Gayle Nerva
- Mar 3, 2017
- 3 min read

The dress.

Here's a story about my wedding dress..

In 1985, my parents, Royston Nerva and Linda Heng, decided they were gonna get married! whoo! They also decided they were gonna run away and get married. serious.

So they hopped on a plane and found themselves in Perth, Australia. It was October 1985, My mom was 20, my dad 33! (Gasp! I know! Age gap!)

That was them on their wedding day! Oct 12 1985

Cuties.

My mommy in her wedding dress.

I remember trying it on when I was little, and I'd pretend I was a Disney Princess or something. I'd put on her high heels and walk around, heels obviously way too big, and dragging the dress all over the place.

Anyway! My mom kept her dress! AND! I stole it. hahah!

She was hella tiny at the time. 23 inch waist WTH.

And I managed to squeeze myself into it.

Evidence below.

So yeah. I decided that I was gonna wear my mom's dress for my wedding.

Marc was like.. "Errr.. why don't you just buy a new one?"

My mom was like.. "HUH?! You mean you can fit into my wedding dress?!

So old already! Just buy a new one lah!"

Haha!

Guess they didn't want me to wear the dress for some reason, but I thought it'd be so nice to wear mummy's dress.

I'd chop the big ass 80s ribbon sleeve things.. and maybe add lace and stuff.. I dunno I didn't know what exactly I was gonna do to it at the time when I decided, but I just decided that I was gonna wear it.

Went to Arab Street so many times to look around at all the lace and things.. to get ideas.. shopped around forever. (some of those shop owners can be really.. eh)

Finally found a pattern I really liked.

I brought the dress and the fabric to my usual Tailor - Her name's lily. And I thought she could help me alter it..

BUT NOPE. She said it was way too much work.. she'd have to unpick the entire dress, and then cut again, and resew the dress back together.. she didn't wanna do it. "Why don't you make a new one?! I make for you a new one!" She said. (SIGH, 3 votes already to make a new dress)

SO I WAS LIKE FTS IM DOING IT MYSELF. lol.

Lily was so kind and lent me her sewing mannequin!

To the sewing machine!! Or in my case, to the unpicking thing! (seam-ripper)

First thing I did – lopped off the sleeves!

This is what it looked like with the lace over... getting ideas, getting ideas...

NEXT! okay. how da hell am I gonna attach it to the dress?

I had to unpick the entire middle part.. waist joining the skirt.. (FAINTS)

Anyway.. fast forward..

Streaming 123movies while cutting out the lace patterns..

NOW! ADD TRAIN!

OH! Yeah! I also cut the back so it'd be a bare back dress!

I kept running out of this boarder lace pattern, so I kept having to go back to Arab Street!

Btw the lace, was $35 per metre. I think I bought... 3.5metres? Maybe 4? I lost count.

Coming together...

I used fabric glue to tack on the lace pieces in place first.. fastened with sewing pins.. and the bottom boarder bits were glued and sewn on..

If you're not picky about it looking perfect.. it's ok.. you can't really tell from far.

But up close you'd see that it's not like the best workmanship. 😂

I was working on this thing until the very last day to be honest.. like 2 days before the wedding the dress was still kinda not altogether finished. hahaha! I am the queen of last minute.

I managed to finish it of course.

Before and After