Congratulations, you said yes to the dress! Now all that’s left is to get your gown altered, whether you’re making your own customizations or simply making it fit you perfectly. Here at Pritchétt, we have our very own team of master seamstresses, with over 100 years of combined experience! We want to make sure you get the best experience from start to finish, and that includes alterations.
Depending on the time of year, alterations can take anywhere from four to eight weeks to complete your gown. When you have your alterations done at Pritchétt, you’ll come in for three different fittings. The first one is where you’ll meet your seamstress, talk about what you want done to your dress, and begin pinning it in place. The next one will be a check-in, where you’ll try on your gown again while it’s in the process of being altered to make sure everything is going smoothly. Your final fitting is where you’ll try on your gown one last time with your seamstress before taking it home with you!
Your First Fitting
Odds are, this will be your first experience ever having your clothes tailored. Here are our tips to make sure you have the best experience at Pritchétt Alterations you can possibly have!
Tip One: Don’t wear a lot of makeup! This one might seem unexpected, but we encourage our brides to come in with clean hands, skin, and hair. We do everything we can to make sure your dress stays as clean as possible, and you’ll want to avoid getting makeup (or self-tanner!) on it when you're putting it on and taking it off. Make sure that anyone who comes to your fitting with you also has clean hands, because everyone will be touching the dress and you don’t want any smudges or fingerprints on it. We want to spend less time cleaning and more time sewing!
Tip Two: Wear a high-quality, supportive bra. Better yet—come in with the exact bra you’re planning to wear on your wedding day, if any. Don’t wear a sports bra, you won’t be wearing that on your wedding day and it will give your bust a different shape. Take this as an excuse to buy a new bra! You want something that’s lifting, supportive, and comfortable. If you plan on wearing shapewear under your dress, bring that as well. Your seamstress is going to pin and alter your gown based on the exact undergarments you’re wearing at your fitting. And you can even leave them with your dress so you don’t forget anything at your second fitting!
Tip Three: Bring your wedding shoes to your appointment. In the same way that your seamstress will be pinning around your bra, you’ll need the exact shoes you plan on wearing on your wedding day so the hem on your dress is the perfect length. This is the most important thing to remember when you’re preparing for your fitting—we can’t hem your dress or start altering it without knowing exactly how tall you’ll be on your big day.
Tip Four: Have your hair up. When you’re meeting with your seamstress you will want to see exactly how each seam and fold in the fabric will lay, and it’s much easier to envision the final product with your hair up in a bun. If you’re holding it out of the way, it can affect the way your shoulders or sleeves lay because your arms will be up instead of resting at your sides. You don’t want your hair getting caught in pins or zippers. It also makes it much easier for our seamstresses!
Tip Five: Don’t lock your knees. We don’t want any of our brides to pass out in the middle of their appointment! Odds are you’ll be standing for a while as your seamstress is pinning your dress. This is especially important for brides who have dresses with a lot of layers—the more layers you have, the more layers there are to hem.
Perfection Takes Time
Keep in mind that your dress isn’t going to look wedding-day ready at your first fitting appointment, or even the second. It’s not going to be perfect yet, and it will be full of pins. At Pritchétt we make sure that every single dress is altered professionally and done with the highest quality possible; that level of care is something that takes time. It’s important to trust your master seamstress—feel free to ask her as many questions as you need to. Our team takes pride in connecting with their brides and helping them feel comfortable and excited about being in the dress of their dreams.
When you have your dress altered at Pritchétt, you’re in great hands. We won’t let you leave with your dress until it’s absolutely perfect! Call our alterations office or visit us any time to schedule your first fitting. See you soon girlfriend!