Dress Doctor - ripped wedding veil!!!

Isn't this the prettiest veil!

I recently attended the wedding of really close family friends.  We all became friends because the bride and my older son were in the same kindergarten class. I've known this bride since she was five.

So, I was happy to be able to help them out in their hour of need.

It was maybe 4 hours before the wedding and as I came out of the shower I glanced at my cell phone and saw that the Mother of the Bride (hence forth referred to as MOB) had left me a voice mail. WELL! one does not ignore a voice mail from the MOB 4 hours before a wedding.  It must be important ... and it was!

This beautiful wedding veil was ripped.  I asked if the tear was vertical or horizontal, figuring a vertical tear might be able to support the weight of the beading, but no ... it was horizontal. She said someone there was talking about trying to fix it with double sided tape. I knew that wasn't going to work.

Then, I remembered I had thrown this little mending kit in my suitcase. It had been thrust in my hand by a generous vendor at Costume Con this year in Toronto.

THANK YOU KELLY-FRANCIS

In it was just the perfect shade of slightly off white thread to match the veil.

The MOB had the white wedding dress hidden the white sheets of the hotel bed. OY! white on white on white. I looked around for something black to put under the tear so I could see it more clearly, and this is what it looked like.

In case you are wondering, no, I didn't take photos of the mending process in the panic before the wedding. This is a recreated rip.

But, this photo IS me actually mending the veil. And, no, you are not seeing double. That is the Mother of the Bride, my dear friend, behind. We are often mistaken for sisters, even twins sometimes.

So much so, that several members of the groom's family, who had just met my friend for the first time the day before at the rehearsal dinner, mistook me for her as we were waiting around for the wedding to begin.  


We even dressed like twins for Halloween once, but I digress ...

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So, this is how I made an emergency mend in this lovely veil.

First I slipped the thread through and tied a simple double knot and then pick up a tiny bit of the netting going from one side to the other.

I am making sure to pull the stitches tight enough to hold the edges together but no so tight that it puckers.

Here is it finished. I ended with a simple double knot like I began with.  Against the black, it looks like a really obvious bunch of stitching.

But, when it is put in front of the rest of the veil it starts to blend in. And this photo is still very close up.  As hard as I looked, I could not see the mend in the actual veil at the wedding ceremony.

On the one hand,I'm sorry the veil had to tear, but on the other, it felt good to be needed and to experience the fun and excitement of the bride and all her bridesmaids as they were getting ready for the ceremony.

It was a beautiful wedding and, I think, will be a great marriage!


Congratulations V & T!