Blinging up my Hair

I have said from the start that I was going to wear a flower in my hair since I wasn't going to have a veil.  Well, it then came to be three days before my final fitting, where my seamstress said that I should bring all my accessories with me, including the hair flower, belt, and jewelry.

Cue the "Oh, Crap" face - because neither the hair flower nor the belt were made.

I started rummaging through my fabric stash, looking for white fabric that I could use to make the flowers, and found some cotton, but those pieces ended up being too floppy.  So, since I didn't want to make a trip out to the store, I remembered that I had bought some tie interfacing a while back when I was contemplating making the guy's ties for the wedding.  I grabbed some of that, and although it was a little fuzzy, the thickness and rigidity of it was perfect.

I made a template out of paper of how I wanted the petals to look, and then cut out the shapes on the tie interfacing and on the organza scraps that came off of my dress.

Flower template / Personal Picture

I started layering the different pieces of fabric and rotating each layer slightly to give the flower a little more dimension.

Layering the tie interfacing and the organza / Personal Picture

Then, my mom had a great idea.  My dress came with a belt, but we weren't going to use it because it was gigantic and obnoxious, so we decided to take the jewels off and use some of those in the flowers.

So, I sewed all the layers together in the middle, and then towards the end, I added a single rhinestone.

Finished flower! / Personal Picture

I ended up making two hair flowers, one for each side of my chignon, and then my mom helped out by making the one for the belt, which actually has three rhinestones in the center so give it a little more bling.

By the final fitting, we had both all of the flowers completed, we just didn't have the one for the belt attached to any fabric.

At the fitting, we did determine that the hair flowers were too large, and it was going to be too busy if we used two in my hair, so we're only going to use one, and we're going to cut down the size of the petals. Which, I am fine with.  It looks much better when it isn't so big.

Oversized hair flowers / Personal Picture

In terms of the flower for the belt, neither my mom nor my sister really like it, but the problem is that I've only pictured this dress in my mind with a belt and a flower, so I'm really stuck on it.  I think it looks beautiful too, and that it draws attention to how small my waist is, but they see it as it makes my waist look thicker.

I'm a little torn, but I think I'm just going to go with the way that I like it.  What would you do? Would you do what you want, or take the suggestion from your family? Do they really know best?