When Je’Nae brought her wedding dress to us we found the main issue was the bodice was much too big. She had an ample bust, but she didn’t want to have too much cleavage.

We wanted her bodice to give her shape and support without her feeling like she might spill out the top of her dress. First, we added the correct size and color cups to see how that helped. Finding the right shade of cups in the bridal industry has been a real challenge because the bridal industry just recently started being more inclusive for people of color. Even then, there are NOT many bridal companies that make illusion necklines in darker shades. Just finding something like cups in a variety of shades has only recently become moderately easier. Seamstresses and customers have been pushing for bridal companies and sewing supply companies to be more inclusive. In the past seamstresses' hand dyed the cups and mesh to match each of their customers unique skin tones. In the past year our favorite sewing supply company Wawak began offering more shades in liner cups AND has started adding lift options!


We are over the moon about this development! All brides deserve to see themselves reflected in the bridal options available to them! At the time of working on Je’Nae’s dress there was only one company that sold cups in her shade and you had to buy 12 pairs of one shade in one size. To use the remaining cups we would have needed 11 other brides with the same exact cup size and shade! Obviously it was well worth it to have the cups we needed for her dress but we try to avoid being wasteful. Because of the variety of cups now available, we can order one size and one shade.
We pinned her dress to have it taken in on both sides of the dress.


This alteration is going to help with the shape of the dress while simultaneously making sure the gaping neckline was fixed. A dress with two skinny little straps for someone full chested can cause gaping just because of the natural shape of the body. An option for brides with a similar problem is a little bit of body tape to keep the dress from gaping. We always recommend our favorite brand Top Stick (which is actually toupee tape) to all of our brides.

When we worked on the bodice of the dress, we had to remove ALL of the boning. Her dress was designed to mimic a corset top so the boning is intentionally visible in the bodice. We had to baste (a loose temporary stitch) every piece of boning back into the bodice to give it the right structure and shape for her fit check. We didn't want to permanently reattach the boning until all of our work was done because if the bodice needed more tweaking, we would have had to take it out and sew it back over and over. The lace couldn’t be added back on top of the boning until all of the boning was reattached correctly. The lace had a very distinct shape and silhouette which required a lot of planning to put it back on. We did warn Je’Nae that her bodice was going to look crazy at her second fitting. Just so she wasn't shocked at how it looked in progress.

We had to remove some lace to take it in but didn’t want it to look like any of the lace was missing.







This type of bodice design was very complicated to work on! Her dress also had a lot of glitter which required cleaning after every time we worked on it as well as after each fitting. Glitter seriously got everywhere!

The real challenge of Je’nae’s dress was the complex bodice which made the rest of her dress a breeze for us! We shaped the skirt of the dress at the hips so it was more fitted to accentuate her curves. We took in both hips at the sides, under her butt which is called a “booty scoop”, and also the front princess seams to shape it to her figure.

Her dress was already the correct length so we didn’t need to hem it. She chose a french bustle for her lining layer and a traditional bustle for the top layer.


In the end Je’Nae was a radiant bride! Her dress fit her like a glove and really complimented her beauty.




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