I messed around with the lace some more, and while I haven’t settled definitively on anything yet, I kinda like this one:
The scalloped neckline looks pretty, the pearls enhance it, and the gap between the neckline lace and the body lace provides a nice break for the eyes, draws attention to the neckline, and shows off the handwoven fabric. I’m going to baste it down and take another photo of me in it later today (when exactly depends on Mike’s tolerance for repeated photo requests).
I had been experimenting with the idea of using the galloons (scallops) of the lace near the neckline, below the straight line of pearls:
But I decided that was silly; having a straight edge and then scallops produced a clashing line. So I moved the galloons to sit at the neckline, and embellished the edge with pearls, and that seems to have done the trick. I’m still not sure about the sleeves yet – I need to play around more with the pearl placement, but I think the small, discontinuous bits of lace are the way to go, and a pearl embellishment along the top to keep the pearl decorations continuous. I tried having more scallops on the sleeves but it was just too heavy.
This is fun!! It’s like the moment when, after spending five or six hours baking in a hot kitchen, the cake is cooled, assembled, and you FINALLY get to play with the icing!!
I say leave the mistakes. Clearly they’re not overly unsightly or else you’d have caught them in the finishing process so I’m confident no one else is going to find them. If I may wax poetic…. this is a wedding dress that starts your life in marriage. Marriages are hard work (as has been your dress) and mistakes happen. Successful marriages take those the mistakes, acknowledge them, learn from them, and move on. I think it’s appropriate that the dress has some flaws that only you know exist.