Designing a Wedding Dress for Toni from Luann

by Philip Gust. Published in the November/December 2016 issue of Finery.

When cartoonist Greg Evans decided that two characters from his popular Luann comic strip were getting married, he needed a wedding dress for the bride, Toni Daytona, who would be marrying Luann’s brother Brad. Greg and his daughter Karen came up with the idea of a contest for fans to submit designs for Toni’s wedding dress and to vote for the one she would wear through the LuannFan.com website. He announced the contest in his comic strips in September, and voting took place from October 7-17.

I’ve been a fan of Greg and the Luann comic strip for many years. Being an incurable romantic, the Brad & Toni story arc really struck a chord with me. I felt a special connection to Toni and the kind of wedding dress she’d like to have. Although I’ve never designed women’s clothing, I wanted to give her this as a wedding present.

I started by creating a model sheet for Toni from images in past strips. Next, I selected a pair of croquis (body outlines) that match Toni’s body type from several free online sites, and replaced the croquis heads with Toni’s. I wanted to make sure that the design would be perfect for Toni, and would work with her facial shape and hair. I also felt that it would help those voting to imagine Toni wearing the dress.

Next, I spent time looking at the wide range of wedding dresses online. Toni is both traditional and adventurous, and she has a marvelous figure, so I went with a fish tail design that hugs her curves but flairs out dramatically at mid-thigh and gives her very feminine swish as she walks. I added a simple fabric belt that emphasizes her waist without breaking the line of the dress.

One of my considerations was drawability. Complex designs and patterns don’t “read” well in a comic strip and could be more difficult for Greg to draw, so I kept the lines simple and did not indicate a pattern for the fabric. (I’d use an off-white color-on-color floral Jacquard fabric if I were actually making the dress.)

To play on Toni’s adventurous side, I decided to use a fall of multi-color ribbons instead of a veil. The ribbons attach to the back of her hair, which I styled in an up-do. The ribbons, her bouquet, and the corsage on her belt all match her wedding color scheme.

Several days before voting began, Greg announced that, to his amazement, there were nearly 600 entries to the contest. That’s when I realized that having my design noticed would require getting the word out, so I posted a message to every online community where I participate, describing the contest and asking people to vote for my design if they liked it. I also asked people to repost it and forward it to their friends. I’m not a heavy user of social media, so I had no experience with this kind of thing and didn’t know what to expect.

To my surprise, in less than a week my design was among the top ten, so I sent out another message to let everyone know and remind them that they could vote every day of the contest. Several days later, my design was #6, then #4, then #2. On the afternoon before the last day, my design edged to #1.

The lead switched several times overnight, with only a handful of votes separating the top two so I posted a final reminder on social media early on the final day. When the contest closed at 10pm, my design was ahead by a slim 36 votes out of over 2000 votes for each of the top two. I received a note from Greg shortly afterward congratulating me and saying that there were an astounding 46,000 votes total. Greg said that he was overwhelmed by the response to the contest.

I am so grateful to everyone who liked my design for Toni’s wedding dress, and took time to vote and repost my messages to their networks. There were so many wonderful designs, and any of the top choices would have made Toni very happy. I’m just thrilled that Toni will be wearing the wedding dress that I designed for her when she walks down the aisle with Brad in December. It’s been a memorable journey for Brad and Toni – and for me!