Alteration Disasters

As a professional seamstress, I am often called on to fix other people’s sewing mistakes. Well-meaning friends, relatives, and the like are always eager to help; however, they often bite off more than they can chew and get themselves in over their heads in a hurry, especially with bridal alterations.

My entrance into the wild business of bridal alterations came when a theatre friend called me for emergency alterations. The bride in question was the daughter of her best friend, and they had taken the gown to a well-meaning “lady at church.” The gown was a strapless mermaid, and it needed the side seams taken in, the skirts shortened, and a bustle put in. So what had the church lady done? She had only taken it in at the top to about 2” down, and that was it. They paid her a reasonable sum for not much work, and she wasn’t returning phone calls—probably because she knew she’d messed up.

Enter me. I undid the minimal work the “lady at church” had done and proceeded to pin the gown up according to the bride’s preferences. One of those preferences was that it be so tight she looked like a doll in it. One side effect of said pinning was that she was unable to walk. However, she still insisted that I sew it like that. Even at that time, I knew physics was NOT going to be on our side, but I sewed it down anyway.

The fitting went as predicted. She was actually surprised when she couldn’t walk. We eventually adjusted everything, and the wedding went off without a hitch. To this day, however, I STILL hate strapless mermaids.

The second bride had allowed a well-meaning future mother-in-law to take a crack at her dress. Said bonus mom took in the side seams, but very unevenly. She adjusted the straps but didn’t tuck in the extra fabric, AND to add insult to injury, the bustle was in a very unflattering state. The bride told me her nephew burst into the room while she was trying the dress on, took one look at the bustle, and proudly told her aunt that she had “unicorn butt.” I must have laughed until I cried for at least five minutes. To this day, I use that phrase to describe unflattering bustles.

Bride #3 had taken her crepe gown to just a run-of-the-mill alterations person who had little to no experience with bridal but who had assured the bride she could handle it. When the bride sent me her bridal portraits to show what the other person had done, I was appalled. First, the bust darts were in horrible shape. They didn’t do anything to help the bustline at all. They may as well have not even been there. She didn’t trim the hemline, so the skirts were pooling on the floor. This may look cool in pictures, but it’s not practical. She also attempted to take in the bodice seams, but they were uneven. Then she told the poor bride that she didn’t need a bustle—to just carry the skirt around with her.

When the bride came to see me and I got a look under the hood, so to speak, at the actual work done, I was beside myself. To say that it was amateur and messy is being nice. So I undid everything and pinned the dress on the bride. She had tears in her eyes while looking in the mirror–partly out of shame at her mistake but mostly out of gratitude and relief that I knew what I was doing and could make the dress fit her like a glove. Hard lesson learned.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that all amateurs have horrible skills. Quite the opposite actually, as I was an amateur once. What I AM saying is that amateurs of all stripes tend NOT to know when to quit or to ask for professional help. My own mistakes have led me to hiring a web designer, an accountant, a prop maker, and the like. Some things—some big and small things—are just too important not to have a professional handle it.

Until next time, dear readers. May your bobbins be full and your seams straight!

Heather

Horror Stories

Most of the time, my clients are happy folk, excited about the life change that’s the impetus of them coming to see me. Occasionally, though, my Spidey-Sense goes off, and I detect a sinister undercurrent that leaves me wondering how to handle things and remain professional about it.

Couple #1 didn’t initially set off any alarms. They were an “encore” couple getting married.

Both had spouses who had died, and both, as it turned out, were in their late seventies. They were having a casual get together with just their family, so the alterations weren’t the usual taxing affair. About a year later, they came to see me again to bring me several dresses that she was going to wear for a cruise. While she was changing, the husband told me of plans he had to get her plastic surgery. Apparently, she was to have lipo and a tummy tuck–at 80! I was appalled. After that comment, I watched him very closely as he told her what did and didn’t look good on the dresses. He even told me how to do my job. I was having serious heebie-jeebies by now.

