The Best Bustle for Your Wedding Gown

Image by Joseph Koprek via Gülşen & Fergus’ Handmade Orchard Wedding

There are all kinds of bustles – from the French bustle to the Austrian bustle; even The Ballroom bustle! Your designer or dressmaker can help you choose the one that best suits your gown.  Whichever bustle type you choose, make sure you know how to use it! If you can, take the person who will be helping you on the wedding day to your last fitting so they can practice. The easiest bustle is the one with buttons or pearls at the waistline. Then you just have to start with the loop at the centre back of your train and match the right loops to the right buttons.

Image by Leo Farrell via Tori and Dave’s Candlelit Winter Wedding

Designed to prevent your gown from sweeping across the floor, many bustles require you to match ribbons on the under side of your gown. Again if you begin from the centre back and work outward, it should not be very hard to match them properly. Sometimes gown designers use coloured ribbons or sew coloured threads on the ribbons so it is even easier to tie the right ribbons together. Or the designer may write numbers on the ribbons. Note: it’s best if the designer uses an indelible marking pen so the ink does not run when your gown is cleaned. For really complicated bustles, you will always need numbers to tie them properly–especially if your bustle involves so many ties that the skirt looks like a series of “pick-ups.”

For some gowns, such as a lace gown with a satin slip, you will also need to bustle your petticoat separately from the gown. The same rules as above will apply, and it is not likely you will forget because the petticoat will show if you forget to loop it up too!