This is the month of many excited brides visiting the stores, searching online and getting things booked!! Whether you got engaged over Christmas and can’t wait to get out dress shopping or this is the year of the wedding, it all starts happening NOW!
Christmas is over and I’m pretty sure there are a few New Year’s resolutions of healthier living, diets and skin care routines! Get started, but don’t let it put you off searching for your dress – it can always be altered down and that’s where I come in!!!
I always get lots of emails and phone calls in January for appointments to be booked in throughout the year, so I really do think it pays to be organised. July and August are by far the busiest months for weddings and last minute alterations, and you don’t want to be left high and dry without someone to adjust your gown. After all, until they invent an extra day in the week, there’s only so many gowns that can be altered in a day.
So, even if you are not sure what might need doing with your gown, if you’re not using the seamstress from the store you purchased your dress, then get chatting to some local bridalwear specialists to see about availability, and get booking an appointment even if it’s months in advance.
I have a customer for this year that is flying in to the UK a few days before her wedding. We have already booked in the fittings and I know the sort of alterations that will need doing so that I have left time available to complete them within those few days. Now it goes without saying that this stops me taking on any other work for those few days. As she lives abroad, there is no room to move the fittings to accommodate other dresses. Imagine if she hadn’t already booked that in with me? I could take on something else and she would be left ‘phoning around with a few days to her wedding – NOT ideal.
Another example of planning and researching would be a young lady whose wedding dress I adjusted while she was over for two days from Dubai (and not back again until the day before the wedding). Now, she was in the unfortunate position that the very experienced seamstress she was using became too ill to make the adjustments within those few days. The seamstress in question knows me well and gave her my contact details so we had it covered! If you are on a tight timescale, or have some constrictions to your availability, maybe have a ‘Plan B’, or ask if the seamstress you’re using does! If we can’t do it we quite often have ‘friends in the right places’ and between us will never leave you without a solution!
So, now you’ve brightened up your January by finding your dream dress, let’s look forward to a romantic February! I’ll see you in between for a few anecdotes from the work room (want to hear about a little evening gown rescue I have just done after the client in question thought she would ” have a go” herself?!).
