Rehearsal Dinner

Apr 23

Written By

The night before our wedding, my husband's parents threw us the most beautiful, intimate rehearsal dinner for our wedding party and immediate families. When I first heard that our rehearsal dinner would be taking place at an adorable Italian restaurant on the water in Westlake Village, I knew I wanted to wear something special.

I asked my mom if I could try on her wedding gown a few months back and although it had some pretty crazy 80's sleeves (I'll add photos to my Instagram of the "before" soon), I fell in love with its lace, its train and how whimsical its vintage the fabric was. I asked my mom if I could revamp her gown for our rehearsal dinner and I was really excited when she gave me the go-ahead.

I stared imagining what I wanted the final dress to look like and decided to get right to it.I worked with the amazing Loyce of LA's Grace Bridal Couture, who makes wedding gowns from scratch but who also specializes in helping brides to revamp heirloom gowns for their own weddings.

I drew out what I was hoping to accomplish (I decided I wanted to modernize my mom's gown by removing the sleeves and it also needed some alterations). I took some fun sewing classes at Mood Fabrics in LA to better understand the sewing process and Loyce ended up sewing away--creating the perfect dress; I absolutely love how the dress turned out.

My mom cried when she saw the finished gown for the first time, as did some other members of our family. It was really sweet! If my mom lets me, I'd love to dye this dress blush and take it up a bit so that I can give it another life--but then again, I think I'm going to keep it as is in case my little sister ever wants to wear it too someday.