Halloween was very special this year as we attended a friend’s wedding, held at the Worcester Art Museum.  The request made by the brides was that we come either in black or period costume (from any period we wished), so we of course could not pass up an opportunity to dress up.  After many hours of searching for costume rentals, looking at vintage pieces online, getting ideas from period movies and vintage illustrations, and a whirlwind day visiting 7 thrift stores at once, our costumes began to take shape.  I decided to choose a late 19th century or Victorian look, while my husband went for a Colonial approach (although I think the final result looks very Regency).

For my outfit, I ended up purchasing two dresses on Etsy, one black 100% lace dress and another black dress with a fitted top and layered lace skirt.  I almost simply purchased a slip for underneath, but instead decided to purchase another dress since it would hopefully fill out the skirt to get the fullness I had hoped for.  I have to tell you a funny story about this… thank god in dear heaven I wore that dress underneath because it saved my hide!  The lace dress was fairly tattered to begin with (I figured it would go with the Halloween look and was still very lovely), but after the ceremony and getting it repeatedly caught in my heel, I managed to rip it to the point of no return.  At the reception my feet were stepping through the lace in front and the dress was dragging far behind me.  When I went to the ladies room to see what first aid I could do (with 3 safety pins – ha!), I saw in the mirror that the waist section was ripped apart from the chest area and was literally hanging on by mere threads.  In only a matter of time the bottom half of my lace dress would fall to the floor while the top half would stay on.  I knew enough was enough and simply gave up, thanking my lucky stars to have the second dress underneath.  Can you imagine if I had only wore a slip!  And the second dress was just as pretty and I felt very much like “Madame X” in it.

Back to the costume story – to complete my look I purchased white opera gloves, a gorgeous teal feathered fascinator, and a black bird cage veil.  I bought the veil material itself so I it would be less expensive and so that I could make it detachable, since I only planned on wearing it for the ceremony.  I also was able to wear the same earrings I wore for my own wedding, which was very special since I haven’t been able to wear them in the three years since.  It was a nice feeling to bring something with my own happy wedding day memories to the Halloween ceremony of our friends.

For my husband’s outfit, he started with inspiration from Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow.  We weren’t 100% true to it, but it was a great launching pad and really helped us look carefully for the key pieces of the costume.  This definitely helped during our marathon thrift store day (when we decided the online route wasn’t going to work for him as it had for me).  We ended up purchasing old tuxedo pants, a women’s vest, a women’s jacket, some cotton fabric for a cravat, and some soccer socks (which honestly were to hardest the find as apparently thigh-high white socks are difficult to get in stores).  He luckily got to wear shoes and a white shirt he already owned (funny enough that they’re the same shoes he wears to every wedding we go to!).  I did do a fair amount of work to his outfit: pinning back the fronts of the jacket as well as the collar and then taking in the back, shortening and blind hemming the pants and adding decorative buttons, and taking the collar off the vest as well as covering all the metal buttons with fabric.  However, all the work was well worth the effort and my husband was honestly more excited than I was to finally wear his outfit.  He had been growing a beard and thought of keeping it, but at the last moment we googled images of men in BBC period dramas and realized he had to shave and keep the mutton chops.  He also styled his hair in the same 18th Century manner, and we both agreed this really completed the look for him.

We absolutely loved the planning, research, and most of all wearing of our costumes for this Halloween wedding.  I have a feeling my husband will definitely be wearing this outfit more often, and my feathered clip and my 2nd dress are definitely wearable again.  But what we enjoyed most of all was to be able to attend such a beautiful, loving wedding of friends and we were honored to be asked to attend.

{for more of my hallow’s eve wedding photos and more details about the wedding itself, check out my Flickr}