Whole lot of dissing going on

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I suck as a blogger and will never get my own fancy book deal where I get to be snarky and rude and get dozens of dollars for it. I get that. Lets start over again, shall we?

Ok, maybe not.

Anyway, I've been asked if I watch the infamous Say Yes to the Dress by friends, readers, and brides alike. Not only that, I get told at the shop nearly ever day (by the mom, usually) that the bride loves SYTTD and wants her own magical Klienfeld's experience. Gah. I cannot emphasize enough how much I dislike that show. I have watched exactly 3/4 of an episode and wanted to shoot myself in the head by the 10 minute mark. "How can you hate it??? Don't you like looking at the dresses?" Honey (because let's face it anyone who asks me this question all doe-eyed and innocent deserves the patronizing title), I do not get paid to watch it, I get paid to live it, minus the big shop, numerous workers, and brides with big budgets.

Where I'm located, I am lucky to be able to get $2500 from a bride for a fully custom dress. People want to feel like they're on SYTTD without having to pay the money for it. Effing brides.

I further hate the show because brides watch it, see the crazies, and then think that dialing the crazy back from an 11 to a 9.9 somehow makes them "easy" to deal with.

Case in point:
Saturday I had a fitting with a bridal party. 3 bridesmaids, set for 2:00, but I was needing to get it done quickly. Why? Because a dear friend who I haven't seen in about 8 years was in town and that afternoon was the only time she could get together. I get a text an hour early confirming the 2:00 appointment with the oh so cute addition of "knowing my girls it will b more like 2:10 though ;)"
Hell. No. If we set the appointment for a specific time, that is when you show up. If you are more than 5 minutes late, you throw off other clients and will get a fee added to your bill. If you are more than 15 minutes late, you get to reschedule and pay a fee. I don't need a show to make these precious ponies feel even more entitled than they already do.

Lastly, I hate SYTTD because of two words. Pnina Tornai.

Oh, Pnina...may I call you Nina? Yeah, because Pnina is a more like a bad hand in scrabble and less like a name. Anyway, Nina I have so much to say to you. I know you are able to make some truly lovely things.



Elegant, whimsical, flattering, lovely (albeit, overpriced) things




















But then you go and do things like this:





and I just don't think you know how upsetting that is to your mother and I. I mean, no one's mom wants them to design a dress that looks like grandma's bustier combined with a moth-eaten matador bolero sitting on a baby crib ruffle.





















Really, you think this is better? Granted, the sheer sleeves really class it up all Nancy Kerrigan-style, but the lines pointing to the crotch aren't as subtle and tricksy as you think.
















It's not exactly like a girl finishes up her Neverending Story audition/bellydancing class and says "Oh, hey! I better go get married! What to wear? Oh this will do." It is not helped any by the bedazzled biore strip covering the butt crack.

*(I actually thought the one on the right wasn't so bad, then I noticed it wasn't a Tornai. Mystery solved!)











When I have to play the game of Man or Woman, Pregnant or Not, and How Much is Skin? I get a little freaked out. At least you were able to recycle your paper bags to make a skirt!






















Nothing like a full skirt dropped on the hips to make a girl feel slender and tall.
Seriously, Nin, I begin to think you do this just to mock me. I can't even tell if the morons taking this picture left the hanging loops out by accident, or if this is party of your "quirky" design aesthetic.



Look, if you aren't going to take this seriously, I don't see how any of us can help you. Your dresses hurt us and we want you to get help!












I give up.

Coming soon...

Not to worry, my little friends. Wedding season is slowing down and soon I will not only have time to post, but a whole new bunch of crazy stories. Oh man, there must be something in the water, cause this year has had more than it's fair share of bridezillas.

In the mean time, I am figuring out a way to accept submissions of other people's crazy stories and dresses they want me to mock. I've also been asked how I feel about the royal wedding/Kate's dress. Anything else you guys want?

Fantastic plastic

Have I mentioned that people are morons? Well they are.

I had a few fittings with a mom and daughter for a wedding and bridesmaid dress. The mom is the one getting married. The bridesmaid dress needed some taking in and a few other things to look how she wanted it to. The day of her final fitting she walks in and says, "Oh, I didn't know if it was important for you to know, but I'm having breast augmentation surgery in 2 days and didn't know if that would affect how the dress fit."



Considering that wearing a different bra changes how the dress fits, I think going up 3 cup sizes will affect it a bit, but I'm no doctor.
I ended up having to put a lace-up back on it because *shocker!* it wouldn't come close to zipping up after the surgery.

Then, at the bride's final fitting the hips were too big and needed taking in. I asked her if she'd lost weight and she said "Oh, I had a full body wrap. You know, lipo, tuck, everything. It was a couple months ago and I must just have less swelling."



I'm not going to go into my personal feelings about plastic surgery. To each their own, I guess. What I take issue with is that someone who is as familiar with it as this woman was wouldn't realize how much she is screwing me over by not saying ANYTHING until the final fittings.

Oh, and trying to alter a wedding dress to look nice on someone with a boob job is tricky and sometimes impossible. The dresses are designed to be proportionate. When you body isn't, and when parts of your body are unable to move in a natural way, the dress never quite looks right.

