Some wedding plans fall easily into place, while others require a bit of patience to complete. Susan Timm’s determination to realize her daughter Jenny’s dream bridal look is an inspiring story of perseverance and love.

A Special Gift For The Bride

When Susan approached us in January, 2022 to commission a sculpture of her daughter’s bespoke wedding gown, the story she told was as amazing as the dress itself. Not only did Susan’s daughter Jenny design her own dress for the big day, Susan–a professional designer and seamstress of custom bridal wear–put together the gown herself using gorgeous French fabric. 

“I purchased the fabric in Paris on a trip I took as part of a sewing course,” Susan said. “At the time I purchased it, I had no idea that it would be for my own daughter’s dress.” Creating the dress from Jenny’s sketches would be the perfect gift from the mother of the bride.

Unexpected Events

While some brides spend months searching for that one perfect dress, this particular aspect of Jenny’s wedding was perhaps the easiest task to check off the list. As Susan related to us, the journey from Jenny’s engagement to the “I do’s” took longer than originally hoped. Yet, the bride and groom–and the mother of the bride–faced each obstacle with patience and grace. To hear Susan tell it, it seemed something different cropped up nearly every month leading up to the wedding!

It all began in January, 2020. Jenny’s groom, having come down with an illness, was recovering and the happy couple resumed their plans. Susan went straight to work on the dress through the next several weeks, when a trip to Guatemala for volunteer work in late February paused her progress. Susan hoped to bring Jenny in for fittings upon her return, but the national COVID lockdown beginning that March kept them apart.

Susan, undeterred, continued to sew the dress. She and Jenny were not able to meet in person until May, and that’s when they discovered the initial measurements were too big. Jenny’s lockdown weight loss necessitated alterations, which didn’t discourage Susan. “Easier to take in a dress than to add to it,” she pointed out.

By summer, when Susan was close to finishing Jenny’s dress, she had to vacate her Minneapolis-based studio in the midst of tensions occurring in the area at the time. Her studio was broken into, but since it sustained minimal damage she was able to return a short time later.  The gown was finally completed in August, but by this time other aspects of Jenny’s wedding had to change. 

COVID restrictions required Jenny to scale down her ceremony and reception, and just days before the wedding Jenny sprained her calf after an auto accident! The bride rehearsed on crutches but thankfully recovered in time to walk down the aisle on her father’s arm for the big day.

A Special Memory For The Bride

Susan noted a spirit of kinship when she approached Erika Hitchcock, artist/founder of StoneWear Ceramics, to commission a sculpture of Jenny’s gown. A designer of bridal gowns reached out to an artist of bridal gown sculptures. It seemed the perfect project for Erika to immortalize Jenny’s vision into a treasured keepsake.

Overall work on Jenny’s sculpture took 30 hours over 8 weeks to complete, from the floral and pearl detailing on the long skirt and hand-sewn bodice to the pearl beading and rhinestones around the waist. Matching the patterns on the Parisian fabric required Erika to piece together small bits of lace from multiple patterns and texturize and carve the clay to recreate the likeness of the gown. When Susan presented Jenny with the completed sculpture, she was so thrilled she planned a professional photo shoot and got back in her wedding dress to pose with her beautiful mother and the StoneWear gown. The unique artwork inspired by Jenny’s one-of-a-kind dress symbolized the amazing journey of mother and daughter to Jenny’s happily ever after.

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When Memories Become Art

Every StoneWear Ceramics sculpture, like Jenny’s, is handmade and designed to match the wedding dress or special occasion gown from top to bottom. A woman’s wedding day is one of the most important of her life, and nothing commemorates this better than the gift of her dress replicated in stone. Pictures may capture the beauty, but a wedding gown sculpture brings the memories to life.

StoneWear Ceramics gowns are commissioned by mothers of the bride, husbands, sisters, and best friends. Each sculpture we create is one of a kind, not mass produced, because they are modeled after your dresses, your body form. If you are looking for a special wedding, birthday or anniversary gift for the woman in your life, contact us today to learn more about giving her a StoneWear Ceramics work of art created by Erika Hitchcock.