Hello friends, and welcome to another video. This week, I'm gonna be getting a custom black wedding dress. Y'all can stop tweeting me now. It's happening! Now, as some of you might know, I am engaged, betrothed, affianced, and a few months ago we went shopping for my wedding dress and we ended up picking out a really amazing gown, with some pretty epic medieval sleeves. "Look at that sleeve Ty!" With a couple of details still left up in the air, like the fabric and the final fit, but we said "Sure to the frock". And that dress is still gonna be my wedding dress but, for a while I've been teasing the idea of doing a White Swan/Black Swan moment, and having a second dress that I can change into for the party portion of the evening. So that is what we're gonna be working on now. The Odile dress, if you will, or the Mila Kunis one. Unless you think she's just a figment of Natalie Portman's imagination. That movie came out in 2010, I don't know why I'm still talking about it. Now the first question some of you may be asking is "Why do you want a black wedding dress at all?" Well, I wear a lot of black. It started off as like a theater kid, stagehand thing. Yes, I was a theater kid. No one is surprised. And that predilection has now taken over my life, and closet, entirely. So, a black wedding dress is definitely in my wheelhouse. In fact, some of you were surprised when I chose a white dress at all. Now, my line of thinking this whole time has been like... "If there's one occasion in my life to wear a white gown, this is it!" And I really love the Juliet dress that we chose, as well as the fabric we ended up picking out for it. However, unintentionally, the fabric we settled on is gonna end up being pretty heavy and a bit fragile. And, for some insider info, Tyler and I are planning a somewhat intricate, choreographed first dance. So I pretty much definitely need some kind of second dress to boogie in. So I thought, why not a black one? The second question you guys may have is "Why custom?" Now, there are a lot of black gowns, like, out there in the world, but when it comes to choosing a second wedding dress, I kind of want something that would both complement the first dress stylistically, but also not upstage it or downstage it too much. So kind of a tall order. But thankfully, through our shopping process for our first dress, we were able to meet the designer of it, Stephanie White, of Odylyne the Ceremony. And when she heard I was looking for a black wedding dress to complement our Juliet gown, she was intrigued. And she thought it could be really fun to work on something custom together. So I said "yes" to working on a custom dress, and thus began our journey. So to start off, we hopped on an initial FaceTime call with Stephanie to kind of game plan. -Alright, hi Stephanie! -How are you? -Doin' okay So leading up to this call, I had started pinning stuff to a shared Pinterest board as well as sharing Stephanie on our general wedding one, just so she could get a feel for the vibe we were going for. Now, our general wedding theme has kind of evolved a little bit. Initially I was describing it as A Midsummer Night's Dream, in autumn, with kind of like Christmas lights and exposed brick, but it's sort of grown into more of a Starry Night concept, as we've added a lot of decor with moravian stars, moons, and twinkly accents. I've, like, pinned a bunch of, like, celestial patterned fabrics. Um, I don't know if there's, like, that possibility out there. So most of the dresses I was gravitating towards were more on the whimsical side, with, like, beading or sheer layers, you know, just things that had some etherealness to them. There's also a fair amount of these sleeves that are, like, almost like the opposite of a bell, where they're almost like, they're poofy and, then they cinch at the wrist. So those are super cool also, So with some of my ideas out of my head and onto Pinterest, the next question was how we were gonna turn those pins into a dress. -What is our plan of attack? So our next meeting would be in person to see some of these sketched out silhouette options that Stephanie had cooked up from our conversation and then choose one of them. -That sounds perfect. -So, I will see you... next week. -All right. See you soon. -Bye! Now joining us for our sketch reviewing session was Christy Baird, who some of you may remember as the owner of LOHO Bride who helped us pick out our first dress, and was also the one who linked us up with Stephanie in the first place, and we were all gonna be taking a gander at three different silhouette options. So here is look one, which, we talked about sleeves, 'cause we know you're sleeve girl. Yeah, I am. I'm a sleeve lady. Look 1 is a generally fitted silhouette that hugs the abdomen and then starts to flare out below the hip with sheer poufy sleeves and a plunging deep V at the cleave (cleavage) point. -Something to show off a little of chest hair. Just a little