Continuing our month of celebration dressing, this week will be my final bridal post. This time, I’ll go over the alterations to the wedding dress’s bodice, and what I would tell a seamstress next time.
Here are all the previous bridal posts:
Leah’s Happy Swimsuit Memory
Wedding Dress Shopping Part I
Wedding Dress Shopping Part II: David’s Bridal
Wedding Lingerie Shopping: Masquerade Hestia Basque
Hestia Bustier Revisited (and Wedding Dresses!)
Le Mystere Soiree Low-Back Bustier Reviewed
Wedding Dress Shopping Part III: Alterations
Celebration Solutions: Altering Molded Bra Cups
As for today’s post, here is how the bodice looked before alterations. For an extra fee, the dress came with increased cups (volume-wise) and a one-inch higher neckline:
When I brought it to the seamstress, I was wearing a baggy sweater and her immediate thought before she saw it on me was that the cups were too big. I insisted they were not, and told her I paid extra to have them bigger. Once it was on, I’m pretty sure she got the idea.
She still needed to alter the cups slightly, though. They were a bit pointy in the outer corners and needed to be made rounder, and the waistband needed to be taken in at its base, like so:
When it was all done, it fit perfectly. The seamstress really knew what she was doing, and it didn’t require a second fitting or more work. Buuuut…in looking at my photos, I can see that the bodice did not stay quite so perfect throughout the day.
Here’s how it looked when I first put it on:
Perfect décolletage! I’m totally filling out the cups and there’s just a hint of cleavage.
Here’s a shot during the ceremony, where you can see it mushing into my armpits a bit when my arms are at my sides:
But a side view during the ceremony looks great! The point is, my boobs are where they should be.
However, once I sat down to dinner, and then repeatedly got back up to hug people, and back down to eat, and up to mingle, and back down to drink…my boobs started having a containment issue:
I didn’t even notice it was happening at the time, which I guess speaks to the comfort of the dress. But by the time dancing rolled around, I was seriously quad-boobing:
Again, I didn’t really notice it while it was happening, but I would really prefer if my mashed up cleavage wasn’t memorialized forever in my wedding photos.
So here’s what I’ll do if I ever have to get a structured sweetheart neckline altered ever again:
- Right off the bat, I will tell the seamstress that I have a hard time fitting my boobs into off-the-rack clothing. I want her to know this is a serious concern before we even start.
- I will bring these photos with me, to show her exactly what I don’t want happening over the course of the dress’s wearing.
- I will specifically ask if she can keep the cups more open and less flush with my chest even though it looks better that way when I first put it on. I’ll jump around a bunch if I have to, to get my boobs flying around so she can work with them in person.
And finally, with all these awkward faces, here are a couple nice photo of my complete outfit, as a little palate-cleanser (click to view full size):
