Maranda Vandergriff spent £19 on her wedding dress after finding it in a charity shop – and transformed it into her dream dress with fabric and a few personal touches
A bride who spent just £19 on her wedding dress has shown off the dress’s stunning transformation after customizing it with recycled fabric and some deeply personal touches.
Maranda Vandergriff got married in late 2020 and took to TikTok to share a video detailing the process her dress went through from the moment she bought it to the day she wore it to the tying the knot with her husband.
The US woman said she found the dress at a Goodwill thrift store for $24 (£19.50) before she was even engaged to her now husband and decided to pick it up anyway.
Then, when the couple got engaged, she began customizing the dress, including cutting off the sleeves and using lace fabrics her mother found in the UK to sew new puffed sleeves – while retaining the cuffs of the original dress .
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In her video, posted to her @marandavandy account, Maranda said, “When my husband and I were dating, I found this $24 dress at Goodwill and fell in love. Even after we got engaged, I knew I wanted to wear this dress to our wedding, but I wanted to do something special to make it unique.
“My best guess is that this dress is from the 70’s and the details are absolutely beautiful. I wanted to change the fabric of the sleeves but keep the cuffs with the details that match the rest of the dress. I’ve combined a few different costume patterns for a custom design.
“My mum found the lace I was going to use for the sleeves in a fabric shop in the UK. I sewed the seam through the edge and pulled it to create a ruched effect.
“I pinned the gathered side to the open sleeve hole where I removed the stitches and attached the sleeves. Then I pinned the original cuff to the other edge of the sleeve and sewed it on as well.”
To add a personal touch to her wedding dress, Maranda even decided to sew little beads onto the sleeves, borrowed from her mother’s wedding dress – which she also handmade herself.
She added: “The fabric has a nice scalloped edge which I used for an open top but it kind of came out. For another personal touch, I decided to add a beaded border using beads from my mom’s wedding dress, which she made all by herself.
“I didn’t want to lose the open effect entirely, but adding those little beads to the bodice gave the sleeves a bit more structure.
“This is what they looked like when I was done. And this is what the dress looked like on my wedding day.”
In the comments, Maranda explained that while she and her husband also tried to economize on his outfit, they ended up buying his jacket on sale and his pants from retail store H&M.
However, the couple managed to snag all of the bridesmaids’ dresses for less than $20 (£16) each.
Maranda said: “We tried to save on his outfit but ended up getting the jacket and pants from H&M on sale! Almost all of the bridesmaids’ dresses cost less than $20.”
And commenters were blown away by Maranda’s talent, with many saying the dress looked “beautiful”.
One person said: “Wow. Incredibly unique and delicate. It is wonderful.”
While another added: “Absolutely gorgeous! So much love went into this dress.”
Source: mirror