I did the work, and they came back to try everything on. According to him, however, nothing I did was right. Not only did he bash me, but he also bashed her throughout the fitting. I got them both out of the studio as fast as I could. I completed the fixes on the dresses, but I neither wanted him back in my studio nor wanted to spark anything between them, so I merely texted her that the dresses were ready, that I wouldn’t be charging for them, that I only wanted her to come to the studio, and that I wouldn’t be servicing them ever again.

The pickup went without incident, but I still couldn’t help feeling like there was something seriously wrong about them.

The second couple was a guy in his late forties and what appeared to be a mail-order bride. He contacted me initially, but when they brought in the dress, I was not given her number even after I asked for it. Again, he nit-picked over her, the dress, and my pinning. Her English was good, but I could tell she hadn’t been in the U.S. for long. She was a waif of woman, perhaps ten years younger than he, and he was three times her size. I looked very carefully over what I could see of her body for bruises, but it seemed that, if they were there, they were hiding in places I couldn’t professionally broach.

When they came for the fitting, he was on the phone, and she arrived first. I could tell she was more comfortable without him there as she answered my questions about the dress with more confidence. Just as I was about to ask her if she was okay, he walked in the door, and she immediately shrank back into herself. She continued to visibly shrink throughout the fitting under his scrutiny, though she did smile readily when he complimented her.

Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I just couldn’t shake the dread when he was present.

The third incident was between a mother and her daughter. The bride came to see me by herself for the initial pinning, but the mother was there for the fitting. I’m not certain if she was present for the purchase of the gown, but she seemed more than surprised that it left her daughter’s arms uncovered.

Apparently, the daughter had a skin condition that rendered her arms unacceptable to view, according to the mother. Personally, I didn’t notice anything. It must have been a discoloration more than a rash of sorts. What really got to me was the tongue thrashing she gave her daughter over it. It escalated to the point that the bride dissolved in tears and I had to ask the mother to leave my studio.

I calmed the bride down, asked about the condition, and assured her that, since I didn’t even notice (being up close and personal to folks, you notice a lot), it was only something about which her mother was worried. The vindication came later when she sent me a pic from the wedding and the dress was exactly as she and I had altered it.

I realize that folks, myself included, have good and bad sides as well as good and bad days, and I still believe professionalism is warranted in all situations from all parties. When someone crosses the line, however, I won’t hesitate to protect myself or my clients.

Until next time, dear readers. May your bobbins be full and your seams straight!

Heather

Funky, Funny, Fabulous Dresses

As a bridal seamstress, I’ve seen all sorts of gowns and several designs multiple times.  I’m always intrigued by the styles folks bring in and the stories behind what about the gown appealed to them.  People always ask me if there are some gowns that stick out in my mind, for whatever reason, and the answer is a resounding “YES!”  Here are descriptions of some of the wild and wonderful dresses I’ve seen.

There’s one I always like to discuss. I affectionately refer to her as “the Octopus.”  This dress had 30, count ‘em, THIRTY layers of tulle to the skirt!  It literally stood up by itself when you took it off the hanger. This dress drove me crazy when I attempted not only to shorten the skirts, for obvious reasons, but also when I tried to alter the bustle.  No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get all 30 layers to lay straight and behave themselves to coordinate into a bustle point.  So, I ended up doing 5 layers at a time and making a rather pretty layered scalloped effect.  Unfortunately for the maid of honor, the silly thing had 46 bustle points when I was done. Yes, you read that correctly.  I think I gave her an 8-page diagram of instructions.  I have no idea if it was even attempted, but I am very grateful that I’ve never broken this bustle point record.

One bride brought me not one, but two weird dresses.  The ceremony dress was a bodycon column number covered in crystals from neckline to hemline.  The silly thing was so heavy that I didn’t move it from the fitting room until I was ready to work on it.  I had to remove 2 inches of crystals on either side of the seam to be altered in order to get it into the sewing machine and then I got to put them back when I was done with the change.  The even crazier thing was that this young lady was short and built like a pencil.  The running joke was that the dress weighed more than she did!

