Paper Weddings!

Jannah, the bride                                     Zoe (her sister) and me!

So... apparently at the age of 19, I said to my good friend Jannah: "If you don't let me make your wedding dress, I will be very very cross!" It was back in the days when I was studying Fashion Design and we never planned anything. We would wake up in the morning, discover there was a party that night and spend the day whipping up costumes. I was notorious for sewing my friends into costumes and then cutting them out of them again at the end of the night because I hated sewing in zippers or doing button holes....but we always had enormous fun! I remember making my friend Emil a purple cloak out of a heavy curtain for his 21st and then there was the New Years Eve Tara (my sister), our friend Zoe and I ran all over town wearing mini pvc skirts and corsets....

So 15 years later Jannah rings me up and says "Make my wedding dress! And make it out of paper!!" So while she's saying keep in simple, just wrap me up on the day, my brain went into overdrive. I recruited four of my friends to the project and we spent three weeks pleating newspaper. This cause huge amusement in the art centre where I work. All the ladies with raised eyebrows gave me that look they regularly do that says,  "Claire's rama rama!" (gone crazy!) 

And then the day arrived... Jannah and Damo had met on the festival circuit so the whole night was full of fun and drama. Lots of our friends we grew up with were there and it was just like when we were teenagers again. Jannah was so busy running around getting the venue ready, putting all the finishing touches in place at the last minute (in true festival fashion!), she didn't get into her dress till half an hour before it started. I still didn't know if it would work!! So there we were, cutting and pasting and sticky and folding like mad...and then it was done...and the show went on!