See the bottom of my dress:
Well, I've had problems trying to get someone to hem it for me at first.... then after taking it to several seamstresses, I was given quotes right around the $300 range. Are they smoking crack and not sharing?!?! So, Brian tells me that he thinks I can do it myself. I agree, I could, but would I want to? I mean come on... it's my WEDDING dress. So, after weeks of trying to figure out whether or not I would attempt this task, I decided to take a stab at it. I brave it out and I start with the lining..... no problemo. I marked and pinned the front panel of the lining two inches and then start tapering the panels on either side of the front panel to make it flush with the rest of the dress so I don't mess with the length of the train. Easy enough! Whew. But then, when I attempt to do this with the outer layer, it's totally not doable because of the three rows of ribbon going around the entire dress. No way to taper that! So, after stewing about it and trying to come up with a way in which this can be done, I still come up blank. I can't just cut it off and hem it at the two inch mark because I'd have to do it ALL THE WAY AROUND the circumference of the dress and the lining would be sticking out from under that.
Today, while out on our date day, we take my dress to an alteration shop in nearby Modesto. The guy tells me that there's no other way to do it other than to either just do it the exact same way as I did the lining ~ um duh...can't do it idiot, there's three rows of ribbon and you can't just taper it without it being totally noticable; or just cut both the lining and the tulle layer two inches around entirely ~ sorry, not an option because first of all, I don't want to lose the length of the train, and secondly, there's buttons down the entire back of my dress. We thank the gentlmen and we leave.
Brian decides to stop back in to David's Bridal to talk to one of the alterations gals to see if maybe he can talk them down little. A different lady somes out to talk to us, and I show her the dress. I show her where I've pinned the liner and how it tapers down to the length of the dress smoothly. She then proceeds to tell me that she can do the outer layer, no problem. It would cost $120. YAY!! I start to get all giddy with excitement knowing that my dress will FINALLY be hemmed, and hemmed properly! Woot Woot. And then the lady says..... BUT....this is something you can do yourself. It's really easy. I do a double take and look at her..... "Say what?" And she says, "If you pinned this (referring to the liner) then you must know what you're doing because you pinned it correctly." Then she proceeds to show me a little 'trick' to pulling up the tulle from the existing top layers of the ribbons going around the dress and tells me how I can do it myself. SWEET!!! I look up at Brian and say..... "Why didn't I think of that?!?!?". The nice lady says "I shouldn't be telling or showing you this, but it is a very easy thing to do yourself if you're a sewer". She then throws in the fact that she'd be more than happy to do it but wouldn't want to see us waste $120 on something very simple.
So....... after leaving David's Bridal with excitement that I can potentially have my dress all nice and hemmed by tomorrow, I'm soooo ready for $1.50 Margarita Night! :)
Now that I've had time to absorb it all in, I'm starting to freak out a little.... but... worse case scenerio is that I get the lining done (which is a total cinch) but then end up having problems with the outer tulle layer and have to take it back to David's to have the nice lady finish the rest! :)
So, wish me luck people!!! I'm going to attempt to hem my own wedding dress and do it properly. Funny thing is.... if it were someone else's dress, I'd have no problems doing it, and doing it right....however, since it's MY dress... I'm second guessing myself.
Stay tuned for the outcome!!!!!!!!