bit. (Laughter) Look 2 is somewhat similar to look one in that the sleeves are also sheer and voluminous and cinched at the bottom. I feel like both of them have this, like, cool, like, gathered-ness, which I really like But instead of being fitted, Look 2 has some shearing at the waist to provide more of an a-line skirt. It also has a deep V, but it's covered by a high necked sheer overlay, sort of similar to these looks that Stephanie's designed. Look 3 is very different from the other two. -Wow This one is giving you that whole princess, fairytale vibe. -Yeah This design is off the shoulder with a notch neckline and an a-line skirt. And there's that sleeve detail Playing off of these dresses that I had pinned and also this one that I tried on way back when, at LOHO, and liked, but didn't end up picking. It would definitely give some drama, like they would definetly fly around a little bit, for sure. And honestly, after seeing them, I thought that all three of these sketches were really awesome and did hit a lot of the things that I had initially been pin-trested in. (heh-heh-heh) But I had to make a choice, and right off the bat, I had a couple of concerns with option number 3. Specifically, that it would not really solve our problem of needing a more practical dress for dancing purposes. With both the off the shoulder being restrictive to my upper arm mobility, -A lot of my girls that do off the shoulder, do it for ceremony, 'cause they want the photos Not a lot of people going the other way. as well as the cape sleeve situation, that I so loved, potentially getting in the way. -Like you might be like twirling through your own sleeve -That might happen regardless, but, like, I feel like, let's not make it harder for me So we decided to nix dress number 3. Which left us with options 1 & 2. Now, the differences between these sketches mainly come down to the neckline, of which dress 2's is quite high. -I'm nervous about, like, this kind of thing... -Getting covered? -Yeah, I don't know, not... getting covered. But I'm worried about like... I don't know somethin'. -Well, in dancing too. On the flip side... are you gonna be warm with something up this high? And besides any potential double chinning, the sheer overlay would also obscure the deep V, which I actually thought could be a good idea to highlight, because it would mirror the neckline of my other dress. So we'd have that kind of continuity going. Now, between the two skirt silhouettes, I usually favor more flowy ones, but I was actually surprisingly drawn to the more snug style. -I'm down for that. I could be up open to a booty moment. Absolutely, you see the booty hump -So between these two which one feels like the front-runner? So, all things considered, I would say that style number 1 has that practicality for dancing, with some dramatic flair, without things flying around, so it seemed like the perfect choice. -Weirdly, I can't say that I, like, knew that this dress existed, but I feel like this was kind of in my head. So we decided to go with that one. -Amazing! Okay, this is good, I'm excited. And the next step after choosing our silhouette was to have Stephanie's pattern maker whip up a muslin version of our dress for me to actually try on. -Alright... so we are here, back again, at Loho bride, and today we're gonna be meeting up with Stephanie and her pattern maker, Rita, to take a little "sneak peek" at the muslin of the black reception dress. Now, a muslin is essentially, like, a prototype version of a dress that you can use to finalize the pattern before you make it in the final fabric. -I can't wait to get into it. So I popped into the dressing room to see how it was looking. For just a rough draft, I honestly thought the dress looked pretty spooktacular. And I think a lot of the details that we had focused on in the sketch were looking good IRL. I like this shape and I love the sheer sleeves and the V. I like a lot of things! Yeah! I'm so happy about that, because I like a lot of things too. Stephanie and Rita had some standard fit alterations they wanted to make. You feelin' rock and roll? Definitely! So they pinned me up in a variety of locations. That is correct! For my part, I only felt like we needed to make small tinkers to the silhouette, like making the waistband more narrow and maybe exaggerating the sleeves slightly. So I told them to really go for it in terms of sleeve poofiness. Yeah, go big and then go home. The other thing that we needed to adjust was the length of the skirt. I wanted to make sure that we couldn't see too much of my shoes from underneath the dress, So I'm wearing, like, straight up, like, jazz shoes for, like, dancing purposes... But at the moment, there was a beautiful full-on train behind me, And unfortunately, I think it had to go for the sake of our tango Yeah, I don't think we can have any train. Otherwise, I think I'm gonna trip on it. Yeah, or he's gonna trip on it. Someone's gonna trip on it! But besides