The Lord of the Rings wedding

[Mary]

I had a good friend that was getting married and their theme was Lord of the Rings. I was given a drawing and a couple of photos showing what she wanted for the wedding dress. With the help of a couple of commercial patterns, some newspaper for extending pattern pieces, etc. Then I made a couple of the bridesmaid dresses and co-ordinated with the bridesmaids in other states to get them to make their dresses. Also there were the fellow's dublets, and the outfits for the parents of the bride and groom. 18 outfits in all. It was a great wedding and one of my most favorite sewing projects.

 

[thatgracieeeee]

Wow, that's an incredible undertaking! 18 outfits total is an epic feat, and that Lord of the Rings wedding dress is absolutely gorgeous! You really nailed that ethereal Elven look! It must have taken ages to draft those extensions with the newspaper method, but the result speaks for itself. I must say that full look, standing outside with the groom is pure Middle-earth magic! I can totally see why this is one of your favorite projects. Did you use a particular commercial pattern as a base for the dress?

 

[Mary]

I used two different commercial patterns. One for the body, one for the sleeves. From the costume section of the pattern books. One was McCalls and one was Simpicity, the the newspapers to smooth the line of the the train to get it as I wanted it.

All I had was a basic drawing and a reference to the LOTR movie. The dress was shown for only a short time in the movie.

I was working in a major office during the day, and one day I stayed after everyone left and used a conference room table to cut the dress out on. I made sure not to leave sewing stuff in the conference room when I left.