A while back I received a beautiful silk wedding gown to be modified or altered to fit a Bride.
It is really exciting for a bride to finally find and purchase the wedding gown of her dreams.
This particular lady went all the way to Sydney to try it on and purchased it that day to bring back with her.
When you try on gowns, you don’t notice a lot of little things.
It is so exciting and you are thinking ‘wow’ finally a beautiful gown I am comfortable in
Please be careful and have a good look-over what you are purchasing.
After all it is ‘Your Wedding Day’ and you want it to be as perfect as possible, while saving as much money as you can on everything.
Be prepared to wait approx 6-14 weeks for new stock to come in, or suitably barter the price on the shop stock accordingly.
Besides the gowns that I make, I receive many wedding gowns for hem alterations, or they require re-shaping for a clients body shape.
Some of these ‘new’ gowns have covered buttons missing, holes at the bottom of the zips, they can be dirty around the neck and arm holes where other ladies have tried them on, or have dirty marks where ladies feel the fabric as they decide what to try on, and oil comes off our clean hands.
The gowns could even have a few threads pulled in the top layers, this is usually made from catching on jewellery when ladies try them on.
When I ask clients, they say their gown is ‘new’, to me this is ‘shop damaged stock’ and should be priced accordingly.
Remember if something is sold at discount due to ‘Shop damage’ you may not get any refunds or exchanges as they may be ‘sold as is’ so check at the counter before purchasing and make sure it is what you want.
Usually you will need the hems altered, especially at the front. We can cover new buttons to replace missing ones from the cut offs, and replace zips or fix zip ends and fix a lot of other little things depending on the fault etc.
All alterations or modifications will cost you money, so see if you can get something taken off the price at the shop to cater for those unexpected ‘fix ups’ especially if you purchase a gown that has a bit of shop damage to it.
(Purchasing a gown and having it altered still works out cheaper than getting a couture gown made from scratch, as this includes costs for pattern-making, construction labour and fabric purchases or supply costs as a one off or an original designed gown.)
Enjoy your wedding day and congratulations
