Not for the faint hearted ... lace dress shortening

People often ask me how I do shortening of a lace bridal dress. I have done massive shortening of lace dresses (upto 5 inches or more!) as unfortunately they never come in perfect length increments to cater to everyone's height.Sometimes the dress has a waist cutline which makes life a lot easier but sometimes you just have to do it the hard way.

If the dress has no cutlines at all ,the trick is to find the narrowest part of the dress. If its a figure hugging dress the best place is just above knee and if its an empire cut line dress then it could be just under the cut-line. Take a picture of the part of the dress where you chose to add the cut-line.

Unpick carefully so the netting does not get any holes. 

Think of an imaginary cut-line that you would put under the lace in order to shorten it, bearing in mind where the zip is placed in the dress.Now start unpicking on both sides of your imaginary cut line this could be in a diagonal on certain dress styles along the back if a zip is present at the back.. but this always varies..(mark it with a thread. I usually mark the amount needed to be taken out with a black thread). Most of  the wedding dresses have lace mounted on the netting with an invisible nylon thread on the outer side and a white thread used in the bobbin.

The extra seam allowance created  after the stitching needs to be cut off .

When you have unpicked sufficient amount of the lace make your cut-line by pining.Tweak the cutline by placing on the mannequin to ensure all is visually symmetrical .Then stitch the cutline as a seam using a nylon invisible thread on one side and a white thread in the bobbin; now cut off any excess fabric keeping the seam allowance 1cm maximum,

 All that is left now is to reattach all your lace pieces looking at a picture taken at the beginning to keep it similar to how it was attached to the dress before the unpicking. The most easy way is to do them by hand as trying to do it by machine is sometimes not possible. Now readjust the side seams according to new hip level if shortening was done above waist.to finish off the dress redo any embroidery needed on the lace.Shorten any other layers of the dress as needed .

I find adopting this method is the best as all the lace dresses I have seen always have heavy beadwork on the hem and the hems are so wide. Shortening through the hem is not an impossible job as I have done that as well if the design cannot accomodate a cut-line,but its an extremely time consuming and costly job.

Here is how the dress looks on the body