I'm doing the Las Vegas wedding, officiated by an Elvis impersonator next week and wanted a dress that fit the theme. First I thought I might use my mom's dress from 1960, but it was damaged in storage, so I went looking for something similar. I found this dress on the David's Bridal website, unfortunately it was on clearance and sold out in what they said would be my size. So I went looking on Ebay, and found it NWT from a bride who had changed her mind about the dress. I paid less than half of the David's Bridal price.
The dress arrived quickly and in perfect condition, exactly as described. According to the size chart, it should have fit me right out of the box. It didn't even come close, the dress was at least 2 standard sizes too big. I knew from the get-go I was going to have to do some alterations, but I didn't anticipate this, I thought the dress might be a bit small. I had ordered a corset back kit the same day I ordered the dress thinking it would take care of some of the adjustments with little hassle,allow for some weight fluctuation, and I liked the look.
No problem, I thought, I'll just set the corset in a bit from the zipper and it will work. I ended up taking 5.5 inches in on the dress divided between the corset loop strips. I did like that it added some structure due to the boning the loops were attached to, because the dress needed it. Technically the bodice was boned, but it was the floppiest, most useless boning I had ever seen. I've made several dresses with boned bodices, and understand how it works, the boning that came in the dress did none of that.
In order to look good, stay in place, and not work looser and looser as I wore it, I knew I was going to have to add some decent boning. The way the bodice was put together made it impossible to just let the lining loose, and put the lining back without just about completely taking the dress apart. So I ended up covering the boning and just hand sewing in into the lining. Not how I would have done it, but it worked.
I also couldn't just add a crinoline underneath, due to how the skirt lining was constructed, so I made a crinoline, sewed it to a bias band and hand whipped it in place between the layers of the dress. Again not how I'd do things normally, but I didn't have time to completely destruct this thing. And honestly, I worried about the fabric in the dress surviving, it was not high quality. Then I decided since it's Las Vegas, the dress needed some bling. I ended up adding around 400 Swavorski crystals to the bodice, and around 100 to the appliqués on the skirt. Let's talk about those appliqués, the were falling off the dress when I received it. The were sewn on very poorly and I'm sure I would have left a trail of rose and daisy lace all the way to the ceremony, if I hadn't anchored them better when I did the beading. That took a huge amount of time.
I thought I had it fitted and ready to go. I haven't lost or gained weight, but when I tried on the dress it had stretched a bit. I ended up adding bra cups, and some elastic all the way around the top of the dress to fix it.
Then I had to get this thing to Las Vegas. I had seen a video on how to get a dress in a carry-on. I figured that however I traveled with the dress, it would need to be steamed when I got there, so I went for it. I turned the dress inside out, carefully folded it to fit in the bad, ooh the air out with the vacuum, and it fit perfectly.
The dress is fine for what I paid for it, and I'm glad I did the alterations myself, but if I had paid full price for this dress, I would have been very disappointed. If I was going to do it again, knowing what I know, I would have started from scratch. I would have a much better quality dress and probably wouldn't have any more time invested. I expected less expensive fabrics, and garment factory technique, but the sizing issue and loose appliqués really bothered me. If I hadn't been handy with needle and thread, the dress could have turned into a real nightmare. As it is, I love it.