BRIDES – BEWARE!! There may be portions of this story that are offensive and hard to comprehend. Proceed with caution.
Ok, this is a story for the history books on Alteration Disasters. Thankfully the problems did not originate with me!! Emily had taken her Mori-Lee gown to a seamstress in Calgary who did not know that:
a) You don’t take fabric to make a cap sleeve from the layers of tulle in the skirt of the dress – especially when you can see the cut out jagged edges through the top layers.
b) When taking in a bodice that has applique’ lace with definitive rhinestone beading, you don’t fold it together and bunch it all up and then hand stitch a ‘dart’ under the arms, not even on the side seamline.
c) You don’t re-shape the shoulders and neckline with said same bulky unfinished darts all around the neckline.
d) You don’t have uneven edges, holes in the tulle, and a crooked, unfinished edge on the sleeve addition. The top of the shoulder was hand stitched while Emily had the dress on – and it was the sloppiest job I had ever seen in over 50 years of sewing.
e) You don’t open up the hip area and make the seams wide with additional material that doesn’t even match the dress fabrics, and then hand sew them in place with no finished edges, no pressing, no threads removed, and certainly no proper fit taken into consideration – because everyone wants a great big ugly mess for side seams on your wedding dress – right??
f) The top tulle layers on said such side seams was beyond laughable – more like cry-able for both Emily and me!!! I am not sure that this “seamstress” owned a “sewing machine”, much less knew how to use it.
g) You don’t do the bustle upside down (hook & eyes) and leave half the dress dangling.
h) You don’t bully the bride and not listen to her requests and concerns.
i) You don’t do all of that and then tell the bride that its OK. It’s perfectly fine, and that you can’t do any more on the dress because it is beyond your ability, (dah!!!) but you still owe me $200 or I won’t give you your dress back.
Now for my part – it took me almost 6 hours to take apart everything seamstress #1 had done.
Then I began the sometimes-painful process of going about fixing everything using proper Bridal Seamstress Professional Skills and Techniques. I did take the time at the beginning of our first appointment, to carefully inspect and access the task, damages, etc. In a stressful situation like this, I made a specific point of reassuring Emily that it could, in fact, all be fixed. I was a little hesitant to guarantee that, considering what I had to work with – but after pouring my heart and soul into it the task I was able to bring her dress back to a “proper bridal alteration outcome”. She was thrilled with each & every finishing touch. Most importantly – it fit her!! How crazy is that?
I ended up removing the sleeves completely, correcting all the other mistakes, and even attached lace applique’ over the side seams. I also re-beaded everywhere that it was needed. Re-bustled the train and hemmed the dress correctly.
She wrote me a Thank-You card and gave me a gift. I charged her ¼ of what my costs were – because she was unable to get a refund from the other person, and I wasn’t going to add chaos to crime.
This all had to be accomplished in less than 12 days. My final touch was to hand wash the dress (it was purchased as a sample dress); then with the final steaming – it glistened and Emily was over the moon with gratitude and awe.
LET THIS BE A LESSON TO ALL PERSONS REQUIRING ALTERATIONS OF ANY SORT – IF YOU DO NOT HAVE CONFIDENCE IN YOUR SEAMSTRESS’ ABILITY TO DO WHAT IS REQUIRED OR YOU SEE THINGS THAT ARE WRONG THAT THEY ARE NOT WILLING TO CORRECT – GRAB YOUR GARMENT AND RUN!!!
2020 IS A VERY BUSY YEAR FOR WEDDINGS AND I WOULD HATE TO SEE THIS REPEATED FOR ANY OTHER BRIDE!