Do Bridal Dress Alterations

　　Every bride want to have a prefect wedding, and they always spend much time on preparing for their wedding. Dress alteration is often one of the most time-consuming tasks. Most wedding dresses are sold in stock sizes that must be altered to fit the bride’s specific contours. When the budget is tight, a bride may ask dressmaker to alter her dress, or may alter the dress by herself. This is not a task that can be done by a novice seamstress, however. Great care, skill, and attention to detail is required.

Allow the bride to put the dress on. Pull the slack evenly on both sides of the bodice at the seam to get a sense of how much will need to be taken in. If you only pull to one side, the bodice will be uneven. It is crucial that you keep the dress centered on the bride’s body. Mark the fabric where the new seams will be with a chalk pen.
Measure how much will have to be hemmed up from the bottom of the dress. Hemming needs to be the same all the way around the dress, which can be tricky when a train is involved. Mark where the new bottom should be with fabric chalk and pin it up with straight pins. You will need a straight pin about every 2 inches. Measure the hem once it is pinned to be sure that it is even all the way around.
Use the seam ripper to undo the seams in order to sew new ones if needed. Sometimes you can leave the old seams if the bride plans to pass the dress on. In this case, you will need to carefully work around the original seams, while still taking the dress in — a challenge for any seamstress. Ripping the seams out and starting fresh is easier, but not by much. After ripping the seams, you will need to alter each layer of the dress individually.
Sew the new seams using the same stitch that the manufacturer used on the dress. Manufacturers will always use the stitch that works the best with that particular fabric, which takes the guess work out of some of the alteration.
Sew the hem into all layers of the skirt of the dress. Just like with the bodice, you can choose to leave the length on the dress so you can let it out again later if needed, or you can cut it off. Perform at least one more fitting, and take note of any other alterations you need to get the dress fitting perfectly. It is not uncommon for alterations to take several iterations.
Press the dress and steam all wrinkles out once all alterations are complete. This gives the dress a crisp, fresh look for the wedding ceremony.