A few weeks ago, Jamie left a comment in the post, “The Coveted Daphne Wedding Gown.”  She wrote the following.

I fell in love with this dress as well and was unable to find one so I had one similar made for me. It allowed me to customize, get the perfect fit, and it was CHEAPER (with fabric and all) than the J. Crew dress.

I contacted Jamie, inviting her to guest blog about her personal experience.  I wanted to learn more about her quest for the Daphne dress and how she ended up having it made.  Her story is below.

I was never one of those girls that dreamed of getting married and had planned out my wedding day in my head over and over. In fact, I was sure I would never get married, it just didn’t seem to be my style. Then I met Tynan and all of that changed. We had just begun talking about the possibility of getting married when my J. Crew catalog came in the mail. Flipping through the pages, I landed on the Daphne dress. It was perfect and for the first time in my life, I started to actually think about my wedding.

I headed straight over to the J. Crew website and was disappointed to find that it was sold out. I brushed away my disappointment as silly since I was not even engaged yet. However, in a few months Tynan and I had decided to take the next step and I was engaged. The first part of my planning was to figure out my wedding dress. I looked around a bit but everything seemed to pale in comparison to the Daphne gown. I was happy eloping, going to the courthouse, or having a more traditional event, but whatever we did, I knew I wanted to get hitched in the Daphne.

I asked around for some seamstress recommendations and was lucky enough to have Louise Powers mentioned. I got in touch with her and we set up a meeting; she showed me pictures of some of her previous work and I showed her the pictures of the Daphne gown. She loved the dress and was full of ideas on how to duplicate certain elements as well as how to change a few things here and there to make it more personal. We decided to work together, which signaled the start of the hardest part of the process… finding the right fabric.

I went to no less than 10 or 15 fabric stores all over the state of Colorado. For some visits, I had my mom and Tynan’s mom with me and for some, I went it alone. Louise had advised me to get little swatches of the fabrics that I was considering so that we could talk about how each would lay, move, etc. I had a pending meeting with Louise to go over the samples and was sitting at home trying to decide what I liked best. I realized that after all my hunting and searching, none of these fabrics seemed right. In desperation, I spent the last few hours before our meeting trying one more fabric store, Allyn’s. I walked in and was filled with hope. There were bolts of fabric 10 deep as far as the eye could see. I started to wade through the bridal fabrics and found the perfect thing, a silk Damascus with a subtle and understated pattern. I got a sample, took a pic to send my mom, and headed off to meet Louise. She loved it as well so I took the plunge and bought the 5 yards we would need for the dress.

Louise took about a million measurements when I dropped off the fabric with her. We talked about a few more little details and she got started straight away. From this point out, it was easy sailing. There were a total of three fittings and a lot of work on Louise’s end to get this dress just perfect. Louise was a dream to work with; she was the epitome of professional, as excited as I was, and was incredibly knowledgeable and skilled. Louise made the entire experience wonderful and gave me a dress that was based on a dress that I loved, but more personal and unique.

Your wedding day is all about who you and your partner are. It should be a reflection of your personalities, beliefs, and styles. I am so glad I was able to have a dress made since it reflected who I was so much better than an off the rack dress. Additionally, working with an artist such as Louise means that the entire experience is more memorable and touching. People are often surprised to discover that having a dress made is often much more affordable than an off the rack dress (especially when you add in the cost of alterations). If you are planning your special day, I strongly recommend getting a custom dress made.

Louise Powers does work all over the US.

Her website is: http://louisecoleen.googlepages.com/home

Original Daphne Dress by J.Crew