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Category: personal


Feb
2013

My 1940 / 1950’s Swing Dancing Vintage Wedding-Part 1: The Dress

categories: 1950's, About Me, personal, Vintage Style, Wedding

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would share my April 28th, 2012 vintage inspired wedding in Toronto, Canada with you 🙂

Vintage Wedding at the St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto, Canada. Groom is wearing a kilt, the bride a Vintage Style Wedding dress.
Source: RIZWANDARPHOTOGRAPHY

My Vintage 1940s / 1950s Wedding

The wedding & reception was held at this amazing hall in Toronto called “The St. Lawrence Hall“. The hall was built-in 1850 as a meeting place for public gatherings, concerts and exhibits and in the 1960’s was designated a “national historic site“. So basically we were getting married in a venue with a lot of history and character (you will see pics of the inside over my next couple of blog posts).

St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto Canada.

The Vintage Wedding Theme

The idea behind my wedding was to bring the activity that brought my husband and I together (Swing dancing aka Lindy hop-see us dancing together below) and my love for 1940’s-1950’s vintage into one budget friendly DIY wedding.

Lindy hoppers from Toronto dancing in Barcelona on the street.
Lindy Hopping on the streets of Barcelona Spain

My Vintage Style Wedding Dress

It was very important to me that my wedding dress reflect who I was as a person and that meant it had to be a 1950’s tea-length gown. I was going to go vintage but then I stumbled upon the designer “Fancy of New York (No longer in business as of March 2022)” and the dresses were exactly what I was looking for, so I hopped on a plane and flew to NYC to pick my dress. The experience was wonderful and I could go on and on about how awesome Fancy is, but I don’t have time so I will just say that you need to buy your dress there if you’re in the market because you will not be disappointed 🙂

Dress details: The dress came with a crinoline and sash of which I could pick the colours for. The fabric of the sash is actually “vintage ribbon” from a supplier that I was told was top-secret (bummer lol). The crinoline has a matching red ribbon sewn on the bottom so that when I danced you just saw a hint of red when I spun (which I LOVED). The back was a scoop back (another fav of mine) and the dress had POCKETS!!!! eeekkkk!! yes pockets!!!

FUN HISTORICAL NOTE: The dress is actually an early 1960s reproduction of the designers mothers engagement dress (I think it was that occassion).

Here is the dress…

1950s / Early 1960s Tea Length Wedding dress with pockets from Fancy NY Bridal. Pretty 1950s wedding inspiration.

1950s early 1960s vintage style wedding dress with scoop back as seen on the vintage inn blog.
This was the “reveal” moment that we did before the wedding.
1950s / Early 1960s Tea Length Wedding dress with pockets from Fancy NY Bridal. The Bride is wearing a vintage fur coat belonging to her gradmother. Pretty 1950s wedding inspiration.

They were filming a commercial in the background,hence the camera stuff in the background of pic lol

1950s / Early 1960s Tea Length Wedding dress with pockets and crinoline with red ribbon on the edge from Fancy NY Bridal. Pretty 1950s wedding inspiration.

See Pockets!!! yay! My bridesmaids in their cute red and white polka dot dresses that I had to track down after Mod Cloth sold out of them. I ended up finding them in the UK after an online hunt that took a couple of hours. It was worth it I was happy with how pretty that looked.

1950s vintage wedding style. Bride with her bridesmaid in 1950s style wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses.

Here is a pic of the inside of the St. Lawrence Hall and my dress (and another pic of my handsome Scottish husband).

St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto hosting a vintage 1950s wedding ceremony. The image features the bride and the groom and their wedding party.

For more content on my vintage wedding check out my posts on my “vintage wedding accessories“and an “overview“

Liz

Photo Credit: Rizwan Photography  RIZWANDARPHOTOGRAPHY@GMAIL.COM