Evelyn: More Sleeve Please!

I arrived at my second fitting to find my beloved looking kind of scraggly. She was the right length now, but she had threads hanging out all over the place and was stripped of the majority of her beautiful buttons.

Unless a dress advertised to be temple ready is purchased, in most cases an LDS bride has to choose whether she wants to go with a bolero or pay to have sleeves custom built into her dress. There are specific parts of the body that must be covered, as I spoke about here, and 99% of mainstream dresses do not fit the bill.

3 years ago I would have told you I was going to buy a bolero (yes I have been planning this thing for like 10 years), but I decided it wasn't for me. I think I also liked the challenge of finding a way to maintain the integrity of the dress while making it temple ready at the same time.

To create sleeves, A Bride Beautiful simply ordered some extra fabric from Watters when they ordered my dress. At my first fitting the seamstress and I discussed the look I was going for, and she was able to whip something up in just 2 days for me. I asked her to make sure that the V was high enough that I didn't have cleavage hanging out of my dress the entire day.

Here I am with my signature bun, modeling the mockup. Can you even tell what is new and what is old? This fitting had me so excited to see the final product.

We also agreed that little "modesty panels" as I like to call them, should be added around the armpit area and up near the bra line, so that I would be covered as I move around throughout the day. It was the only decision we made that took away from the asthetic of the dress a little bit, but I was willing to make the sacrifice.

I was instructed to come back the next day at closing time to pick up the finished product. Time couldn't go by fast enough!