Helping a bride find her gown is truly a special feeling. I always feel like I contributed in helping make her special day perfect. When a bride finds her gown with me, I build a relationship over several months and see the bride go through the wedding process from A to Z. Helping a bride actually create her dress, bridal party and overall look is a whole nother experience. I had the honor and pleasure of working with a custom bride and her bridal party last year. Katy Bakker McKee, our KND bride who is featured in the December/January issue of Martha Stewart Weddings, actually had her dress, bridal party and Mother of the Bride dress designed and created by talented designer and close friend Carol Hannah Whitfield. What did it take for these amazing dresses to come to life? Countless hours of consultation meetings, design meetings, hand sewing, fittings, etc. the works! I was lucky enough to fashion consult on this wedding and am going to give you the play by play of the amazing year ( yes year) of transformation into making these one of a kind dresses.
Kristin and I have had a great friendship and working relationship for quite some time now so when I saw her at Charleston Fashion Week in March 2010 I couldn’t wait to hear all about her new brides she had booked and had in the works. She had mentioned one of her brides, Katy, wanted to find a designer to custom make her gown that specialized in draping, textures and had a youthful playful design AND possibly was someone local. Katy, with a strong art background, is also quite the fashionista so the dress was very important to her. She loved the look of couture and appreciated the details. I knew immediately who that designer was. I had not even met Carol Hannah before, none of us have but I had seen her stuff in the Emerging Designer Competition the 2 years before at Charleston Fashion Week. I knew this could be a perfect match. I went to the Bridal Couture event 2 days late at CFW and saw CH debut her first collection on the runway. I was texting pics to Kristin like a crazy person the entire time. We ( Kristin and I) felt that we a found a winner! We were so excited but then came the question of how do we make this happen? How do we even approach CH and see if she would be on board ? Later that night, Kristin tracked CH down at the CFW Finale party, introduced herself and mentioned the possible collaboration. CH was on board….mission accomplished.
Kristin then presented Katy with the idea of using CH and a meeting was set in late August 2010 in New York at CH’s studio. Now the real work could begin! Katy, Kristin, her mom Linda and a bridesmaid made the trip to New York to meet with CH and get this dress designing process in the works. Prior to that meeting, CH had a couple consultations about the direction Katy wanted her gown to look like. Katy took inspiration from gowns by couture designers such as Vera Wang and Vivienne Westwood. She definitely wanted a ballgown and for it to have lots of texture. Katy and Jeff were getting married on April 16th, 2011 at their family plantation so CH knew the fabric would have to be light and airy in order to pick up the cool breeze off of the river where the ceremony took place. Katy also emphasized that she wanted to have an off v- neck neckline for her dress, so CH decided to play off of that idea and softened the neckline with a tuliped neckline with hand draped points.
During the New York trip CH fit Katy for a muslin fitting. A muslin fitting is a basic design of the pattern of the gown which helps determine neckline, shape, measurements, fit, the works. Muslins are typically standard when designing a custom gown to properly ensure that the bride and designer are happy with the direction and fit of the gown before all of the fabric is cut. After and adjustments are made and marked, CH then goes back and begins working on the base of the dress in the silk organza she ordered and cut to make the gown. It is a great way to make sure things are moving smoothly along. Kristin, better known as the paparazzi, was snapping pictures that day and has plenty to show you of the initial fititng!
The next meeting was in Charleston, SC in November 2010. This was more of a creative meeting for the bridal party. Katy, her bridesmaids, her mother, Linda, Kristin and the KND team and CH all met at Maddison Row in Charleston, SC. For local fittings for the bridal party and Katy, Kristin thought that Maddison Row would be the perfect spot because it gave the boutique experience ( and I mean I’m sure it helped I was around too). For the bridesmaids dresses, Katy pulled out Audubon books that she had used for her save the dates and invitations. Working with a light color palette of pastels, CH began custom designing each of the six of the bridesmaids gowns. Each dress was going to be long, but had a range of different necklines and alternated between silk chiffon and a hammered silk satin fabrics. Each of the girls had their own unique style and Katy was so encouraging to each girl in picking out their “style,” when it was all said and done each bridesmaid felt awesome and look fabulous, they really loved their dresses.
After we had the bridal party rocking and rolling with color, design, etc. Carol Hannah began working on the Linda’s gown design. Linda has a great sense of style so when it came to designing her gown Linda knew exactly what she wanted; a wide boatneck gown that was above the knee, had a bit of a sleeve with a clean sleek design yet had an edge to it. Sounds so easy right? CH delivered just that. Linda’s dress was clean yet had a side of sassy to it and was made in a natural silk fabric in a fantastic shade of purple. Why the color? CH knew that Linda’s dress had to correspond with the bridesmaids without matching and needed to make a statement. The dress did just that. When we all saw the swatch for the 1st time we loved it!
Before we knew it, it was 2011 and fittings were in full swing! CH was back in Charleston in Maddison Row for a fitting of Katy’s dress and Linda’s muslin. CH had started hand draping the top and began placing the fabric for the skirt. This dress was so detailed that CH had to put each fabric strip on the gown and tack it by hand. Also, because of it’s delicate fabric she was the only person allowed to touch the dress. It was so delicate we ( Maddison Row) had to carefully tissue wrap and ship the dress back to CH’s New York studio after each fitting…..this is not a dress you would want to travel with as a carry on. After the initial fittings for Katy and Linda, we also began having bridesmaids’ first fittings in March 2011. We blocked off the whole morning and each girl came in, seeing her dress for the first time and CH made the adjustments and then we tried on their custom fascinators! Katy, being the stylish bride that she is, had milliner and former art teacher, Meryriel, create and design fascinators for each bridesmaid and for Katy for the reception. It was like the Royal Wedding in Maddison Row, we LOVED it! Katy had also wanted a very couture looking veil, so we worked on gathering up a handful of tulle and began pinning and designing the veil in the shop, it was awesome and I love how the veil turned out!
Katy's tulip neckline tacked with the organza pleats as well as the beginning phases of the draped skirt
Before we all knew it, April 2011 was here! CH flew in the week before to put the finishing touches on Katy’s gown. I had her all set up in her hotel room with a sewing machine and fitting schedule. Once everything was finished and all the hems were sewn, panels tacked etc. it was time to get the dresses to Paul & Dalton Plantation. We had to set up a whole transportation/steam out schedule for the bridal party. I had enlisted, bridal pressing extraordinaire Cacky Williams, to drive down the the plantation to hand steam every gown and Katy’s dress. We had 2 separate consultations with Cacky, myself and CH to make sure that everything would be perfect and we were all squared away with no surprises. We also had designated bags that had each bridesmaid shoes and fascinator. I had a checklist going to make sure everything was accounted for and taken care of. I did not get to go down to the wedding BUT did receive numerous texts from CH, Cacky and Reagan the whole time and was DYING! It was gorgeous! Here are some pictures from the big day, all taken from the behind the scenes crew! Enjoy!
This wedding was so much fun to work on! It was an exciting adventure for everyone involved to see how you take designing a custom gown from A to Z. I hope you all enjoyed how much fun we all had working with Katy and her family and bridesmaids. I was so fortunate to be asked to be involved along for the ride and it is an experience I will never forget! I hope you all enjoyed seeing how much work, planning and detail went into making these fabulous dresses.
~Lindsey
