Saturday, motherof the bride/groom fiasco

     Disclaimer:  This is my fault, it has always been my fault and will continue to be my fault. This mother is a nice person, I like her. She is just well.... you be the judge.  Somehow I just miss communicated. Or people think I am magic.

     I have girlfriends in my church.  Their daughters/sons get married. Many of them sew.  They come to me with problems.  Everyone knows each other as it is a small community.  So this problem probably started back about 15 years ago.

     Girlfriend #1.  She comes to me with her daughters wedding dress and she can't gt the neck line right.  As soon as I saw it I knew she had not cut the trim on the neck binding on the bias of the fabric so the fabric would not lay right.  Yes she would have to remove all the beading and remove trim and start over.  Now I feel her stress level rise.  She shows me her mother of the bride dress pattern and material.  She is a short chubby and very pretty dark haired woman.  The black lace sheath dress and material she has chosen is going to do nothing for her except make her look like an old Jewish krumke.  I can say this as my relatives are Jewish.  Her daughters wedding colors are black and a dark burgundy maroon.  So I say, "you are not wearing black to your daughters wedding.  Leave me this mess and go and take care of the wedding dress, but first let me take your measurements.". 

     I return material and pattern to Joanns and choose a dark, maroon, shantung and a fitted straight skirt and peplum suit pattern. Yes she is short and chubby but she has a very narrow waist for her size.  So I proceed to make her a fitted straight skirt that also fits and flares from the waist.  I put pearl buttons on it and had her wear pearls and put her hair in a french twist.  She looked stunning.  She had a suit fitted to her in a monochromatic color.  It emphasized her good not her bad.  Of course it became public knowledge that I did this.

Girlfriend #2.  Same scenario as above only she had purchased two mother of the bride assembles. both which made her look well (Hideous).  She also had fabric for 7 vests she was making for the men.  Tension was high.  Her husband had just had back surgery and had developed an infection so was life flighted out of this small town.  I just took the things away from her and took her measurements and said basically," I can do this in about 4 hours.  You will not have it done in four days, let me do this for you."   I made her a fitted suit in a deep purple. She was beautiful.

Myself:   When you are short and not thin, putting a sloppy large dress on just makes you look bigger.  Tailored clothes look better.  Less material, less you.  My daughter got married and I waited until the week before to find myself something to wear.  Ended up with a olive green vogue suit made out of sofa material.  Later sold suit and shoes to a lawyers wife for her 50th wedding anniversary.

     Enter Mother of the bride#3:  Same scenario but she does not sew .  She and her husband both have very good jobs and she works full time.  More power to her.  She wants a suit just like the one I made for Girlfriend #1 but in red.  Now she is going to pay for my services but would rather trade something which I thought was odd as they have money.  But her husband is an electrician and I desperately needed some electrical work-in the shop. So I tell her I don't think that the pattern I used for Girlfriend #1 is what she wants.  Her body is different and she is bigger through the waist she would look better in a sheath type.  But no I was going to make her look like Girlfriend #1 and #2.  So I proceed to make suit, which was well done but did not really scream great on her.  I don't know if she wore it or not.  Her husband (whom I like very much ) is quite the dandy and he might have told her she looked like a blood clot.  Anyway she comes back to me and says her husband will not do  any electrical work outside his job as he is tired and she needs him at home on the weekends, so she will take tickets at a dance studio show to make up for my taking 12 hours to make her a suit.  I was hurt (pissed) but I did not stand up for myself and was taken advantage of as usual.

Myself:  I will wait until Talbots has an 85% off sale and buy suits or dresses that are not in my size and recut them to fit. Or I will buy a dress that is too short and another and then add a piece to lengthen the dress.  Now I can do this for very little money.  I can also go crazy at Talbots and way overspend but those days are behind me.:)  I don't go around bragging about this but it is common knowledge that I will take a $1.00 dress and add some frippery to make something really cute.  You noticed I said cute.  I do not have the bone structure to be beautiful, I am relegated to cute.

Now Mother of the bride/groom comes to me again with two dresses.  Both are way to tight for her.  She wants me to take fabric out of the smaller dress and add panels under the arms on each side to make dress bigger, and also fashion a sleeve out of the other dress.  This dress has a weird bodice set up and I don't know how a sleeve will set in also it has a scalloped lace hem which has to be pieced together correctly.  I just don't see it coming together like she wished.  I wear a lot of sheath type dresses, I know how they should fit through the shoulders, this one is not really going to cut it.  Coco Channel said a good dress falls from the shoulders.  It does not fall and stop and then fall and stop. Well yes I can add panels.  Yes I have done it before on my dresses but... it is like I can't tell her, or she won't listen to me.  She does not get it. She just expects me to make it look good and I really have my doubts.

   Okay your thoughts, let me have it.  I am not out to make enemies.  I like these people, I just don't get why they expect me to do what really can't be done.

Kim