The second dress, in complete contrast, was made from a type of scuba fabric, extremely stretchy, was off the shoulder, and had an A-line skirt.  She was a size 00. So was the dress supposedly, but I ended up taking 4 inches out of each side seam! She also had me change the skirt while I was at it.  The A line became a mermaid.  Not sure what the rest of her wedding was like, but I’m quite certain that it was a showstopper.

Another bride brought in a gorgeous ball gown with an off the shoulder neckline and what seemed like millions of little 3D flowers all over it.  She asked for a Belle al a Beauty and the Beast style bustle for the train.  The only way to achieve this well was through French points (attaching under the skirt versus over) and there were 25 of them.  This was my second “worst” bustle in terms of difficulty.  I’ll never forget the look on the maid of honor’s face as I was trying to show her how to bustle the dress.  There was murder in her eyes directed at both myself as well as her sister, the bride.  I advised the bride to buy her sister a double after she successfully completed bustling the gown.  Alas, I have no idea if either occurred.

A bride also brought me this fabulous Italian number that was long sleeved and had dress-length lace illusion insets from shoulder to hem. It created a VERY striking silhouette, as they were strategically placed to show just the right amount of skin and leave the imagination wondering. 

Then there was the bride who brought me the gown that was 8 sizes too small for her and wanted me to add panels to either seam in order to make it fit.  I talked about this gown (as well as included a pic) in my blog entry “Fairy Godmother.”

Also in this parade of gowns is an incredibly cheap garment made in China and haphazardly constructed. The bride wanted me to fix all the issues it had AND make it look fabulous on her.  It was like putting lipstick on the proverbial pig.  I did the best I could with what I had to work with. To the bride, not only did her pig have lipstick on, it came complete with earrings, smoky eye shadow AND the smolder!  My alterations were 3 times what she spent on the dress.  Probably not her smartest move, but at least she was happy.

One of my favorite gowns looked like Picasso and Edith Head went to Greece for inspiration and collaborated on the project. The fabric had a very unique hand as well.  There were asymmetrical petals everywhere.  I thought it was gorgeous.  It, however, was also a pain to bustle. Since it didn’t have normal symmetrical layers to it, drawing a diagram for it was nigh on impossible.  I had the mother of the bride video me bustling it as I hoped it would help the day of.  Again, no report back, so I can only speculate if bustle-age was ever achieved.

Not only do I alter wedding gowns, but I also remake vintage gowns into something more modern.  One gown in particular was straight out of the ‘80s–HUGE sleeves, super high neckline with illusion fabric to the sweet heart of the satin, tons of sequined Battenburg lace appliques everywhere with the satin cut out from behind them, and a HUGE bow on the back.  It was fashionable for the time, but mom, bride, and I all agreed that it was hideous now.  First, we got rid of the bow and the sleeves.  I took off the illusion neckline, adjusted the front, and lowered the back so they were both a V.  I removed about half the sequins and filled in select appliques so they had backing again. We also took down the skirt from a generous A line to a more narrow and fitted A line.  Both bride and mom loved the finished product. 

One bride brought me a gown that had a split overlay.  She wanted me to take the satin underskirt off and make her fitted ankle pants out of the same shiny satin as the dress.  One problem . . . she was too plump to be wearing shiny satin in the form of fitted ankle pants! Palazzo, maybe.  Matte satin, maybe.  I tried to tell her this, but she insisted I make the shiny satin pants.  Of course, she was disappointed when she came for the fitting.  I always make things larger as you can pin things to make a perfect fit, but the satin was unforgiving of her curves, as I knew it would be even after pinning.  I think that’s the only tantrum I’ve had in my studio, knock on wood.

Whew!

Thank goodness wedding gowns are as varied as the folks purchasing them.  I would surely get bored altering the same thing over and over. I can’t wait for the next surprise to come through my studio door!

Until next time Dear Readers, may all your bobbins be full and all your seams be straight.

