Pearl Bodice Lace Sleeve Mermaid Gown

She brought me a single image at the first fitting: her grandmother's wedding photograph from 1962. The grandmother had been buried with the dress, which she only mentioned an hour into the conversation. Everything we built after that started with the photograph.

The lace at the collar and the sleeves is a French Chantilly, set high and close so the pearls at the bodice are framed, not crowded. The pearls are hand sewn in a scattered pattern, denser at the centre and quieter towards the hip, the way pearls actually fall on a body when there is no machine forcing them into a grid. The bodice closes with a corset back hidden under a panel of satin so the line stays clean in photographs. The skirt is silk satin, cut narrow through the hip and released into a fishtail train so she could walk the aisle slowly and the gown would arrive a second after she did.

The cathedral veil is hand finished with a single line of pearls along the bottom edge, the only place we let the pearl detail leave the bodice. At the reception, her father asked her to dance the way he had danced with her grandmother. She wore the gown to do it.