SeamSTRESS

As with any wedding ours did not go off without a hitch. There were issues and not everything went according to plan. Fortunately none of these things negatively affected the overall wedding but that doesn't mean that I wasn't a bit of a basket case in the days/hours leading up to the big event.

Two of the issues that we encountered involved my seamstress who not only did the alterations on my dress but also my mother's and one of my bridesmaids. In addition to the alterations she also made my veil (this was after the veil I ordered on Ebay never arrived...long story) and she made from scratch the two flower girl dresses.

Needless to say she had a lot of work on her plate for my wedding. And this was all while her daughter was going through testing and surgeries for being newly diagnosed with breast cancer. First let me say that I really do like my seamstress, she put a LOT of work into my dress and I know it wasn't easy with my continuous weight loss. She also basically re-made my mom's dress after my mom gained weight (we seemed to have the opposite problem). I also realize that she was under tremendous stress with her daughter's health issues. With that said two of my most stressful moments the weekend of the wedding were due to her.

We first discussed the flower girl dress design back in February I believe. She said it wouldn't take very long to make them and she wanted to get my dress finished first. Worked for me. What I didn't find out until the day before the wedding when my mother called me (while I was having my nails done) was that the flower girl dresses hadn't been finished until that morning. The morning before my wedding. My poor mother had been so stressed out and concerned the night before when she learned that the dresses hadn't been made yet that she ran to the mall and bought two little dresses she thought might work. Because of the last minute creation of the dresses it didn't allow time for the girl's to actually try on the dresses until after the Rehearsal dinner. So the night of the Rehearsal I still didn't know if the dresses for my flower girls would fit, nor was I able to see them until after dinner.

Fortunately both dresses fit and the girls looked really cute in them, even though the youngest didn't end up walking down the aisle.

The second issue was my veil. I really wanted a veil similar to the $500 one I tried on in the bridal store that was Cathedral length with lace around the bottom edge. After the one I ordered on Ebay failed to show up I asked my seamstress if she could make something similar. She said no problem. She did have some trouble finding the lace for the bottom but was able to use some she actually already had. It wasn't exactly what I wanted but figured it would work well enough especially since I only planned to wear it for the ceremony and a few pictures.

As with the flower girl dresses she ended up not making my veil until the last minute. Since she's an hour away my mother picked it up for me and I wasn't able to see it until the morning of the wedding. When I first took it out of the bag and spread it out I was NOT happy. The lace on the bottom only went part of the way around the bottom of the veil. When it was completely spread out both sides were missing lace and it just looked very strange. She also said she would put some subtle lining on the edge of the entire veil and that was not done at all. The edges were not cut straight and the whole thing just look completely unfinished.

I basically freaked out and called my mother who was in another room at the hotel. I took the veil down and tried it on for her. Basically we figured out that the seamstress had intended for the sides at the bottom to be tucked under rather than have the whole thing completely spread out. My mother calmed me down and said it would look okay. As you can see in the pictures below it looked okay while walking down the aisle however when it was spread out for the formal pictures you can really see how the lace doesn't go all the around the bottom which really irks me.

*You can see how both sides of the veil are tucked under rather than completely spread out and the small trim of lace on the bottom*

*In this picture my veil is more spread out and you can see on the right side how the lace doesn't go all around the bottom edge. I know it's not super noticeable but it irritates me to no end when I look at this picture*

As I said neither of these issues ruined my wedding and to be honest with the exception of a very small group of people no even knew about these issues but it didn't make them any less stressful at the time. Though considering all the things that could have gone wrong, last minute flower girl dresses and a not exactly perfect veil aren't too bad.