Friend forced to sign a waiver agreeing to diet by wedding dress shop

[MotherofGoats]

Shocked. My friend has ordered a very expensive wedding dress from a well-known designer.... she went to be measured this week and was told that because she was "in between" sizes she would either have to pay £450 extra to have it made to her exact size or sign a waiver agreeing to lose around a stone before her final fitting, which is four months before her actual wedding next June. Is this normal? I think it's horrifying and toxic!

Not really. She could presumably have gone a full size up and had it altered. The £450 was for the made to measure in between size.

I read it that they couldn't alter the larger size (or it would be a huge job to do, equalling expensive alteration) and that was why she'd have to pay £450 for an in between one.

If that's an option then that's much better.

On the face of it, awful, but why should the shop factor in costs for a bride who says she's going to lose x to fit into it but doesn't.

Dresses normally aways need to be altered and alterations on are on top of cost.

Why are people presuming the bride is overweight?
The charge for altering if you're in between sizes doesn't change if you're between an 8 and 10, or a 16 and 18.
Someone could go in a size 9 and be 'made' to sign something saying they'll either be a size 8 or pay a stupid amount of money on a certain date.

Mmm, I remember when a friend was getting married a few years ago. Most dress shops were ‘made to order’, ie standard sizes then altered, and started at about £1,000. The actual made to measure dress she opted for was not from a high street ‘bridal shop’ and cost more than £15,000!

I thought it was normal to sign a contract to say its not the shops fault the dress doesn't fit if you gain/lose weight? I definitely signed one

Forced. Shocked. Toxic. Horrifying.

Congratulations @MotherofGoats . You've turned a total non event into DM headline.

The shop has basically asked her to sign a contract of sale that acknowledges that she has chosen a size which doesn't fit her at present. She could have just bought her current size.

Some shoe shops do something similar, if parents buy kids shoes without a fitting.

When I bought my dress the seller insisted I buy the size up and that it could be adjusted. It was too big but had been ordered from an overseas designer so she wouldn't refund. It has also arrived late and then she told me her seamstress was on holiday. Had to get adjusted elsewhere, badly and it caused me so much stress. Tell her to keep looking for one that fits. Mine was backless so couldn't be taken in that easily.

For £450, it won’t be fully “made to measure”. I made my best friends wedding dress, 100% silk, and it easily cost me £400 in fabric alone and it was a very simple design, no lace, obviously I didn’t charge her for my time. If I was a designer, it’d easily have been 2-3x that, again for a very simple dress. Made to measure is INCREDIBLY expensive. Most wedding dresses are made to order, which is different, just means they are not stocked as standard. Where I live you’re on the hook for the dress (you pay up front) and it’s 100% not the dress shop’s problem if you don’t listen to their advice or change weight dramatically.

What if she's currently a healthy weight and the suggested stone loss for next size down puts her into underweight category?

They've offered her the option to have it made to measure, she didn't want to pay for it... so they offered her an alternative which is to lose weight.

The waiver clearly doesn't specify that she must diet or exactly how much weight she must lose to the lb, it's just clarifying that if she chooses to order a dress that's too small for her then doesn't lose the required weight for it to fit, then it's not their fault. Seems fair.

Well then she's an idiot for ordering a dress she needs to be underweight to get into.

Nobody forced her to choose the dress that was too small.

The cowardly OP seems to have buggered off but I'd have thought this was a pretty standard clause for a wedding dress that is dependant on exact measurements.

Personally I would buy the larger size and take it in myself when the time came if needed. It's not hard to take a dress in by a small amount, but even if the OP's friend wasn't confident to do this herself, she could find a local seamstress to do it for less than £450!

I dont get this, I dieted for my wedding and went down 2 stone from a 14 to a 8.

I simply ate less calories and it only took a few months, no PT, gym membership, nutritionalist etc...

People are capable of losing weight by just eating less calories, which costs less not more. I mean I wouldnt recommend putting all your eggs in one basket and buying a dress that doesnt fit but people can easily lose weight if they want to it doesnt require anything more than a little attention and will power.

So you should do it before being measured for your dress, in that case?

Whats that got to do with the point I made?

PP said she will spend more on a nutritionalist and PT to lose weight which is silly because neither of those things are nessacery to diet.

It might be that is more than in between sizes and a range of measurements. I ended up having a toile fitting for my dress (and the associated costs with that) as my measurements were not proportionate to the standard sizes. I then lost more and had to stuff the dress as I lost a lot in my chest (for the first and probably last time). It must be a nightmare for the wedding dress shops but it will be far worse dealing with the optimistic and then finding the dress is too small.

I'd love to see a photo of this. You can blank out the identifying details. I'm wondering if your friend is teasing you?

Just what I thought.

Hehe!! I've lost 2 stone since last August, with the last coming off in the last month. I've lost loads of weight from my face (🤷), ankles, wrists and lower legs (just my luck to.lose it in useless places!!), but not a bit from my belly, bum or arms and I am exactly the same dress size :) (how the hell does that happen??)!!

If it was me, I'd have asked her to sign a waiver to say shed loose the inches in the desired location, otherwise she may well lose a stone, but if most if that is from her face and legs it won't make any difference :)!!!

Wedding dress sizes are awkward too, very few people fit in a off the rack fitted dress.

I had to buy size 14 not because I was 14 before dieting (I bought my dress off peg a week before the wedding when I was a street size 8) but because size 14 was the only one that would fit around the hip but everywhere else need taking in massively especially round the boobs (and Im a DD so not tiny) but I found the proportions of most dresses I tried on to be ridiculous.

The seemstress commented that she could tell most designers where men because its as if they where made with zero clue on what womens bodies are actually like and that she was alway having to completely reset breast cups etc... because they where put in in ways that defied physics lol.

Seems an insane amount of money. Suggest she gets something much cheaper!

She’s not actually been forced to do this though, has she.

The £450 is on top of the cost of the dress. It's to cover the fact that she needs a non standard size. Goodness knows how much the dress costs. Probably thousands

Total misrepresentation of what happened by OP and what the ride will have been asked to sign.

This isn’t a waiver. It’s acknowledgement that Bride is choosing a dress which is too small currently and she is signing to acknowledge that and the fact she will pay for it if it still doesn’t fit.

£450 for alternations is what the shop is charging for the bigger size to be adjusted to fit.

Of course she could walk away and buy neither the dress that is too small currently, or a dress that needs adjustment.

There has been no ‘forced’ about it. Bride was given 3 choices - bigger dress with £450 alterations, smaller dress which currently doesn’t fit (clearly not recommended by shop - hence requirement to sign to acknowledge it doesn’t fit and accepting responsibility to pay) or option to walk away.

Bride CHOSE the go with smaller dress option.
In my view it was a daft choice. She might not fit in it. She will then need to rightly pay for the dress and face stress of looking for last mi Ute alterations, which might not work and the shop is unlikely to be willing to attempt, knowing the dress cannot be made bigger.

Wedding dress shops have seen it all before. The overly optimistic bride who thinks she will slim down to fit the dress…..and then doesn’t. The shop are left with someone blaming them that it doesn’t fit or demanding impossible alterations or refusing to pay for it. By far the safest option is to have a bigger dress that is adjusted to fit you close to the event. Of course you pay for this extra work, but you factor it into the price you’ll pay.

If you can’t afford the dress AND the alterations you choose a different dress that either fits perfectly OR a cheaper dress that is affordable with the necessary alterations.

If OP is still reading this, I’d advise her to get onto friend and tell her to ring the bridal shop ASAP and see if it’s too late to change to the bigger dress - this would be far better.