Emergency Alterations You Might Need to Do on The Wedding Day
When your wedding day arrives, hopefully it goes smoothly and nothing goes wrong. Most times, there is a thing or two that goes wrong that you did not expect until the day of. This happens so many times in life. Especially on your wedding day, it’s better to know beforehand than later. The following four disasters below are the most common wedding day disasters. I will provide my emergency alterations hacks on what to do if you happen to be in one, or multiple, of these situations.
Zipper breaks or gets stuck
If the fabric lining gets stuck while trying to zip up the dress, then carefully separate the back fabric from the zipper pull and unzip the gown. Usually, zippers gets stuck and will not fully zip up. I recommend getting a white crayon, a bar of soap, or zipper lubricant to lubricate the zipper teeth. If the zipper will not stay up, then try using safety pins to secure the dress. Keep a needle and white thread on hand and have someone on hand to sew you into your dress if all else fails.
Stains
Whether it’s makeup or a food stain, stains are very unwelcome on your wedding day no matter what. I suggest having a Tide Stick on hand or a small bottle of blue Dawn dishwashing soap on hand to use just-in-case. Blue Dawn is my dry cleaning and stain removing hack. Blue Dawn gets out literally everything. Apply a droplet of Dawn onto a cloth and wet the cloth and stain. Carefully scrub out the stain without damaging the fabric fibers in the wedding dress. Be careful that it does not take color out of the ivory, stark white, or pure white gown.
Bustle breaks
Your bustle is designed to hold up the train of your dress for basically the whole reception portion. It usually rips or breaks from people stepping on the bottom of the dress, pulling the bustle down and ripping. Most times, the fabric bustled up is too heavy and rips from dancing and gravity pulling down on it. Ask your seamstress to install a backup wrist bustle using ribbon to carry your train around your wrist. If you decide against a wrist bustle, carry large safety pins with you. You can pin the layers up to the dress where your bustle originally was. This will hold for the rest of the day. I have seen several examples of this post-wedding in the repairing and preservation process. No one usually notices that the bustle or hem will rip, so it is no big deal in the moment.
Straps rip off
Out of all the options I have listed here, this one is the easiest emergency alterations fix. You just need a needle and white thread to get the straps (or even snaps) back in place. Use small stitches in a back and forth motion. Do not sew through all of the fabric layers so it is not visible from the outside of the dress.
I hope you do not have to conduct emergency alterations on your wedding day. However, it is better to have these items even if you do not use them. Check out Wedding Gown Preservation Kit to prepare your own emergency alterations wedding day kit.