How To Make A Wedding Veil

When you think of a bride, you’ll usually picture her wearing a veil of some sort to her wedding ceremony, but how do you choose the right one?

Many brides take the option of making their own wedding veil, which is what I did for my son’s bride to be.

In total, I have 4 boys which means I won’t be making any wedding dresses! However, I am very lucky that the women in their lives have trusted me to be involved in making special items for them.  For my eldest son, I made his wife’s wedding dress and for the most recent wedding, alongside the veil I made the flower girl dresses.

Choose your wedding gown first

Before you start making your own wedding veil it is important to have chosen your wedding gown, as the veil is there to enhance your dress not detract from it. I recommend you give your self plenty of time to get it right as the last thing you will want to be doing is stressing a month before that it is not perfect.

After you have the perfect dress, then start thinking of ideas that could work well with that dress. Mel had the idea of a very long veil, one that could sit just on top of the train of her dress. She also wanted to incorporate some colour in her veil which could then link into the bridesmaids and the flower girls. I was super excited as it meant a trip to London Goldhawk Street to find materials, which I have never visited…I can hear a few ladies saying how had I never been there and my answer is I simply don’t know.

Shopping for veil materials

For those that don’t know, Goldhawk Street is a place absolutely filled with fabric shops from one end to the other; a sewing dream. I would highly recommend visiting here if you can and you are thinking of making your own wedding veil, you are bound to find something here. Some shops were beautifully shelved and sorted, others had just bolts of fabric standing upright which was just as I had seen on my trip to Malaysia years ago. Well I just didn’t know how to start.

Luckily, as I had gone with the aim of finding lace for Mel’s veil, I decided until I had complete that, I wasn’t going to look at anything else (very difficult indeed!). In and out of shops I went followed by a friend who came with me and was my personal photographer. I started looking for the aubergine coloured lace I needed to edge the veil, at around 5” wide but I found nothing. I then decided what I could do is buy it by the metre and cut it up to the size I needed, sometimes you need to think outside of the box to achieve the desired outcome.

The lace ranged in price from £3 to £130 a metre! £3 was cheap but not good for what I wanted and the £130 was exquisite but as you can imagine, outside the budget. After finally finding what I thought would work, it was now late in the day and I was getting tired possibility, my photographer, too.

I never got to look at any other fabric for my bags so I will be going back soon. I also have another wedding coming up (number 3!) which means hopefully another veil and a new dress for me.

Making the veil

A few days later at home I started cutting up the lace into the strips I needed following the current pattern in it. Cutting all the little joining connectors was a painstaking and couldn’t be done fast. This is why you give yourself the extra time in case you have to make changes in your plan.

After all of the lace had been cut out I then had to attach it to the veil. One line of stitching was straight forward as I could use my machine, however the other side was intricate and needed hand sewing with invisible thread. I rarely hand sew and I haven’t really used invisible thread as it has a mind of its own, also you can’t see it!!!

After the best part of 3 days I finally finished it. I was so pleased with it and really enjoyed making it.  On Jack & Mel’s day she looked stunning. If you click the pictures below this will enlarge the picture.

Here are the matching flower girl dresses which I made:

If you would like me to help make your dream veil for your special day please get in contact.