When a Sydney-based fashion designer who spent six months crafting a unique wedding dress revealed her stunning creation to her bridesmaids on the big day, they were overcome with surprise and emotion.
“The shock on their faces blew me away, I actually got teary-eyed,” 27-year-old Jasmine Fernandez told The Epoch Times. “It was incredible.”
The dramatic dress quickly went viral after the bride shared the video on social media following her wedding to 32-year-old Kyle Fernandez in October 2023.
The design and construction of the elaborate champagne-colored, vintage-feel dress, complete with layered cupcake tulle skirt and French lace beaded corset, required hours of work each day. But that wasn’t all; the talented designer also made a second dress, for the evening.
Mrs. Fernandez, who has loved fashion since she was a child, dropped out of high school to study fashion design.
“My mom actually pulled me out of high school because she realized there was no point in me being there. She could tell how much I wanted to study fashion,” she said.
For Mrs. Fernandez, who is Lebanese, weddings are considered “monumental.”
“I grew up seeing all these beautiful brides in these extravagant dresses,” she said. “To me ... the most exciting part about a wedding was seeing the bride unveil her dress for the first time. I thought that was just incredible.”
So, since childhood, she’s had her mind set on making her own wedding dress.
After her engagement, Mrs. Fernandez thought she would give it a try. She knew it could be a stressful process and wasn’t 100 percent committed to the project. However, when she had an unpleasant experience in a bridal boutique, her mind was made up.
“The first one we visited was amazing,” she said, “but at the second, the lady dressing me was incredibly rude and judgmental towards me and my bridesmaids for no reason because I felt we were being very respectful.”
Her hopes were crushed, and she left the boutique in tears, feeling terrible but determined to make her own dress.
With just a few months left until the wedding, Mrs. Fernandez created a mood board with various sketches. She then narrowed it down to two designs. After much deliberation, she chose her favorite and bought a toiling fabric, a cheap version of the fabric she intended to use, and constructed a mock-up. Working completely from scratch, she constructed multiple bodices to get the pattern just right, and finally, after a few attempts, she was ready to create the final dress.
The finished gown is a vintage-inspired, avant-garde concoction with elements of ivory, champagne and blush, and a long, 5-meter train. Wanting to push boundaries and bring an element of surprise, the designer added a love heart cut-out of the back, exquisite beaded detail over French lace, and three-dimensional flowers.
“I had like beaded straps, which tied into a beaded belt,” she said, adding that the front part of the dress was oval-shaped.
Mrs. Fernandez reached out to an Indian supplier for the beading and flowers on the dress, and sent the French lace to India.
“They beaded on top of the lace, but that was only for the sleeves,” Mrs. Fernandez said. “For the bodice, I had to completely cut that out and sew that on myself ... which took a lot of time.
“My mom helped me with the bodice, which was amazing because she’s not a fashion designer and never studied it. She just kind of picked up what I told her; she was the best through the whole process.”
When Mrs. Fernandez made her dramatic entrance at the church in Redfern, Sydney, no one except her mom and sister—the maid of honor—had seen her dress.
“I think when everyone saw it, they knew straight away I’d made it,” she said.
When she walked down the aisle, her husband-to-be was “bawling his eyes out.”
“He’s such a tough man ... I never thought he would cry on our wedding day,” she said. “Never in the five years of us dating have I seen him cry once.”
The ceremony was beautiful and memorable, and Mrs. Fernandez was on cloud nine.
“I was so proud of myself,” she said, “because for six months you almost doubt yourself and then when it’s all come together, you’re like, ‘I actually pulled this off!’
After the wedding at the church, Mrs. Fernandez snuck off to change into the second outfit she'd created—a sparkly, fully-beaded “mermaid-style” halterneck dress in Champagne and rose—for a Great Gatsby-feel reception.
A few months after the wedding, she decided to post the reaction of her bridesmaids to her special dress reveal and was surprised to wake up to find 70,000 people had viewed the video.
“I was shocked,” she said. “The likes and comments just kept going up and up, and now that clip is at 7.1 million views.”
She received many positive comments with one that really stood out to her: someone had described her dress as “high fashion couture.”
