7 Days

7 more days to go. In fact, 7 days from now, we will be half way through our reception. I guess it's a good thing the dress is almost done, huh? That's right, I said "almost done". There's really not much left to do though, and depending on my sanity level, I should have it completed by tomorrow evening. Just need to figure out the bustle, attach the lining to the top of the bodice, finish sewing down the lace motifs around the shoulders and trim out the underlying lace. Please pardon the lack of pressing and crinoline. The crinoline is attached to the bodice lining, so it's not in there yet. Not to shabby, eh? When not on a mannequin with a big gaping hole in the middle of the chest, the lace lays very nicely, and I'm quite pleased with myself. All the lace motifs that trim the top and bottom edge of the bodice were harvested from my aunt's dress. I couldn't have asked for prettier trim!

Am I that dorky? Why yes, yes I am! I purposely planned the lace motifs across the center front so that they would form this little heart right smack dab in the middle. It's rather adorable I think.

The center back has almost the same effect, but not quite as obvious.

And boy, oh boy, am I glad I put a waist stay in! This is a heavy dress, but thanks to this little guy, it's not going anywhere! There are about 4 feet of train rolled up under that hem. It's a biggun'!

As the crinoline creates a fully lined skirt, I opted not to add an actual skirt lining, thereby adding more weight. I've got to be able to get this thing down the aisle without the aid of a small pony, which my father swears I'll need. Instead, I decided to just put some hem tape on and turn it up over the horsehair braid. It only took the better part of 5 hours to hand hem it to the underlining. That's not including the several hours it took to hand sew the horsehair braid in and even up the hem!

And now, in a moment of sheer brilliance on my part, I appear to have fractured my foot a week before my wedding. Good job, me. A friend and I are part of a choreographed performance at a WWII event at a local museum as part of their community outreach program. On Wednesday night we had our first practice and decided to try to perfect our frog jump, which we'd like to include at some point. For those of you that don't know what a frog jump looks like, check out this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siKuGLwF4yA

It's kind of like that, only assisted by your partner in a closed dance position and my whole body mass is about 6 feet in the air. The very first one we did, I came down a little hard on my foot but just laughed it off. We did so many that the next day my thighs were so sore I didn't even really notice the foot pain. By yesterday I was limping a bit and today my foot is swollen. Oh joy. Hope it heals quickly! Needless to say, Jim and I WON'T be going dancing tonight :(