When Hope and her fiancee Micah decided it was time to tie the knot, Hope started looking for that perfect dress to add the crowning touch to her special day. Unfortunately, she couldn't find it. Fortunately, she found me!  Here is a gown showing that a very elegant bridal gown not necessarily means you have to carry around 20 pounds of beads, lace and a full fledged crinoline/petticoat all day. The beauty of the gown is in it's simplicity. The design is Hope's very own idea, I just made the dress a reality. Post-production note: When Hope finally saw the dress, she decided it needed a bit more trim. She settled on pearls. I placed white cultured pearls on the sleeves cuffs, neckline, waist and hem of the linen skirt and spent the better part of a day knotting pearls on to the small flowers that are scrolled in the lace of the skirt itself. Unfortunatly my updated pics didn't come out as great as I thought, so I left some of the old pics up so you could see how pretty the lace looks like.

The dress is made from pure linen in a soft ivory shade and the bodice is lined in white broad cloth. Hope found an english embroidered net on the internet she could afford to buy and fell in love with. This kind of material is usually around $90 a yard and the one she found was considerably less. I used about 4 yards of it here. The netting is embroidered by machine with a rayon thread and has, much like eyelet, a decorative border on one side, so I had to "railroad" the material, meaning cutting it the other way around, not going with the yardage. The only other adornement is a hand embroidered celtic trinity knot done in satin stitch with a rayon floss.

Hope stands very tall at a shoulderheight of almost 60 inches and total body height of a good 5'11", so the Regency style feature of a high raised waist makes the entire dress appear even more gracefull. At the right is a better look at the beautiful english emboidered net we used on her dress.

Hope's wedding dress...

This picture, though a bit too dark, shows well where I added the pearl trim. The lace skirt in front is now split all the way up also.

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Hope with her 3 bridesmaids, whose dresses I made also.

Hope and her flowergirls, as well as the ring bearer. I made all those dresses and his little outfit, too.

I wish Hope and Micah all the best for their future , blessed be everything they do together...