Heather

10 things to think about when purchasing your wedding gown – from a Seamstress’ perspective

Purchasing a wedding gown is an exciting excursion (although it can be scary and stressful for some). A lot of brides have dreamed of the perfect princess gown à la Cinderella for years, but there are all kinds of ladies out there who look at a dress maybe once a year and have no clue regarding what they are about to undertake. One thing that is common between these two groups of women is that neither have any idea about what is required in terms of alterations. The following list contains several things prospective brides should keep in mind while they are shopping.

1. Expectations–Unless you look like the model in the picture, presuming the gown will look on you as it does on her is unrealistic. Classic example . . . I had a bride come to me with a gown that would look much better on someone with a Jessica Rabbit figure full of curves, but said bride was extremely slender. As there are no refunds on wedding gowns, I did the best I could for her, but there was no making her look like the model in the picture because their body types were just too different. Keeping your expectations as realistic as possible when selecting a wedding dress will definitely help you escape this type of heartache.

2. Trends–Oftentimes, just following the popular craze in bridal gowns will cause you to err when selecting your dress. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have had prospective brides who shouldn’t have done so bring me strapless mermaid dresses because they were currently fashionable. Most of these women were either too skinny to fill out the curves or too heavy to look good in this style. Be honest with yourself about your body type. Choose what really highlights your best features rather than adhere to the trends.

3. YOUR dress–Letting your friends, family, or salesperson talk you into something may cause regret. For instance, I had a bride bring me a ball gown with a super high boat neck that her relatives had convinced her to purchase. She had a great figure, but the gown was hiding all of it. I ended up cutting the ball gown into a tulip skirt and the boat neck into a deep V. She would have avoided my alterations fee if she had gone with the dress she wanted instead of the gown her mother and sister talked her into buying. Remember that this gown is YOUR dress. You’ll know when you find the right one.

4. Alterations–If you are purchasing a new gown, plan on a third to a half more than the cost of the dress for alterations. That way, if it comes in less, you are pleasantly surprised and have more for something else on your list. If you are purchasing off the rack, it’s anyone’s guess, unfortunately. I’ve done $100 in alterations on an off-the-rack dress, but I’ve also done $1,300 in alterations on the same type of gown. The latter was for a bride who bought the dress two sizes too large and then lost fifty pounds. Everything I did to the dress shifted something else. In the end, she still came out ahead though, as the retail cost of the gown was $5,000.

5. Size–ALWAYS buy a dress based on your hardest area to fit. For instance, many of my plus-sized brides are pear shaped, which means that the hip will be the hardest area to fit. If this matches your body and you are purchasing anything other than a ball gown, buy the size that fits your hips. If you’re buying a ball gown, then go to the next hardest area, which would be the waist in most pear-shaped women. It’s important to remember, anything can be made smaller. It’s a LOT HARDER to make something bigger. Caveat: if you are purchasing off the rack and you fall

in love with something a lot larger than you are, be prepared for a large alterations fee (see #4). If you can, purchase an off-the-rack dress only a size or two larger than you are for best results.

6. Skirts–Unless you buy an off-the-rack dress that’s already been altered or special order a dress, any gown you buy will be long enough to fit an Amazon. The most I’ve ever had to cut off a dress was 15”, but the young lady was barely five feet tall. In contrast, my tallest bride so far was six feet; however, I still had to cut 4” off her gown. Remember, it’s MUCH easier to make something shorter than it is to make it longer. Unless you plan to wear 6-12” platforms, expect to shorten the skirts.

7. Lace Borders–This is one of the more complicated things we seamstresses have to do. Some borders are easy to move, and then there are those that behave like an art restoration. In my experience, most lace borders take 1-3 hours to move all by themselves. My craziest alteration in this category was a border that was 7” tall at its tallest and 1” tall at its shortest and had a gazillion tchotchkes in between. It took me FOUR HOURS. In some cases, we can shorten the skirts from the waist—unfortunately, I couldn’t do that with the aforementioned example–but it all depends on what’s going on there. Either way, anticipate lace borders on skirts ADDING TIME to the alteration.

