The Story: Well, there I was at the church, my Bridesmaids and Mother helping me into the dress… all of the day’s preparations were now coming to an end…
I had one of those invisible zippers on the side – it was a difficult zipper to begin with, but I’d always been able to get it closed when I was working with the seamstress, etc. They zipped it up, and I started moving to the right to grab something, when all of them at the same time started yelling, “No! Stop!” So, I did – and when I turned to face the Bridesmaid who had the main hold of the zipper – she was staring at my Mom behind me. And, she refused to answer me when I kept asking what was wrong…
I am now less than an hour away from my wedding ceremony, and the zipper was broken. Seriously.
I sat there for hours while various people tried to fix it – but, it was a lost cause… a few teeth on the zipper had broken, and one side refused to move. Even worse – I am in a hot room with no a/c or a fan, and I am covering my boobs with my arm, because I had taken it down below them in order to make the zipper more accessible. We finally found a fan – and, I just remember that I kept yelling at my Mom to keep the door closed because I could literally see my groom outside getting pictures done with the groomsmen.
My amazing Bridesmaids were standing by with tissue to keep blotting the sweat from my hairline, so that my makeup didn’t run. I think I maybe cried – but, I remember thinking at the time that it didn’t matter – “cry all you want – the dress is f***ed” was more specifically what I thought. Everything else had been going too smoothly – this was it – this was my nightmare… something had to go wrong! 
Pay attention – because if you have an invisible type zipper on your dress – this could save you!
My wedding planner had everything in the world in that “wedding emergency kit” – but nothing that could help… we tried pliers – but, they were too oily, and could have ruined the dress with big black streaks. We were running out of time – the guests were here, we had to do something. At that point, I was ready to walk down the aisle wearing the white tee shirt and linen pants that I had worn to the church… but, there was one final option, if we could find the means to do it.
My Mom said it first, I think… “sew her into the dress.”
It just so happened that Christine – my Grandfather’s wife of several years – was a seamstress! And, she also brought her small sewing kit with her everywhere she went. Of course – it was at the hotel, and not the church. So, we sent her on a ride with my cousins to the hotel in an urgent attempt to get that sewing kit… in the meantime, we were able to dig up a needle and thread from the church, so my Mom started the job. She was about 6 stitches in when Christine got back, and started going to work. Thank god she was fast, and good at what she does. I was not going to be getting out of that dress until I took scissors to it at the end of the night! It reminded my friends and I of something medieval – like being locked into some kind of chastity belt or something before my wedding night.
The rest of the wedding went off without a hitch – it got me through the entire night with no problems! It made a great story for the reception also – as word of the debacle had made its way around the room by the time I arrived.
At the end of the night – I borrowed scissors from the hotel front desk on our way up to the room – my husband had to carefully break the stitching without damaging the rest of the dress (which, to my surprise – he did!) Then, I had to finally just do what I had wanted to do back at the church – just break the damn zipper apart to free myself from the dress…. it felt great.
Now, here is what is left of the side seam of my dress, where we had to stitch over the zipper:
The dress only needs a new zipper, fortunately – it wasn’t damaged otherwise. Now, the looks on my face in these pictures (originally shown in another post below) makes a bit more sense – they were all taken in the Bride’s Room at the church, after my dress was sewn up:
How can YOU be prepared for something like this:
Keep in mind – my dress was NOT a cheap one! This can TOTALLY happen to you! Just have the following items, and information with you in that magical “emergency” kit that you are supposed to have:
- A full spool of white thread – along with black, because tuxedos are not immune to debacles!
- A set of needles, and a box of straight pins
- Scissors, and a seam-ripper for the end of the night!
- Good Bridesmaids, and lots of tissue to blot, while you sweat out the situation!
I was fortunate enough to have a fantastic seamstress… but, you may not be so lucky. Think about who will be in that room with you, and if you cannot think of a single person that knows how to use a needle and thread decently… write down these steps:
- Thread your needle, and pull it through to reach the end where you cut the opposite end from the spool – you should have a doubled thread to sew with. Make a knot at the end (you can cheat by wrapping the end of the doubled thread strand around your finger 3 times, then rolling it off the end of your finger, and pulling down the threaded mess until it creates a knot… it works, I swear!)
- You don’t want to damage the dress – be careful! Your very first stitch should go through the INSIDE/Underneath first, then come out – you don’t want the knot to show!
- As you stitch one side to another, make sure that as you complete a full stitch – you loop the needle through the stitch itself, creating a solid knot, essentially – the same kind of stitch that you would use to finish anything sewn by hand.
- When you get to the end of that thread, do a few of those looped stitches to hold. One thread should only partially get you through the length of the zipper – ideally. You want to have several “sections” of stitching, using several different lengths of thread. If you have several sections, this will save you in the unfortunate event that the stitching does not hold for some reason… if the stitching comes apart in one section – the rest will stay put. This saves you from showing off the goods to your new in-laws!
- Once you’re done – you are sewn into that dress until the end of the night! Just hang on to that seam-ripper for the end of the night. If you can manage to rip open your last-minute stitches only – that means that you don’t damage the dress, and it only needs a zipper replacement to be good again! Ta-da!
Remember, it happened to me… it can happen to you! But, you can save yourself the heartache by being prepared!
Tags: Bridesmaids
January 9, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Hi,
A nasty moment for you, but at least you were surrounded by some competent people who rescued you in the nick of time.
Our wedding was not so fortunate. If you’d like to see the range of things that could go wrong, take a look at my blog.
Best wishes
Greg