Handmade Bridesmaids Presents

When we got married I wanted to give my bridesmaids something special, something they could keep, something personal to say thank you. Together with my mum’s help we made each of them their own dressing gown/robe that I gave them the evening before the wedding. It was a great surprise and they absolutely loved them!  

First we bought a simple dressing gown pattern online (from here). Then when we knew how much fabric we needed for each dressing gown, we bought the fabric. I decided to make each one different, as a way of showing each bridesmaid’s different personality, so I spent a long time choosing the different fabrics. I bought the fabric from a variety of places: Shepherds Bush Market and the fabric shops on Goldhawk Road, Etsy, ebay and Liberty.

We followed the pattern to make each dressing gown, pinning the paper to the fabric, then cutting out the pieces and sewing them together carefully. The first one took quite a while but once we had followed the pattern through a few times, it didn’t take long.

Image credits: Mark Tattersall

I made a special giftbox for each of them, covering a plain brown box with special Japanese decorative paper, and put the dressing gowns inside them, a different cover for each bridesmaid.

I know not everyone will have the time or the confidence with a sewing machine to make these, so if you’re looking for somewhere to buy something similar, there are some really lovely ones sold by Good Morning Beautiful here.

To see other posts on our wedding, including how we designed and made our bridesmaids dresses, my Edwardian Wedding Dress, growing our wedding flowers and our invitations take a look here.