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.

Wow. Just wow.

Since it's been a while, I thought I would share one of my favorite stories. I should go ahead and say right now that this did not happen to me, nor in any of the shops I have worked in/with. It happened to a friend I worked with who not only made me do a full spit take when I heard it, she also gave me permission to post it*. Yay!

Quite often in this industry we are confronted with brides who are rather sheltered. Much as I don't want to have to explain the facts of life to a girl who should have known them for years, it does come up. At this point I am rarely surprised by the deer-in-the-headlights look on a fresh young face when I ask if they will be going on any oral contraceptives. The fact is, I kind of need to know that since some people react strongly to the hormones. It does me no good to fit a dress to you and then have you call me a week or two later complaining about the bust feeling too tight. Even so, this shocked me.

My friend was working as a consultant in a higher end shop and had a girl and her mom come in looking at dresses. She was getting married in a couple months and tried on a few things, but nothing was really doing it for her. Friend grabbed a dress that she thought the bride would like and waited while she put it on. After a few minutes the bride came out and it wasn't sitting at all right. The problem was that the bride, whose chest was a bit larger, hadn't properly placed the girls into the dress (this is common knowledge, right? You have to kind of lift and set in place...you know about this, right?)and the result was an unfortunate quad-boob effect. Friend tried to delecately tell her that she needed to adjust herself and the dress would look fine. Here is the transcript:

Friend- So if you just pull the top down and kindof set the chest in place it will look right.
Bride-*Vacant stare*
Friend- Yeah...just go ahead and lift yourself into the dress.
Bride-*blink* huh?
Friend- *Getting a bit frustrated* Ok, you are going to have to lift and set your breasts into the cups of the dress for it to sit properly on you, so go ahead and reach in and do it. You can go back into the dressing room and do it if you are more comfortable.
Bride- Um, that's M@STERBATION!!
Bride's Mom- *nodding*
Friend- *Head explodes from the stupid*

Yup, she actually thought that the act of touching her own breasts in a purely functional way was self-love, but she decided to make the statement at full volume in a very busy shop. Way to keep it klassy!

I have just a few questions for her like how do you shower or put on a bra or what if, heaven forbid, you get the dreaded itchy boob? Also, you do realize that you are going to be getting married in a month and your husband will be expecting to be granted access, right? Should my friend have refferred to them as your dirty pillows? Ah, love. Stupid, silly, over-sheltered, basic biology shunning, Jesus horse riding, Darwin side-stepping, shameful love.


*I love stories. Love lovey love. If you have crazy stories, email them to me and I will give you mad props and a pony**.

**Pony not available in all areas.