Today an exhibition of Grace Kelly's clothes opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum. On show are the outfits; designed by Helen Rose and created by the MGM wardrobe department in 1956, for her to wear at her civil and cathedral wedding ceremonies.

One of the books that I am using for my research is 'Grace Kelly; Icon of Style to Royal Bride'. I found it in the college library at Charing Cross Road but is also available from Amazon

This 1940's wedding dress has shoulder pads and what looks like very fine pleating at the neck. The main body of the dress may well have been cut on the bias. The photo is part of George Eastman House's Photostream on Flickr.

Vintage magazines are a fantastic sourse of inspiration and again you may find them at car boot and garage sales or on a monday morning at Jubilee Market in Covent Garden. I found these pictures from vintage magazines on Flickr

Wedding gowns worn by movie stars always have a huge influence on trends. Even 1950's Barbie had a copy of Liz Taylor's wedding dress. If you would prefer to create patterns in quarter-scale don't forget to check out my blog and course Couture Fashion dolls

While you are working on your 50% tailors dummy; waiting for it to dry between stages, you can spend some time looking for visual images to use as inspiration for bridalwear designs. I found these old sepia wedding photos on Flickr