Monday, March 29, 2010

Lessons from the World of Amy-zilla #1



Planning your wedding should be a fun time. However, I do sometimes find myself getting a bit stressed out over things, which really isn’t how I want it to be. I wanted to share my first ‘lesson learnt’ for two reasons. Firstly, I figure if I share it someone out there might read it and not make the same mistake, and secondly I’m hoping that putting it in writing will mean that I won’t make the same mistake myself again!
This lesson starts with Michelle Roth’s ‘Maya’ dress, the most fantastic wedding dress in the world. My future mother in law is making my wedding dress so lately (lately being the last couple of months) I have been searching for white on white polka dot organza with coin sized dots so I can have my dream dress. It started off with me popping into a few fabric stores with no luck. Next I scoured the internet with no luck. At this point I think it became a bit of an obsession and I either looked in or called any fabric shop I could think of in Perth. When this failed, I started looking at ways of making my own (screen printing, transfers, embroidery e.t.c). Meanwhile my future sister in law, who lives in Sydney, was looking for me over there. She sent me a few samples, one of which was exactly what I wanted…. but in yellow. I called up where she had got it from to try and get it in white. They called the manufacturer and sadly the answer was ‘we’ve stopped manufacturing that and white and ivory were the first colours to sell out’. I think this made me even more obsessed because I knew that it kind of existed somewhere out there. I scoured the internet some more and called around some fabric shops in Melbourne, once more with no luck. I was getting so frustrated that I couldn’t find it.
This Saturday I went shopping with my future mother in law to get the rest of the material for the dress. I took my sample with me (even though I’d already been to this particular shop twice and asked them about it), just in case. The lady in the shop suggested a tulle they had with tincey wincey dots on it. At first I declared that tulle was too stiff, the dots weren’t right etc. As I talked to her, I realised that the tulle probably wouldn’t be too stiff given the structure of my dress and when she held it up to me with the white satin underneath I realised that while it wasn’t the funky dress that I had been dreaming of, it was still going to be an awesome funky dress. I bought the tulle and I just feel like such a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’m back to being excited now and am ready to start looking at other aspects of the wedding (which also will hopefully mean it won’t be another week before I update this blog again). I still would love to find my polka dot organza and I will keep an eye out because I still have time as that will be one of the last parts of the dress to get made. I know now though that I will be much happier if I just casually look but keep in mind that my dress will look great with or without that polka dot organza.
Moral of the story: It’s great to have an idea in your mind of what you would like, but having very specific things in mind will take over your life and not make you happy! It seems so obvious now I’m writing it down but it can be very easy to get caught up in details and forget the bigger picture. With that in mind, from now on I will try to make sure that my ‘inspirations’ are stepping stones pointing me in the direction of what I want for my own wedding, not must haves. After all, our wedding day is meant to be fun and a celebration with our friends and family and I really don’t think that the wrong kind of polka dots have the power to ruin that!
The tulle that I got.

What I wanted (but in white).

6 comments:

  1. Haha hey, I know the characters in that pic! I even drew a fan comic featuring them a few years ago =P

    I love that dress too, but yeah, I can imagine that finding that exact fabric would be tricky at best. It's good that you're not obsessing over it too much anymore!

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  2. Not sure if your fabric looks anything like this, but this dress with what looks like tiny white dots on tulle looks funky and gorgeous - I think if you can't find the polka dot organza, your dress will still look fabulous!

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  3. I haven't yet had one of these situations... I'm kind of a 'don't know what I like until I see it' person.

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  4. I've added a picture of my dotted tulle to this post now. I've decided I'm very happy with it. :)

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  5. Where did you buy your white tulle? The one with the small polka dots. I am making a veil for an August wedding and am trying to get my hands on some per the bride's request :).

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  6. Hi Amanda,
    I got it from a store called Fabulous Fabrics in Balcatta. http://www.fabulousfabrics.com.au/
    Not sure if they'd still stock it. This was a couple of years ago that i got mine!

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