Shortening the Art Couture Downton Dress

I thought cutting lace dresses up in half was enough of  a challenge, but lately I have  had a few dresses where the zip has to be taken out partly or fully to shorten the dresses to the new length by pushing extra fabric put through waist.

Here is an example of a dress I just did.Its the Art couture Downton Bridal dress which has a fishtail silhouette.  This particular dress needed to be shortened by 6inches .

Fist completely separate the top half of the outer dress . Separate the netting layers from the satin layer. then push out all the unwanted length to above the waist. Take out excess from the waist through the zip as well . Trim off all the excess to the desired seam allowance you need to have then stitch the layer together at the waist.

Front and back of the top part of skirt after extra has been pushed out and upwards.

The dress I did had embroidered straps attached .

For the other half of the dress. The petticoat layer has to have the excess netting in the under skirt cut off, the lining layers need to be adjusted to new length . My reason for trimming off the netting from the bottom is to make the dress as true to its original shape as possible as if we raise it from the wasit the fishtail starts to come out at the wrong place in the final silhouette. 
The top half of the outer dress now needs to be atttached to the bottom half. I normally do all the adjustments needed on the upper half ( at the fitting )of the dress when the dress is separated like this as it makes handling easier. Once the dress is again all in one piece you have to level the entire Satin layer so that it balances the outer layers and then reattach the zip to the bottom half.