8. Beads and Other Bling–These things get in the way of our needles. Many times, we have to remove a swath of beads or bling in order to be able to put the seam through the sewing machine. THEN, we get to put them back on. One bride brought me a gown that was solid crystals from neck to hem. The thing must have weighed fifty pounds! It was quite the challenge to take in the bodice seams on that one. Assume that this will add to your alterations cost, as hand work ALWAYS takes more time than machine.

9. Fittings–Bring shoes and special undergarments to ALL your fittings. Things like strapless bras, shapeware, and petticoats change the way your dress will fit. Do not change what you bring mid fitting stream as this will cause confusion and possibly add to your alterations total. I had a bride bring a soft petticoat to her first fitting and then a hoop skirt to her final fitting. The skirts did not look the same, AND they were shorter with the hoop skirt on. I had to talk her into going back to the soft one because I couldn’t easily add fabric back on.

10. Professionalism–We vendors are here to help make your event magical. We understand how stressful this process can be as we’ve worked with hundreds of brides—or more. We understand about traffic, family, and work issues. We understand that life does get in the way sometimes. Please do us the courtesy of communicating professionally with us when things change, and we will do the same.

Stay tuned for my future blog series, “How to Pick Your Best Wedding Gown,” coming soon! Feel free to post additional questions.

Thank you for being a loyal reader!

Until next time,

Heather

Stella

Those of you who have been one of my clients or know me well know that I name ALL of my dresses “Stella.” It is, of course, a reference to a play, and subsequent movie, by Tennessee Williams. There is an iconic scene where the protagonist hollers drunkenly up at his estranged wife, “Stella!!!!!!” with intense frustration. Some dresses are like that… I have to put them in time out… they cause me to drink… I swear at them. They treat me like their drunken estranged spouse. Sigh. Most of them are good, and the moniker is just a joke. Then there are some who not only live up to her namesake but who challenge me to the utmost.

Let’s talk about a May bride and her “Stella.” She ordered it from a trunk show in Los Angeles nine months ago. A custom gown coming from a distance is always a challenging thing. The dress arrived in the bride’s hands TWO WEEKS before her wedding. Her wedding planner recommended that she contact me to help with final tweaks to the dress.

It always cracks me up that both designer and client think the dress will fit perfectly. Let’s face it … two women with the same measurements will NEVER be the same shape. It’s just a curse we females have to bear.

At any rate, what should have been a small tweak turned into a huge project. The dress fit her perfectly from the waist down, but from the waist up, it was a disaster. There was just not enough fabric in the bodice to cover the bride’s buxom figure and the side seams weren’t in the correct place. She and I agreed that the best course of action was for me to replace the bodice if I could find the fabric.

I went to three stores and found something extremely close. After I got the bodice apart, I realized that it was rose tulle that was creating the tint to the gown and not rose satin as I originally thought (it was three layers of fabric). I went back to my go-to shop for bridal fabric where they had 30 different shades of skin-tone tulle. I had a very hard time discerning a match as all of their lights were florescent, so I took home four different shades of blush hoping one would match. In the fading light of day, it seemed that I did find a match and proceeded to rebuild the bodice.

When the bride came for her next fitting, I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when the bodice fit her beautifully and all I had left to do were darts and decorate the neckline.

Or so I thought.

I got the dress sewn back together and went to take a photo of it with full midday daylight streaming through the windows of my studio and realized that the bodice and the skirt did not match. I proceeded to utter a stream of colorful metaphors that would have made even the crustiest sailor proud.

I sent the bride two photos… one of just the bodice and all my beautiful embellishments and one of the whole dress with instructions to call me as soon as she was able.

