To make a beautiful "embroidered" wedding veil that isn't expensive, do the following:
Make a basic veil out of tulle. Draw a simple design on the veil using permanent marker. Use embroidery floss (all strands) and a narrow embroidery needle to sew the pattern onto the veil. For sections which are more linear, you can skip holes and it will still look great.
Don't "back sew". Instead, go down in one small hole and up in the next hole. Since you can see through tulle, it won't show. If the design is more ornate, such as flowers, skip fewer holes. We used ivory embroidery floss, but I showed a friend how to do this and she used pink to match beads on her dress.
Next, glue or sew beads inside or on top of the embroidered design. I used small sequins under the beads in some places to make it a little more sparkly, and also crystal beads here and there. If you want to make it really fancy, you can sew silver thread on top of the embroidery.
Happy wedding season!
By Ashley from Raleigh, NC
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My daughter is getting married next year. She got her dress and almost cried when she saw what the veil costs. She asked me to make her headpiece.