their financial means. Wedding dresses are normally considered one of the most expensive articles of clothing you can buy. But what about designing, sewing, and tailoring your own? What about any combination of the three that suits you? In this article, we’ll cover the basics of what it takes to get your ideal dress into your hands without the markup of a boutique, and a ballpark estimation of what it will cost you right out the gate.

Designing a Wedding Dress

 The first thing that you’ll need to get your dream dress to production is a solid idea of what you want it to look like. This is easy, and it costs nothing. Just dream away until you have a solid image in your mind of what you’d like to wear.

If you’d like, you can begin by doing some research into current wedding dress styles to generate ideas of your own. A Google image search should provide a solid foundation for you to start with. Just plug away until you’ve found several wedding dress styles that you’d like to work with. Feel free to mix and match designs.

If you feel comfortable drawing, you can do this part of the design on your own for free. You don’t have to be an outstanding artist to get your dress designs started. What you do need is an ability to communicate what sort of wedding dress styles, features, and dimensions you’d like to work with. If you’re terrified of drawing, we can create a sketch for you. 

Choosing Materials

 The price of dress fabrics can vary widely, but it’s a little easier to get a solid estimate of what it will cost if you know what you’re looking for. Some popular fabrics are chiffon, tulle, organza, satin, and silk. Again, choose whichever you fancy. It’s your wedding, your dress, and your design. If you started with a solid idea (free, and really the most important step) then choosing dress fabrics should be simple.

More on fabrics here: www.zivaweddingdresses.com.au/how-do-i-choose-my-wedding-dress-material

In addition to dress fabrics, you might want to consider additional accouterments like lace, sequins, beads, or crystals. These will all contribute to the cost of your dress, but not necessarily by much. Lace will run you a bit high on account of the labor involved in its manufacture. Sequins are essentially very thin slips of plastic and very cheap as such. Beads are a bit pricier, but not out of the ballpark of thrifty brides-to-be. However, depending on the bead material and design, they can be expensive, so spend some time shopping around if you’d like to incorporate them. Crystals are obviously a high-ticket item, but the luxury, glamor, and elegance that they provide may be worth it if they fall within your budget.

 If you don’t feel able to compare prices between types and qualities of the fabric, you can still leave it to the professionals. We can help you put together just the right fabrics and accessories to match.

 

Finding a dressmaker

 

This will be one of the most costly aspects of turning your dress design into a reality. Of course, if you’re handy with a sewing machine, it won’t cost you anything at all. But the skill required to make wedding dresses is high considering the astronomical attention to detail that most brides will demand of the occasion. So, taking to the sewing machine yourself is a risky proposition. If you’re on a shoestring budget, it may be your only option, but if you’re searching the web for a term like “how to sew,” you’d be better off with the aid of a professional.

Hiring a seamstress is not always financially demanding, but wedding dresses can make for complicated projects. Again, it all comes back to what you decided at the drawing board. If your drawing indicates a straight silk design, you’ll be in luck, not only because at the time of writing it is in vogue, but because it is easy to piece together. If you’d like something more on the vintage end with bows, frills, lace, and sculpture, you will be looking at a higher ticket for sure.

Fitting and Tailoring

This is the final step of dress design. You may need the aid of a professional. Even if you’re a good seamstress yourself, it can be very tricky to measure and adjust to your own figure. It’s highly recommended that you seek a reputable tailor, and make no mistake, they will charge you accordingly. We use the wonderful Elle and Stuart. 

In Conclusion

Unfortunately, there’s not a simple calculator to let you know exactly how much it will cost to design your own dress. It can range anywhere from practically free, if you have the know-how already, to very expensive, if you have a complicated design that requires a lot of professional intervention. This can be a reality with our help. Our designers will help you find just the right material and bring to life the exact image you’ve envisioned. All this for a price you won’t be able to believe for a custom made wedding dress.