those tweaks, we were fired up for our frock. Awesome! I like it! Yeah I really... I don't just like it, I love it! And with our final silhouette within reach, it was time to pick our fabric. Spirit fingers, I guess. I don't know! Now, originally, Stephanie had thought that something like a black velvet could be good for our gown, and she had actually found a couple of Swatches of different Velvets, that she showed us on our sketch reviewing day. I keep petting this one. I feel like these feels like... You're gonna get petted. I know, However, we had already chosen a velvet tuxedo jacket for Tyler's wedding outfit and I was kind of nervous about clashing. So we took her swatches to Tyler's tux place to compare, and none of them really matched. Yeah, I feel like, unless it matches perfectly, it's not gonna make sense. Yeah, No, I can't. And with velvet more or less nixed, Stephanie suggested that we all go fabric shopping together so we could see a lot of different black fabric options in one go and then make our choice. So we met up one afternoon with two fabric stores on our itinerary: Rag Finders and Mood. Alright... So we are here at Rag Finders in downtown LA, ready to search for some fabric for our dress. Basically, Rag Finders is like a deadstock fabric emporium, which means that all of these fabrics are, like, no longer in production. They've ended up here and they will not be making any more of them. I swear I have a dress from Urban Outfitters from this fabric. This could be that fabric So if you find something that you like, grab it and run! Well... pay first. But yes, grab it, pay, and then run. So I'm gonna be meeting Stephanie here as well as Sarah, who works at Rag Finders, who's going to be helping us... Explore. Adventure. Quest. Navigate! Navigate is a good word She's gonna be helping us navigate this place. I can hear them on the, uh, on the mics. It said, "did we lose them?" A little bit. A little bit! Because it's large and labyrinthy. You could see me holding my eyeballs in my hands. I dunno. In all seriousness though, Rag Finders is super cool. And there are a lot of hidden gems there Look at this blue camo print! I could make you a pair of joggers out of that. You'll look like one of the cheetah girls. And we decided to start our expedition in the lace room upstairs. Through a crevasse! In terms of laces, we were looking for something with a semi gothic vibe without looking too tableclothy or too floral. You got to do this with all the fabric, so I can kind of see them. You can just cocoon me inside of them! So cobwebs were in. I like it cuz it's kind of spider webby. And it's pretty geometric, which I also like a lot. It's kind of wicked! But fruits were out. Yeah, you're right. And it does look like a pineapple! Pineapples just make me think of Fibonacci numbers, which makes me think of sixth-grade math. And Stephanie also wanted a fabric with some heft to it. I don't like... Yeah, no. I don't think so. It's not thick enough for me. We need a... we need a beefy fabric here! Where's the beef? And after pulling a fair amount of fabric rolls out of the depths... I don't know how to get in there... and then having to put them back where we found them... I'm like jousting! Put 'em up Ty! I'm jousting with you. We gathered a few possible lace options, and then decided to head over to another part of the store. All right. Squeeze, suck it in. squeeze it. Suck it in. A metaphor for putting on Spanx! But on our way over there, Sarah did spot one last lace. Now, our first dress fabric is a beaded scalloped pattern with ever-so-slight art deco vibes. So I had kind of been keeping half an eye out for scalloped patterns in the lace room. Wait, this one's actually awesome! This one's kind of really awesome! This is really awesome! So Sarah had done good. Good find! Sarah is the Bane of fabric stories. (in a mediocre Bane voice) I was born in the fabric store! Unfortunately though, once we pulled it out (disappointed exclamations) we realized it was too narrow of a bolt to actually cover my body, so it was a no-go. But maybe we can, like, take a little for inspo or something? Yeah! Still on the hunt, we headed downstairs. Past more mountains of fabric... To the jacquard area. To try and see if we could find anything sparkly or patterned with kind of a celestial vibe. We did end up finding one shimmery metallic fabric that could have been an option, but none of us were really feeling it. I think it's not right. Okay. There we go. I don't think so. That's why we do it! And without finding a clear front-runner... I mean it would be... RED HOT!!! Hahaha!!! We decided to say "auf wiedersehen" to Rag Finders, and head over to our second destination: Mood, of Project Runway Fame. I'm try to remember all the things that Tim Gunn says... I dunno, I think he just says "let's go to Mood!" Yeah, right?! "Alright, time to go to Mood! Thank you Mood!" Yes! Now, beyond that, Mood is more of a standard fabric