When it comes to wedding dresses, every bride has a different vision of the perfect dress. Some brides love big ball gowns made out of silk, while others prefer more sleek lace dresses.
While some brides go to bridal shops to find their wedding dresses there are others that choose to make them themselves. There are even some rather talented brides who’ve actually crocheted their own wedding dresses, and they are truly something incredible to behold.
One bride, Joan Aoko, made her very own crocheted gown for her 2019 nuptials. Explaining her decision to crochet her dress, Aoko said to Kenya’s Daily Nation, “I was promoting my brand and wanted to show the world that matrimonial dresses don’t have to be the traditional type.”
It took her an entire two months to make her gown since she was going for a “luxurious” look to her dress. Based on the photos on Instagram, there is no doubt that she accomplished that.
Besides making her own dress, Aoko went on to later make other crocheted wedding gowns for other brides. As a result, her own brand, Byaoko, has risen in popularity on Instagram and gained itself more than 17K followers on the social media platform.
There is no denying that Aoko is quite skilled at what she does. She began crocheting back when she was nine years old. According to the outlet, she stated, “My first item was a set porch. My mother made amazing vitambaas and this really inspired me to try and learn the craft.”
But Aoko isn’t the only bride who has handcrafted her own crochet wedding dress. Back in 2015, Kansas native Abbey Ramirez-Bodley also chose to create her own dress using the crochet art form.
For Ramirez-Bodley, her choice to crochet was quite a meaningful choice as it gave her a chance to spend time with her aunt – the one who had first taught her how to crochet when she was a child.
She later shared her finished dress on Twitter where it also gained a lot of attention. As Ramirez-Bodley explained to the Huffington Post, “When I look at it, I’ll remember the wonderful wedding I had and also the eight months I got to spend with my aunt making it.”
While these dresses are undoubtedly beautiful in their own right, they also come with another perk, which is that they’re cost-effective. While most brides will spend an average of $1,600 on a dress, Ramirez-Bodley spent only $70 on the materials to crochet the dress, plus an extra $100 for the green dress that went underneath. But perhaps the most impressive part of Ramirez-Bodley’s dress is that she and her aunt were able to complete the entire dress without using a single pattern!