“I had the most cathartic experience you can have as a bride when you see your dress completely done for the first time,” Gracie Songer

NEED TO KNOW

• Utah tattoo artist Gracie Songer always knew she wanted a wedding dress that felt completely different, and her mom’s old Battenberg lace bedding turned out to be the perfect fit

• Together, she and her mother, Rebekah, turned a sentimental family keepsake into a one-of-a-kind gown
• The result was a dress filled with creativity, memories and meaning

Gracie Songer had always known her wedding dress would be different. The Utah tattoo artist wanted something she could design herself — something artistic, unexpected and unlike the gowns she saw in bridal shops.

What she did not know was that the key to creating it had been tucked away in her family’s storage for decades: a white Battenberg lace duvet cover her mother had bought as a teenager and saved through her own marriage and motherhood.

What began as a search for light, airy fabric became a deeply personal collaboration between mother and daughter, turning an old bedspread into a one-of-a-kind wedding gown.

“It’s just so crazy on so many levels because not only is it the most beautiful dress I have ever seen in my whole life, I’m the one that designed it, my mom is the one that made it, and it’s also made from a material that I slept on as a baby and that my mom bought in hopes of getting married,” Songer tells PEOPLE exclusively. 

@graciesonger

part 1 of how i designed & my mom created my dream wedding dress! #weddingdress #sewingtok #wedding #weddingideas #diywedding

♬ original sound – gracie covey

Leading up to her June 2026 wedding, Songer had no intention of finding her dress in a traditional bridal salon. Despite going dress shopping, she says the appointment was mainly to determine what silhouettes and fabrics she liked, rather than to find the gown itself.

“I had known my whole life that my dress was going to be different than anything that already exists,” she says. And although all the gowns she tried on were “beautiful,” Songer admits they did not create the emotional reaction she was looking for.

That all changed, however, when she and her mother began searching for the right material for the dress Songer had long envisioned — something “light and pillowy,” almost bed-like.

During one of her fittings, frustrated by the lack of suitable fabric, Songer asked her mother to find a plain bedsheet so she could see how it would look against her body. Little did she know that her mother would disappear downstairs and return with something far more meaningful.

“She said, ‘Hold on… I think I just thought of something,’” she recalls. “She went downstairs to our storage. When she came back, she changed the journey of the dress forever! She came back up with white Battenberg lace bedding.”

The duvet had been purchased in 1992, when Songer’s mother, Rebekah Songer, was 16 and working at the now-defunct ZCMI department store.

At the time, she had bought the duvet and matching shams for her “hope chest,” a tradition of saving special household items for a future marriage.

“You would buy a bottle for a baby to hope you have a baby one day, or in this case, she bought nice bedding to hope she gets married one day,” Gracie explains. “The meaning was perfect, but the fabric was even more beautiful.”

Rebekah eventually married in 1999 and used the bedding, but when the style fell out of fashion, she stored it rather than throwing it away. Years later, it unexpectedly became the foundation for her daughter’s wedding dress.

“The bedspread was in such great condition other than one small blue ink stain, which I quickly dubbed my something blue — and a sign that I found my dress!” Gracie shares. 

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Turning the duvet into an actual gown, however, was anything but simple.

Gracie’s mother had sewing experience from making her children’s Halloween costumes, but couture construction was new territory.

“This was such a feat because although my mom is a very talented seamstress, she had never made anything couture or on this level. Ever,” Gracie reveals.

Nevertheless, over the course of three months, her mother learned through trial and error, eventually mastering a structured bodice, voluminous skirt and fitted corset. Because cotton could wrinkle, attract dirt and struggle to hold its shape, she basted organza to the underside of the skirt while carefully preserving the lace.

“When Gracie asked if I would create her wedding dress, I was very intimidated,” Rebekah tells PEOPLE. “This project felt above my abilities, but Gracie was so sentimental about the dress being sewn by me and she gave me the confidence to give it a try.”

Still, even when she doubted herself, her daughter’s love and encouragement kept her going. “[Gracie] never had any doubt that this could be pulled off,” Rebekah says. 

After “thousands of hours” spent working on the dress, the final stitches were made just five days before the wedding, and although Gracie was mentally prepared for the look of a homemade gown, she never imagined that the wedding dress would surpass her own vision.

“I was so ready to lean into the imperfectly perfect vibe, but I think it accidentally came out completely perfect!” Gracie admits. And compared to the expensive gowns she had tried on, she found herself appreciating hers even more: “I don’t think they hold a match to my gown!”

The emotional payoff, however, came when Gracie finally saw the completed dress, and when her mother saw how happy it made her daughter.

“When the gown came together, it was a huge relief and Gracie was over the moon happy with it…the only thing that really mattered to me,” Rebekah emphasizes.

In the end, the dress ultimately cost just over $150 in materials, a stark contrast to the gowns she tried on in bridal shops, which were all in the $10,000 range.

However, its true value is impossible to measure.

It carries the hopes of a 16-year-old girl, memories of a family home, the hours of work put in by a mother and the vision of a daughter.

For Gracie, the experience proved that a meaningful wedding does not have to follow a template. Her family’s artistic, hands-on approach made the work worthwhile, even if she admits the process was “not for the light-hearted.”

And perhaps that is exactly what made the gown so special: it was never simply a dress. It was something old, something blue, something handmade — and something that will belong to them forever.

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