Weddingbee Blog

I always forget how much I love my dress when I’m away from it for too long. BM Spotlight has been storing it at her house (and promises me she’s only worn it twice… I think she’s joking). Then, I put it on, and fall in love all over again. I’ll be hanging out with two of my soul mates at the wedding, hive: Mr. LF, and this dress.

I’ve named her Emma.

First thing’s first:

I picked up my dress from Spotty on Friday night, and went to visit my seamstress, Daisy, on Saturday morning with MOH Ginger. Daisy came very highly recommended on local wedding boards, and judging from my first meeting with her, I’d extend this recommendation as well.

The first big surprise: My dress is now three sizes too large!! Poor Emma now hangs quite loose on me. No worries: We’ll put her on a steady diet of nips, tucks, and hems.

This is the part where ‘ger made me stick my shoe out and don my hair flower, while I tried to keep my naughties in place.

Also, I totally did my hair similarly to how I want it for the wedding. Yeah: I’m a geek.

After Daisy pinned the sides and talked about taking in the top, as well, she got to work on pinning the hem and showed me my bustle options. I loved both of them so much!

First, there’s the one-point over-bustle. This is a good budget bustle, and I actually really liked how it looked. I’m a little in love with the way my dress draped in the back. Being so picky, I haven’t been in love with a lot of bustles I’ve seen—but oh, hive, I loved both of mine. This one would secure with a button—but she did say it has a tendency to come undone throughout the night. She also told me a scary story about a girl who had a really complicated bustle done and the wedding coordinator was so frazzled that instead of doing the bustle, she secured it with safety pins. Needless to say, the dress lining ripped and the makeshift bustle came out, and she ended up with holes in her $4,000 dress. So, rule: No safety pins.

(She’ll also be using hem material to create detachable cap sleeves, which is why you see that weird rag over one of my shoulders. I’m not going Grecian—this is just for demo purposes.)

I was sold on the over-bustle, but she asked if I wanted to see my other options.

So she did up a French bustle. This confused me because I fell in love with this one, as well. I made poor Daisy go back to the over-bustle so ‘ger could take pictures, then the French bustle again. Ultimately, this one won out—when I saw the over-bustle again, after having seen this one, there was no contest. I liked the cleanliness of this one, and the little draping underneath felt like a surprise to me.

This one will only have three points, secured underneath with color-coded ribbons, so it should be fairly easy for the girls to do me up.

Let’s just look at the dress one more time, hm?

It was such an exciting day! I do so love reuniting with Emma when I can, and it always feels like we’re meeting again for the very first time. Daisy should have all the above alterations (plus cups sewn in so no stinky bra for me!) in about a month, and then will lovingly look after Emma until the week of the wedding, when she’ll press it and have me pick it up.

Until then, Emma… remember me.

Are you planning any major alterations for your dress, such as adding sleeves and the like? What’s your stance on different bustle types?

* All photos by MOH Ginger