Oh, yes!!! One thing to do is make the dress out of a less expensive fabric...you could probably use muslim or an inexpensive fabric similar to the fabric you plan to use for the final dress...make sure the pattern is correct and make any adjustments needed, then make the actual dress. If you have an embroidery machine or pleater you can do smocking. Haven't tried smocking myself, but I belong to a yahoo group that has tutorials/designs for smocking. And you can integrate embroidery designs into the smocking.
Good luck!!!