A wedding dress of sorts

Robin liked it, so he put a ring on it.

Yes it's true ladies and gents, Miss JuliaBobbin officially became a Mrs. RobinBobbin when she said 'Heck yes' on October 15, 2011.

We got married at the beautiful Werribee Park Mansion in front of our wonderful family and friends ... and a few random passer-bys (bless their curious eyes).

Robin and I first locket eyes and limbs (not in a scandalous way I assure you!) in a Salsa dance class at the Night Cat 3 years ago. Robin was basically Patrick Swayze with an Australian accent and I was 'baby in the corner' ... but right at the start of the movie when she can't dance... Needless to say after a lot of excessive eye-lid fluttering and spins on the dance floor, we fell (triple spun) in love and made our sacred vows.

So as you can imagine, it's common knowledge amongst our friends and family that we dance salsa and so guess what dance they expected us to do for our wedding dance ... salsa (regardless of how totally ACE we are dancing to MC Hammer, it just wasn't wedding appropriate). Ok Salsa it is.
One problem. My wedding dress was big enough to fit a medium size family under and was not in any way Salsa friendly.
Solution: make me a dress for the salsa dance!

This actually ended up being a blessing. I had purchased my wedding dress back in January 2011 when I had really only been sewing for just over a year and was not up to the epic task of sewing my own wedding dress. By the time we had decided to do a salsa dance I had had a bit more experience and wanted to make a separate dress for the dance. This would feel in some way that I'd made a wedding dress of sorts for my wedding day, just without the 'vomit-every-morning' sort of pressure. Just to wedding it up, I made it in white silk dupion, french lace and lace motifs.

The dress was easy to put together, seeing as I imitated my previous design with the Tessuti Awards dress so I'd already had practice.

I made a half circle skirt for twirling comfort and added three flat folds of silk dupion on the hem to give the skirt a bit of detail without overbalancing the lace bodice. I cut these strips on the bias to give extra flexibility.

I used for the bodice beautiful French Chantilly lace that I bought on sale from Clegs a few moons ago. I interlined the front of the bodice with dupion to stop it from being see-through.

The style of this dress with the full loose skirt made for very comfortable dancing. I ended up keeping this dress on for the rest of the reception after our dance. We had an amazing band who played old-school RNB, funk and reggae with some latin grooves, so there was no way I was sitting like a doily all night while people danced away! Even though I do love my wedding dress!

I teamed the dress with a stunning hand-made floral head piece made of silk and feathers from the ridiculously talented Twigs and Honey Seriously, I start hyperventilating every time I go onto their site; their stuff is painfully beautiful!

I hand stitched lace motifs onto the skirt of the dress and blended them into the bodice. This took a million freaking years. I wanted to make sure you couldn't see any of the hand stitching. I did however find this process quite relaxing; the repitition and back-to-basic-ness of it all.

Can you see the stitching? No? Exactly.

I was very happy how this dress turned out and that I got to wear something on the day that I had made. There won't be too many occasions in the future where I will have the chance to wear a white dupion and lace dress again (wedding vow renewals perhaps?!) but I love it just the same.

Our first dance was a traditional slow dance in my actual wedding dress. We danced to the song that my husband wrote, recorded and proposed to me with. It is such an amazing song and I still get goosebumps when I hear it. It has to be one of the most romantic things I have ever experienced.

For our choreographed salsa dance we rocked out to a Michael Jackson Latin remix of 'Rock my world' and once the music started my nerves went away and we had an absolute blast!

Here's a few pictures of me in my actual wedding dress if you're curious ...

Very simple and clean. My salsa dress had all the bling on it! We haven't got our professional shots back yet so these ones are curtesy of my wonderful dad and a few friends on facebook! (God bless facebook).

 Me and my ridiculously handsome husband. Isn't he dreamy?!

Me wearing my dress with my two good friends Teuila and Bryce 

 From left: Cousin Josh, Brothers Daniel and Genaaron and cousin Elizabeth. Did I mention that my family is full of talented musicians?! I was so lucky to have my family play at our wedding ceremony.

Me and the first man I ever loved (and still do) my wonderful dad; Michelangelo (no he is not a ninja turtle).

We had such an amazing night and my dress was a success. But the best part? I got to marry me the love of my life. I know I sound cheesy, but I finally found a man who is my sort of crazy and gives me the warm and fuzzies.