I have sat through forty years of weddings in uncomfortable dresses. This is the one that ended it
I have sat through forty years of weddings in uncomfortable dresses. This is the one that ended it
Six things the Ivy gets right that occasion dresses get wrong, from a guest who danced in it.
Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read
I am Maggie, I am 67, and I want to say at the start that I do not work for anybody and I have never made a dress in my life. What I have done is attend weddings, for forty years, in dresses that were bought for one day, hurt for most of it, and never came out of the wardrobe again.
The one I am writing about is called the Ivy, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I first saw it on a fellow guest at my niece’s wedding, who told me it was doing its third wedding of the summer, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty years of weddings taught me. An occasion dress asks you to choose. Look right at eleven in the morning and be counting the minutes by four, or be comfortable and feel like the one who did not quite dress up. I have pinched, tugged, held my breath through speeches and kicked shoes off under tables for four decades.
Lovely and suffering, or comfortable and underdressed. Those were the wedding options, and I had done my years in both.
The Ivy is the first occasion dress I have owned that refuses the choice, and having worn it from ceremony to taxi, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived, three weeks before the August wedding. I had a backup dress ready. It was not needed.
The dots are done properly
Not the tight little supermarket polka dot. Big soft dots, different sizes, scattered generously and joined by fine drawn lines, like a print from a dear little shop. It reads as considered from across a marquee, and up close it is better still.
Big soft dots on little drawn lines. This is what sets it apart from every other dotted dress.
Everyone at the christening assumed it was expensive. It is the dots, they look like an old-fashioned quality print.
Christine B., PoyntonIt is properly lined
The floaty layer does the pretty work on top and a full lining does the honest work underneath. Nothing goes see-through in the wedding photographs, nothing needs a slip, and the sheer is saved for where it belongs, the sleeves and that lovely deep band at the hem.
Fully lined, which at our age is half the battle with floaty dresses. The sheer hem is a beautiful touch.
Margaret E., LymmThe little belt gives you a waist without squeezing it
The bodice blouses softly over a thin belt, so you get a shape without anything digging in through three courses and the speeches. I did not think about my middle once between the ceremony and the taxi, which I believe is a personal record at a wedding.
The belt. A waist without a single held breath.
It gives me a waist and I can still eat the wedding breakfast. I did not know both were allowed.
Dorothy S., BramhallThe sleeves cover the tops of your arms, prettily
Little double-layer flutter sleeves, sheer and soft, that cover the part of the arm most of us would rather not debut at a wedding, without a cardigan and without adding any warmth. They move when you move, which the photographs love.
The sleeves are the reason I bought it. Covered arms that still look like part of the dress, not a cover-up.
Pauline H., FrodshamIt is cut for the whole day, not just the photographs
The skirt is full and swings, so you can sit through a long service, get in and out of cars, eat properly and dance the silly dances, and the dress keeps up. Tea length, so it covers the knee, moves like something twice the price, and never once needs holding down or hitching up.
I danced at my grandson’s wedding from the first song to the last and the dress behaved better than I did.
Eileen T., MiddlewichIt keeps earning its keep after the wedding
This is the part that surprised me. Navy with soft dots goes to christenings, lunches, the theatre and dinner without ever looking like a wedding outfit on a day out. Mine has been worn twice since August already. And the sizing is honest, from an 8/10 all the way to a 20/22, the same shape throughout.
On the wardrobe door between engagements. It has a fuller diary than I do.
Bought for a wedding, worn a dozen times since. Cost per wear it is the best dress I have ever owned.
Maureen C., ChesterThe Ivy, against the occasion dresses you have been buying
You can find a wedding-guest dress for seventy-five pounds almost anywhere. I know, because I have a wardrobe shelf of them, each worn once. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Lovely at eleven, pinching by four
Unlined, or see-through in the photographs
A fitted waist you hold your breath in
Bare arms, or a cardigan over the top
Worn once, then wardrobe exile
Comfortable from ceremony to taxi
Properly lined, sheer only where it should be
A soft belted waist that never digs in
Flutter sleeves that cover the tops of the arms
Navy dots that go everywhere afterwards
About the price
The Ivy is £37.95 at the moment. It was £76.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are clearing the summer stock as the season turns, and once it has gone it is gone until next year. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half of what I spent on my last wedding outfit bought me a dress I have already worn three times, and that the middle sizes were going when I looked again last week.
I also did what I imagine you are doing now and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
Folded between engagements. Never for long.
If there is a wedding, a christening or a do of any kind in your diary, this is the dress I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there.
Maggie
IVY | Navy Dot Occasion Dress
- Big soft scattered dots, a proper boutique print
- Fully lined body, sheer only at sleeves and hem
- Soft belted waist that never digs in
- Flutter sleeves that cover the tops of the arms
- Full tea-length skirt made for sitting and dancing
- UK sizes 8/10 to 20/22
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer stock clearing now. The middle sizes go first.