Christian and I met in a bar in Liverpool and ended up matching on Tinder a few days later. We’d been together for seven and a half years when we went on holiday to New York together. I'd only been sewing for two and a half years at this point, but I’d always loved Project Runway and visiting Mood, the fabric shop featured on the reality series, was on my list of tourist sights to visit. I was so surprised when Christian then proposed to me there.
He’d designed a custom fabric with all my favourite colours and had “Suzy Sankey, will you marry me?” printed onto it. When the shop assistant rolled out the fabric on the cutting table to reveal the message, I turned around and he was down on one knee.
Christian also designed my engagement ring with Liverpool’s Wongs Jewellers. He didn’t know what he wanted, but he went in with a brief for “something weird” – which I think he nailed. My ring is really unique with a squiggly line of diamonds in a yellow gold bezel setting.
We immediately started planning our wedding for two years' time, and I knew I wanted to make my own wedding dress. I was 26 when I first started sewing. I was sick of seeing the same boring clothes online, and after watching Netflix’s Next In Fashion, I was so inspired by series one winner, Minju Kim, that I decided to give making my own clothes a go. I threw myself into it and became completely obsessed!
Applying for The Great British Sewing Bee was part of this obsession. I’d been sewing for two and a half years at that point and I was desperate to get really good as quickly as I could. I didn’t have funding for a degree or course, but going on national TV seemed like a way to get what was essentially free training, along with feedback from top experts. It's the best thing I've ever done. My sewing came on even more than I expected, and I achieved so much more than I’d hoped for.
I had no doubt I could make my own wedding dress, but I actually ended up with a practice gown. Christian had planned to take me to Las Vegas to celebrate my 30th birthday, and we decided to get legally married while we were there before our big UK wedding with all our friends and family. I had less than a week to make a wedding dress. It was a relatively simple pattern for a trapeze, racerback dress made out of 100% pure silk deadstock fabric. I was still sewing the voluminous tulle hem three hours before we left for the airport, so it wasn’t quite finished (it only had 24 metres of tulle rather than the 36 I wanted), but I loved it. I wore a matching hat I’d also made, and second-hand Stella McCartney silver shoes.
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Despite having two years to prepare for our UK wedding, I was still sewing up until the last minute. I decided to start with my mum’s dress and then my eight bridesmaids' dresses, plus two flower girl outfits. I also made 11 pairs of pyjamas for the bridal party to wear while getting ready on the morning of the wedding.
The bridesmaid dresses were really simple. I gave the girls three options, but six out of the eight of them all chose the same design – a halterneck mini dress with a ruffled hem. Sustainability is really important to me, I often make my clothes out of bed sheets and curtains I find in charity shops, and I managed to find deadstock fabric in one of my favourite prints: black and white polka dots. Some of the girls have already re-worn their dresses!
I had originally planned on wearing fuchsia pink as a plain white dress didn’t feel very me, but I ended up finding my wedding dress fabric in a charity shop, too. It was a coated cotton fabric, like heavy taffeta, decorated entirely with pink bows and small pink polka dots. I managed to find nine metres of the vintage fabric for just £13.50!
I knew I wanted a drop waist and strapless boned corset, but I went through tons of different bodice designs trying to get the shape right. Rather than using sewing patterns, I usually prefer to design them myself as another way to push my craft. However, because I was on a time scale and corsets aren’t easy, I reached out to Ralph Pink Patterns. He offered to FaceTime and spent an hour and a half talking me through how to draft a corset pattern myself.
Feeling confident, I went ahead and made the entire dress, rather than making a toile [a preliminary version of a garment made from inexpensive fabric used to test the fit and design of a pattern before cutting into the final fabric]. I was on a timescale and I thought it would come out fine, but it was horrific; I just did not like the skirt. I had to make a new pattern, re-fitting the existing pieces together like a jigsaw, but I ended up cutting out two left sides rather than a right and left side – the exact same mistake I made on The Great British Sewing Bee. That was the only time I broke down and cried during the stressful eight-week sewing process.
Luckily, I was able to fix it, and I felt the most beautiful I've ever felt in my life on my wedding day. I think I’d have felt amazing no matter how it came out, knowing how much effort I put into it. I was so proud of myself, and I felt super high fashion, which is what I wanted. Now the wedding is over, I'm planning to rework my dress and change the skirt so I can wear it for everyday. If you make something you love, why would you wear it only once?
My veil came from remnants, the end of a roll of fabric. I was with Pascha [Al-Qassab, The Great British Sewing Bee finalist] when I found the stripy fabric. After searching online but coming across nothing I even remotely liked, this was perfect. I’ve had more comments on my veil than anything else. People seem to love it or hate it, but that's what I want my designs to do – start a conversation, good or bad.
My wedding shoes were second-hand Stella McCartney Elyse platform shoes – I collect them, I’ve got about 13 pairs now – in a metallic pink colourway. I also got a vintage Jimmy Choo bag, my first designer handbag, in a matching colour. I had initially bought seven different pairs of earrings, but in the stress of the morning, I forgot to try any of them on. The only wedding jewellery I ended up wearing was my mum’s gold chain bracelet. My dad bought it for her when they got engaged. She gave it to me that morning as my ‘something borrowed’ and I’ve not taken it off since.
I’ve only seen my dad cry twice in my life, but when he turned around and saw me in my wedding dress, he broke down and hugged me, which was really special. The whole day was amazing. Because we were already legally married in Vegas, we asked our friend to do our wedding ceremony. He made it so fun with lots of games. My best friend made the cake, my mum made all the flowers out of tissue paper, from the bouquets and boutonnières to the table flowers, as well as making bunting and pom poms to hang off the 100 chairs.
I ended up finishing sewing a day early, so as well as my wedding dress, veil and garter, I made a second evening dress for myself along with 97 napkins. Believe it or not, I enjoyed every second of sewing. It was not easy and I was tired throughout as I was working [my day job] too, but going home in the evening and sitting at my sewing machine is my way of relaxing.
My advice for brides wanting to make their own dress or have a custom wedding dress would be to think about how you want to feel wearing your dress. Do you want to feel like you’re on a red carpet, super sexy or like a princess? Think about the clothes you love wearing most, and how they make you feel and why. And most importantly? Your wedding dress doesn’t have to be completely different or unique from anything you've ever worn, just because it’s your wedding dress.
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Alexandria Dale is the Digital Fashion Writer at Cosmopolitan UK. Covering everything from the celebrity style moments worth knowing about to the latest fashion news, there’s nothing she loves more than finding a high street dupe of a must-have designer item. As well as discovering new brands, she’s passionate about sustainable fashion and establishing the trends that are actually worth investing in. Having worked in fashion journalism for six years, she has experience at both digital and print publications including Glamour and Ok!
