THE WEDDING DRESS PROJECT

There are so many precious moments to remember and keepsakes to hold onto from a wedding. The Wedding Dress Project includes memorabilia under one enormous frame and happens to be one of our favourites!

When looking at the end results of this beyond amazing piece it's hard to remember the challenges that our artisanal team faced. The horizontal design of a wedding dress, with such size and grandeur, is not customary in the framing world. We also had to keep the exterior of this frame within a certain size. This then dictated the space that our designers had to layout and display the items within the frame. If you follow us, you know that we do not shy away from challenges. We allow them to drive us forward! So on we went!
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Because the exterior frame dimensions were vital to this piece we decided to build the shadowbox first and determine the layout of the items within it after. In order to achieve the depth that we needed for this display, we layered 4 frames and used our famous Robert's cut to create one massive shadowbox. We then lined the walls of the shadowbox and backing board with a fabric mat for a beautiful tone on tone finish.

When working with sentimental pieces it's often important to the client (and us!) to keep the item intact. As such, the dress was not cut or permanently modified in any way and very little adhesive was used so that the dress could easily be retrieved and worn again if need be. 
Now we had to determine the layout of the wedding dress.
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The dress had to sit perfectly within the frame without looking lumpy or disproportionate, so we created a bust form out of cardboard, foamcore and layers of upholstery foam that followed the contours and curves of the dress. Bethany, our artisanal mastermind behind this piece, stitched this bust form into the dress so that it felt invisible. Then onto origami with this multilayer, contoured wedding dress! Not easy! The lace at the gown's train was gently pinned and adhered to the walls of the shadowbox to create a 3D effect.

Once the dress was secured, we could begin adding the additional objects; red pumps, flask, invitations, hair piece, necklace, and ribbon. The arrangement was key to create a simple and elegant look with this amount of items. Different adhesives were used based on the material that needed to be adhered and each item had to dry for several days to avoid insecure bonds. Little by little, with lots of work, determination and incredible talent our team finalized a project for the books.

This piece is incredible! And best of all it holds memories that are irreplaceable. ​

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