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!

I was in between sizes (10-12) when I bought my dress.
They wanted to order the 10 but I said the 12 and I'd have it altered to fit closer to the wedding.
As it was, I lost 1.5 stone and went down to size 8 so the dress was taken in by their own seamstress at a cost of £20!! (The dress was £1500)

I'd tell her to buy the bigger size and just have it altered!

As a bride 20 years ago, I was a small size 8. My dress was made up of 2 pieces - a top and a skirt. The top was slightly loose and the skirt fitted perfectly when I tried on the 8 in the shop. Even then I was strongly recommended to go with a 10 that would be sized down. They had clearly seen lots of brides who get BIGGER between buying and the big day. It can be impossible to make a dress bigger, so the safest option is always to have something a bit bigger, or to make very clear to the bride that the dress cannot be made bigger and will have to be paid for and that the smaller size is NOT what the shop recommends and can take no responsibility for in terms of fitting.

I went with the bigger size and back then paid an additional £100 for re-sizing which happened about 2 weeks before the wedding. The top was adjusted quite significantly and the skirt a little bit. Even the 8 would have needed some adjustments so I’d have had to pay anyway. It removed all worry that I would arrive to find the dress was too tight and not fit. It was the right thing of the shop to encourage me to go for the bigger size and absolutely right for them as the seller of wedding dresses.

Can you imagine the terrible scene when a bride turns up for a fitting and can’t get into her dress and it simply,y cannot be made bigger. Not a pretty sight! Best avoided.

complete over exaggeration. I don't know anyone whose bought a bridal dress and hasn't had to have it altered to fit in some way.
Just buy the bigger size and take it to someone who will alter it for much less than £450. How huge can a size 12 (for example) be on someone who's an 11 anyway! Surely the difference is barely an inch or two?

Reminds me a story I once heard where a woman had her fittings done in regular every day underwear, then went back to her final fitting with full rigby and peller perfectly fitted scaffolding (building reference intentional). Her finely boned dress was fitted to the usual location of her breasts which were now no where new the newly supported location. The dress makers husband was an architecture and said something along the lines of - you really will have to tell these women that it is not acceptable to completely change the foundations, partway through a build.

ignore typos - sorry.. nowhere and architect..

Why are you telling blatant lies?
She clearly hasn't signed a piece of paper that states she will lose one stone in weight.

I don't blame the dress shop for their waiver at all. I imagine they get so many people ordering a dress too small and then trying to get their money back when they don't lose the weight. They need to protect themselves.

This would be my solution.

Spin it positively - if she wants to lose weight then this is the perfect incentive! If she doesn't want to lose weight, or doesn't think she can, then go for the larger size.

I'd pay extra to get it to fit.

I think wedding dresses are made to order as opposed to being made to measure. Then you have it altered to fit you exactly.

What sizes do they come in that the larger size would be too big but the smaller one she’d need to lose an entire stone to fit into?! Bizarre. I’ve never known a dress shop to suggest anything other than prefer the larger one and adjust to fit nearer the wedding

She hasn't been forced to sign a waiver though has she?

She had the option to tell them to stuff their waiver & their dress, & go somewhere more accommodating.

If it's £450 for an alteration, what's she shelling out for the whole frock?
She could find a dressmaker to make her something lovely, that actually fits, for the cost of the alteration alone. I don't know why brides bother with wedding dress shops, they are always over the top on price, & often ghastly in attitude.

I used to work for a wedding dress designer.
All dresses were made to fit the bride - not vice versa.
Clients were told that if alterations were required at the final fitting because of measurement changes, there might be an additional charge.

It’s not a waiver agreeing to diet, it’s a waiver agreeing that if the dress doesn’t end up fitting it’s her problem and not the shop’s. Fair enough.

I’ve never heard of this, new one on me

There's a better dress for her out there methinks

Your thread title isn't accurate.

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

Nobody can force a customer to sign anything.

they will be given options and asked to choose which option they prefer.

I don't think anyone is holding a gun to her head to sign this, if she doesn't want to surely the response is "no thanks, I'll look elsewhere"

£200 seems cheap for alterations, I paid more to have a dress taken in a tiny bit and that was over 10 years ago. Was the £200 a quote from this shop?

Hmmm tbh this does make sense. Imagine how many women choose an aspirational size and then it doesn't fit. If you're paying for alterations of an off the rail dress that's not a custom dress. A few hundred is very fair it will be a lot of work.

So how would that work? If they ordered the size smaller and she was a size bigger?

Due to the excitement and stress my friend lost quite a bit weight in the couple of weeks before her wedding. She had not realised. Fortunately she had a bodice that laced up at the back. I ended up pulling on those corset ribbons for dear life so that her boobs didn’t fall out at the altar. It was a bit like that scene in Gone with the Wind when Scarlett is imploring her maid to pull tighter.

I bought a one off dress designed by a woman that ran a tiny little bridal dress shop. I loved the dress so much I gushed about when I tried it on, it I think she was just really pleased I adored it so much. She altered it for free and it needed a lot of alternations.

It is madness buying a dress that is too small.

I don't believe the wording is that she "has to lose a stone". It may well be she has signed to say she has ordered size whatever and she bears the cost of that whether it fits or not. If there is a problem she needs to go the next size up rather than bleating about it - sorry to be harsh!

Friend wasn't forced to do anything. She freely entered into an agreement.

She could have walked out the door and found an alternative dress.

More fool her for thinking this is a good idea, until she really does want/need to lose weight and is happy to make a concerted effort to do so. I would argue that some brides to be will see this as perfect motivation and be completely fine about it.

Surely if the dress was very expensive and from a well known designer she would have just paid the £450 to get the size exactly right

I can't imagine the waiver actually said she needed to lose a stone but rather that if she was buying a dress that was currently too small then that is solely her responsibility which is fair enough