My homemade wedding dress

This rumpled specimen is my homemade wedding dress, precisely 21 years on. It has been squashed in at the back of the wardrobe.

I made it myself, inexpensively. Very inexpensively: the entire cost was somewhere around £30. I picked a fabric I liked the feel of which was downproof cambric, a utility textile designed to encase duvets and pillows. It had an oystery-pink glow and made a satisfying crinkle when it moved (as if making the right noise when you move is of importance to a bride).

But it was hell to sew, and the clue should have been in the name. Because if it won’t let feathers through, needles and pins won’t be easy either. It must have been sewn on Josephine, and if she’d been able to speak the air would have turned blue.

I remember that the choice of patterns at the time felt really limited. I was looking for something simple and understated and this was the best I could find. We’re talking pre-internet, of course. I  didn’t particularly want those princessy details: a bodice that shape or pointy sleeves (which I should have lengthened in any case) but I didn’t have the skills or confidence to draft my own pattern. And, of course, I didn’t make a toile.

Nevermind. It did the job. And I am still married to the man in the Liberty Tana Lawn tie.