On a similar note, I did a hem of a young girl's (around 15) pageant dress. Foof to end all foofiness! While trying to make chit chat with her I asked what got her interested in doing pageants. She said, "Oh, I was watching this show Toddlers in Tiaras, and it made it look like so much fun." I had to choke down my laughter and astonishment since 5 minutes of an episode was enough to send me in a rage and "fun" is the last adjective I would use to describe what I was seeing.

Here's hoping that barbie bride's granddaughter- who they insisted on bringing to the actual final fitting- doesn't get too sick from licking all the mirrors in the shop. Yes. She spent 10 minutes licking mirrors. Hope for the future = officially spent.

Wha?

Every so often I like to look at my stats and see if am getting appropriate validation from teh interwebs. As such, I get to see the search terms people use to find me.

To the person who found my blog typing in "stories about doing the bride" sorry I was not exactly what you were looking for, but thanks for making my brain hurt trying to think of all the reasons for this search. In the words of my favorite STFU Parents commenter, May God have mercy on your soul.

The brides have sucked away my brain matter

At least that's what I'm blaming for the broken-ness of the previous post. Fixed it now.

Oh, brides!

I feel like I should partially explain why I was gone for so long.
1- I was busy sewing, go figure!
2- My husband and I are in the middle of adoption proceedings and it takes time to sign fifty forms stating that you aren't on the child abuse registries of the state you spent a summer in when you were only 18 (true story, peeps).
3- I decided it would be a good idea to start my own line of bridal gowns, so I was basically chained to my sewing machine.
4- Realized that I would make more money working the fry vat than doing highly specialized sewing. Climbed into a vat of Ben and Jerry's and had trouble heaving myself out.
5- Bridal line decided not to sell yet, so belly-flopped back into the sugary goodness.
6- Still traumatized from this nutter

Here's the deal, my pretties. I work in an industry where my clients demand monumental feats for pennies on the dollar. "But, my dress only cost $1500. Why does it cost $200 just to hem it??" Well the simple answer is that I am not a young factory worker "overseas" who is getting paid $40 a month. It costs $200 because it is going to take me about 6 hours to do. I have to remove the lace along the bottom (gently so as not to damage it), unpick the lining, move the horsehair up, hand sew the edge so it looks pretty, sew the lace back on by hand, hem the inner lining, and shorten the 4+ layers of netting. Oh, and that doesn't even factor in driving to fittings, dealing with 10:45 p.m. phone calls, and having your mom/grandma/sister/friend/dog all giving me the stink eye and ask me if I know what I'm doing. Fair enough, I ask myself what I am doing in this business all the time.

My favorite is the cheap bride. The one who has an oh-so-tragically small budget of $10k or so. This poor little flower is very tender and must not be upset because she already has so much to deal with. She can't be bothered to keep track of what's going on in Egypt because what is a revolution compared with the injustice of only having $700 to spend on flowers! She is convinced that wedding dresses are so expensive because of the shops bumping up the price so much and if she could only get rid of the retail element, surely she could get a custom made silk gown for $600 or less. After all, she wants tea length, so that's like 30% less fabric. That should directly correlate to the price she pays, no?

Not only no, but hell no. The fabric is only a very small portion of what makes a dress cost what it does. I may only use $100 on fabric, but I still have to pattern, cut, sew, and fit the blasted thing. Oh, and tea-length can suck it. Take a look at your jeans. Now imagine how many seams were sewn, and how long it took to put together. Now let's think about how much that changes if they are 7 inches shorter. Wait. Give it a minute. Ah, there you go. Yes, it is EXACTLY THE SAME NUMBER OF SEAMS AND STITCHES! Gah. Sorry about the anurysm there.

Now, on to the issue of commisioning something vs. buying off the rack. Allow me to use an analogy to illustrate why the supposition that avoiding the shop will cost you less money. Let's say I want to buy a guitar, but I can't find one that is exactly what I am looking for, plus they seem expensive. If I decide to get one custom built from Gibson from just the wood I want, with my perfect pickups and detailed inlay, do you suppose I will pay more or less than I would buying a factory made guitar sold in a shop. If you said "more" then reward yourself with a cookie, because you won the prize of "common sense" that illudes so many girls whose are too distracted by the shiny new finger trinket they find themselves in possession of.

Brides, if you ask me to make a custom dress for you for less than retail (and with less than 3 months time) I'm going to sue you for damages since my *facepalm* will be strong enough to cause irreperable damage.

Like a phoenix from the ashes!

Ok, I admit. I suck at blogging regularly. It's not been from a lack of crazy brides, I assure you. But you don't want to hear about my slacker-ness. You came for crazies, and that's what you shall get!

Well, apparently I can't think of stories right now, so how about I just mock ugly dresses?

As requested, today I make fun of Tornai dresses.




How many muppets had to die to make this dress? Even if the answer is none, it's still too many. Also, when wearing a hideous gown the color of a teddy ruckspin, be sure to pair it with your pink fox scarf. It's to die for.



No. Just no.



Again with the sheer corset top. Oh, but in case you want to be extra skanky, ride that skirt so low you would make the teen boys in my neighborhood question the choice.



I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DemAAHHHHHH!!! Why did she defile my grandma's doily collection like that?



Atreyu. Don't say her name. Hop on your giant flying dog and save yourself before your inability to look away from the side cut-outs allows her to eat your brains.