Vicky & Jack
Who says your wedding dress has to be White?
At Eva Joyce Bridal, we have always believed that your wedding dress should be a reflection of you. Your personality, your style, your story. And sometimes, that means throwing the bridal rulebook completely out of the window! When our real bride Victoria came to us with a vision for her wedding dress, we knew we were about to create something rather special. Think dramatic black fabric, shimmering silver glitter, oversized ivory florals and just the right amount of gothic romance. The result? A truly one-of-a-kind gown that was every bit as extraordinary as the bride wearing it.
But what makes Victoria’s dress even more special is the journey from the original design to the finished creation.
And trust us, the transformation is quite something!
It all starts with a little imagination
One of the things I absolutely love about designing our own gowns at Eva Joyce Bridal is that we aren’t restricted to what you see hanging on the rails. Every gown in our boutique has been designed in-house, which means we have the freedom to take an existing design and completely re-imagine it. Victoria’s dress is the perfect example of this.
The original gown featured a romantic ivory colour palette, a beautifully structured strapless bodice and those incredible oversized floral details. A stunning dress in its own right, but Victoria had something entirely different in mind. She wanted drama. She wanted something alternative. Something romantic but with a darker edge. And so we set about transforming this delicate ivory gown into a breathtaking black bridal creation.
One of the biggest considerations when designing Victoria’s gown was making sure that, despite the dramatic change in colour, it still felt unmistakably like a wedding dress. We didn’t want to simply recreate the original gown in solid black. As beautiful as an all-black dress can be, we felt there was a risk that it could end up looking more like a glamorous evening gown or prom dress rather than something truly bridal. And that wasn’t the vision.
We wanted to embrace Victoria’s alternative style while retaining some of those traditional bridal elements that make a wedding gown feel so special. The romantic silhouette, the delicate floral detailing, the softness of the fabrics and, of course, a little bit of sparkle. It was all about finding the balance between the unconventional and the traditional.
We weren’t trying to make a black ball gown. We were creating a wedding dress that just happened to be black.
And achieving that balance came down to some very careful fabric choices.
"Better than I could have ever imagined"
The magic was in the layers
Creating Victoria’s gown was about so much more than choosing a black fabric.
We wanted the dress to have depth, dimension and movement, rather than appearing as one solid block of colour. The secret was in the layering. By combining different fabrics, including carefully selected glitter layers, we were able to create a much richer finish. Rather than the black looking flat or heavy, the layers gave the gown a beautiful sense of depth, allowing the light to interact with the fabric as Victoria moved.
This was particularly important with such a dramatic skirt. We wanted to retain that softness and romance associated with traditional bridal gowns, while still achieving the darker, more alternative aesthetic. The result was a dress that felt wonderfully dramatic but still had that unmistakable bridal magic.
Now, let’s talk about the sparkle.
Because this was one of those tiny design decisions that actually made an ENORMOUS difference to the finished dress. Glitter fabrics are often made with an iridescent finish, reflecting different colours as they catch the light. They’re absolutely beautiful in the right design, but for Victoria’s gown, that wasn’t quite what we wanted. We needed something much more deliberate.
Silver. Proper silver.
Not rainbow reflections, not flashes of pink or blue, just beautiful, cool-toned silver sparkle against the darkness of the black fabric. Choosing the right glitter was essential to achieving the overall look. We wanted the dress to shimmer as Victoria moved, creating little flashes of light without overpowering the rest of the design.
The silver glitter gave the black fabric an incredible depth and richness, particularly when it caught the light. The incredible team at Dot & Scolly really managed to capture that shimmer in every image which we are obsessed with.
It was dramatic without being overwhelming, and the perfect complement to those statement ivory flowers. Sometimes the smallest details really do make the biggest difference.
