Look What The Courier Delivered To Me Yesterday....

These were sent by my husband because it was our 20th Wedding Anniversary yesterday.  He informed me that 20 is china, so since that is pretty boring, unless your talking about a trip to China, he sent me flowers.  Now some of my readers may get flowers regularly, but in the past I have needed to produce a newborn to get them so this was a really nice surprise!

I thought that I would show you all today what I was wearing 20 years ago yesterday.  I put it on mini me because although I still fit it, it is impossible to get all of the buttons done up and really I just didn't want to go there.

My dress is a little wrinkled from storage and is without the  voluminous petticoat that I used on the day, but you get the idea.  This dress took me and my lovely departed grandmother months to complete.  My grandmother painstakingly hand sewed all of the pearls and sequins on every lace panel on the dress, and there are many.  The dress was taken from a bridal magazine so we bought a pattern and redrafted the mutton chop sleeves and virtually the entire bodice to match the magazine dress.  The lower sleeves are made of lace with a tiny spot and lined with tulle for strength, as is the bodice and dress cutouts  as well.  The floral lace was bought by the metre and cut to suit.  The scallop hem was the original selvedge of the lace.  I find it hard to believe now that I took on such a complicated and daring project but my grandmother used to do this for a living so she guided my all of the way.  I will never part with this dress mainly because my grandmother passed away 12 years ago but I would also love it if one day my own daughter chose to wear my dress....but that is entirely up to her!