Alterations by D

I went to D to tailor a bridesmaid dress about 4 years ago. The dress came in late from the bridal store and was twice as big as it should of been (seriously, I could have fit 2 people in the dress), so I was in a panic. I found D online, and I’m so glad I did! She basically rebuilt the dress for me and it fit like a glove. She had to take out some of the ribbing and cut inches off the bottom — a task that she completed quickly and efficiently. She was very thorough with her fittings too– I went in 2 times after the initial fitting to make sure things were on the right track.
Last year I made the mistake of having a bridesmaid dress altered at the bridal shop where I purchased it, and regretted not going back to D. This upcoming year I’m in another wedding and will definitely be contacting D again!

D’s speciality is really hemlines, as she’ll tell you, when she starts talking about her bootstrap beginning at F.I.T.
I’m a short girl who generally finds clothes are all three different sizes, making bridesmaid dreses a nightmare. D gets short girls, since some 60+ years ago she was also an even shorter girl than I am.
The bridesmaid dress I brought D was truly a nightmare from an alterations perspective. The other bridesmaid who is different sizes literally had her whole dress taken apart. The dress had several layers of pouffy along the bottom, and D made sure the pouffy was still there, and as a short girl I was awfully grateful that my dress was the right length. You’d think shortening a dress would be easy, but I’ve had a lot of people screw that up over the years…
On the flip side, D does all of this out of her house, you change in the bathroom she and her husband use. It’s not the most professional or polished set up. She also pushed and talked me out of what I thought needed to be done with the bodice to make the dress work, and it looks bad because of it. The bodice really needed (badly) to be shortened for my torso (the bodice ended below my butt), and the metal pieces inside the bodice needed to be removed or adjusted since the bust stuck out several inches.
Instead, she massively shortened the straps, leaving me with no collarbone area, which looked really weird. She also insisted on leaving a giant lump along the side where she took in the bodice, instead of making a true dart to hide the work, or taking apart the side of the bodice and putting the seam inside the dress. When I brought her the dress I had a month before the wedding, and I was having a hard time finding a tailor I trusted with such a complicated and timely job, so when she finished I didn’t really feel like I had time to find another seamstress. She also charged me $ 80. Considering my last two bridesmaid dress alterations were $ 30 and $ 50 (a true rush), this seemed pretty high.
I will strongly consider going back to D for getting a dress or hemline shortened, and for basic repairwork. Her turn around time is impressively fast – hours or a couple days, depending on the job if you’re in need of something fast. But I would seriously warn people away for bodice work.