store with just a wide range of options. This one's kind of funny. Not for the dress, but just in life. and so we inevitably found a lot of things that were not gonna work... With interesting patterns... Is it, like, vaguely animal print-esque? The subtlest of cheetah prints? As well as textures... Oh, there's feathers over here. Oh, there's a lot of feathers over here! But something that Mood did have a fair amount of, was good sparkly options. Oh, wow! That's really nice, actually! Now, I was down for some sparkle, but we did have to be careful with beading, because we didn't want anything that could snag in a dancing situation. Especially during this move. The Buns-A-Rollin' where Tyler spins me around on the ground. And though we did end up finding a couple of good options... It's kind of cool! Yeah, I don't foresee these falling off. Stephanie had to secretly found a treasure in the corner, that she was eager to show me. Get ready! Get ready! Get ready! I don't know if this is right, but, like, Which was a sheer black fabric with embroidered stars. Oh wow! It's pretty awesome! It's pretty awesome, right?! That is pretty sick guys. And though I had kind of given up hope of finding a celestial patterned fabric like this, it was one of the things that was all over my initial Pinterest board. And they're not like "stars" where they're like "Oh, they're stars". They're little abstracty stars. You know? It was very different from all of the other options that we had considered... This is really good! But it was light, seemed easy to dance in, and would match so many other elements of our wedding that it really felt like a winner. I mean, kind of, like, out of all the stuff that we've chosen, this is definitely you. Yeah, I think so too. I think this could be the one, honestly. I think that's also, like, the first time I've, like, felt that way. Good!!! And having checked out so many different fabrics from Velvets, to pineapples, to fire trucks, It felt kind of surreal to finally find something we liked so much. Alright, this is pretty awesome. Is that a saying? Is that a thing? No I don't think that's a thing!! So we decided to go with this one. I guess that was a resounding "Thank You Mood." "Thank you, Mood!" And with our material and our silhouette chosen, it was time to put the whole thing together and do a fitting in our final fabric. Ready? And right away we were pretty pumped with how it was looking. Love it! And with how it was twirling. No, I was ready. But, I want to see it again. Okay Now there are a couple of things in this more final version that are kind of new to the design. Oh wow! First of which is the sleeves which originally were gonna be made out of a plain black organza. But after Stephanie went home with our starry fabric and kind of hung out with it for a second, she suggested that we instead do the sleeve in our fabric, just unlined. I think it was a great decision to do the sleeves in the same fabric as the dress. We also slightly changed the opacity of the bodice to feature our stars more prominently Which actually nicely matches the Sheerness of the first dress as well. Besides those changes, I was also quite pleased with the added volume in the shoulder area. As well as the snugness on my behind. Sorry, I just, like, I panned right to your butt. Crash zoom to your booty But it wasn't so snug that we couldn't still boogie a little. Let's get your butts-a-rollin', right? Butts-a-rollin' sounds better. All of the details aside though, I think this dress was, without question, just a hundred percent, the right dress. I feel like this is so you and, you know, and, basically, we... nailed it? And I think we were all really happy with it. Completely! It's an extension of the main gown and I just think it's stunning! Yeah. Me too. Love it! Now, as you guys could probably tell over the course of this video, this dress making process took quite a while, and frankly, between this dress and our first dress, we've been working with Stephanie and Christy and all of their partners basically all year. It's been such a great experience to get to know them and work with them, And I'm so grateful that they were willing to let me be so involved in the design process. From the initial sketches, to the dungeons of Rag Finders. You guys are full Gollum right now. You're literally finding the ring of power in the darkness. I'm super excited for both of the dresses that we've made together, and I can't wait to show them to you guys in the next episode. So let's get our butts-a-rollin' and get married. Thank you guys so much for watching! And once again a huge thank you to Stephanie for making this beautiful dress! I am so excited to see how it If you liked that video make sure to sha-mash that like button and if you want to see more videos like this make sure to sha-mash that subscribe button. a big shout out to SunTheAlpacaMan, thanks for watching SunTheAlpacaMan, and I will see you guys a-next time!
