Impossible?

I get a lot of calls from brides telling me that another place told them their dress could not be altered. Many times it is the store where they bought the gown. I understand the limitations gowns have to the altering process but in truth, there is no such thing as an impossible alteration.

In discussing alterations keep several things in mind.

1. There are set processes that make most bridal gown alterations a matter of getting determining what is feeling good and what is not. The actual sewing of the fabric and lace to make the changes will not effect the look of the dress. It will just fit better.

2. There are aspects that delicate fabrics have that can make the taking out and replacing of stitches a tricky thing to do. In these cases you want to keep the changes down to the minimum necessary to make the fit better.

3. There are structural needs of a gown that have to be considered. If an needed alteration will harm the structural integrity of the gown than the bride has to weigh that with her comfort level to find a fit that both looks good and lets the gown function as the design intended.

4. The design or seam structure of the gown may not lend itself to easy altering.
For instance:

A gown that has no waistline can not be hemmed at the waist.

If there is only 1" of fabric in the seam allowance the seam can be let out only 1/2".

Beading that is sewn on after the lace is attached to the gown will fall off if the lace is moved.

5. Many alterations can be done but will change the design of the gown so that the bride may not like the result. These things need to be explained to her in great detail before any sewing is done so she will not be surprised by the outcome.

6. It is important to remember that the alteration lady did not create the fitting problem. Many factors go into poor fit. Sometimes the bridal store ordered the wrong size. Often the bride gains or looses weight during the long wait between the ordering and the receiving of the gown. Some gowns fit differently than the store sample that was tried on and fit just fine because the design sizes in a funny way.

7. Nothing is impossible, but it may take a lot of out-of-the-box thinking and creative sewing to get the fit to be where the bride wants it. The bride has to be educated as to the ramifications of any thing that may be tried.

This hem is tricky because the lace at the bottom is very wide and was cut out underneath in such a way that raising it would move the lace pattern off the cut outs. The resulting effect would be to have several places where the dress was cut and the lace did not cover. The gown does not have a waistline seam so it could not be easily hemmed at the waist.

The bride and I came up with the beautiful effect you see in the second picture. Gathered stitching lines were added to bring up the hem to the desired length then more lace was purchased and placed at the top of the gathering lines to make it look like the design was meant to be there.

Here's a relatively easy solution for the pregnant bride. We removed the zipper and added loops that can now be laced. We used braid for the loops and 5 yards of 1" double sided satin ribbon for the laces. A modesty panel was made from scraps from the hemming of another gown. This bride decided to have her modesty panel start at her waist leaving the upper lacings to show skin between the ribbon.

This is a before picture for the same type of operation but for a gown that was just too small for the bride.

This is the gown with the zipper removed and the lacings and modesty panel in place. This bride wanted to wear a more supportive bra that hooked across her back so she opted to have her modesty panel cover the whole area behind the lacings.

She also opted to use colored satin for the panel. Here you can see that the color of the modesty panel matches nicely with the amber beads of the gown's lovely beadwork.