Bodice
Full Dress

I waited 30 minutes before realizing that I had a narrow window of time that I could make it to the fabric shop and back before my final clients of the day. Bear in mind that it was a Friday afternoon, the shop is on the border of downtown Houston, and the bride’s wedding is now a week away. I grabbed my keys and headed out the door, hoping I was making the right decision.

While on the road, the bride called me, and I explained everything and gave her three options: we could leave it as is, I could take the whole dress apart and take out ALL the tulle, or I could take apart just the skirt portion and replace the tulle with what I had used in the bodice. She decided on the latter telling me that she hated the rose tint anyway. (The bodice in its reconstructed form was not nearly as rose pink as the original.)

Friday night, I disassembled the dress. I took apart all the skirt panel “sandwiches” and replaced the tulle. Saturday, in between normal bridal appointments, I assembled the dress again. It was mid-afternoon when I heaved a premature sigh of relief. I hung the dress on the hanger and stood back to survey my work. I sank into my chair and began to sob. The dress hadn’t changed color. More swearing, more drinking. I played a few crossword games and took many deep breaths before going back to look at my charge. So, what was left? Maybe the ivory satin I’d replaced in the bodice had weird undertones to the fabric used in the skirt. It was the only thing left.

I released the side seam of the dress and proceeded to release one of the “sandwich” panels so I could take a peek. I held the ivory satin up to the satin of the skirt panel and gasped. It was white. Here’s where the saying “truth is stranger than fiction” comes into play. I took the whole panel off the dress and took the whole “sandwich” apart. I turned the satin over. The BACK was ivory and the FRONT was white. Un-freaking-believable. I have NEVER, in my 40 years of sewing, seen that particular weave of satin before. I’m not certain if it was the cheap stuff, something really expensive, or something the designer had made specifically for them. I was truly gobsmacked.

I knew what I had to do. I took my ivory swatch from the bodice to the fabric store and matched it. Took the dress apart for the third time and replaced the satin in the skirt this time. It worked. It was perfect now.

I hadn’t told the bride about the satin yet. I decided to wait until the fitting, which was scheduled for the following day. At this point, I was 22 hours into the dress, with 6 of those unchargeable because I had missed the very weird anomaly of the two-toned satin. Sunday afternoon seemed an age away at that point.

Unfortunately, the Sunday appointment got postponed until Monday due to a blackout from a rainstorm. (I’m seriously NOT making this up.) When she arrived Monday, I managed to tear her zipper while trying to get her into the dress. (I’m not making this up either.) I was far beyond crying at this point. She had another appointment to get to and said she would catch up with me afterwards. This gave me a few more hours to swear at Stella.

I zipped down to the fabric store for the nth time and bought TWO zippers (trying to head Murphy off at the pass) and rushed home. I spent three more hours on the dress, doing final finishing touches AFTER I replaced the zipper. I didn’t want anything else to go wrong.

The bride arrived around 8:30 PM Monday night. We both crossed our fingers and carefully zipped her into the dress. When she looked in the mirror, she got that wistful misty-eyed look on her face and started to swish her skirt. It’s the universal sign from women of all ages (even Drag Queens!) that they love their dress. I was so relieved that I almost started crying in front of her. I held it together long enough to complete our transaction and present her with a card and a bottle of wine. (After all, she broke my record of time spent altering a dress – 25 hours!)

As I closed the front door, my head gently hit the wall and the tears fell and splashed on the floor at my feet. I’m certain they were part relief, part gratitude, part guilt, and part sadness. The latter because I’d really grown fond of the bride. After all, she wasn’t the Zilla; her dress was.

Before
After

Until next time Dear Readers, may all your bobbins be full and all your seams be straight.

Heather

To Pink or Not to Pink?

May I be brutally honest for a minute? I always groan inwardly when a poor bridesmaid comes to me for alterations on a pink dress. Even in the movies, where they have the best make-up artists and the best costume designers, etc., a pink dress has never looked fabulous on any bridesmaid–whether it was in 27 Dresses,Bridesmaids, or Steel Magnolias, with bride Shelby and her two shades of pink, “blush” and “bashful.” (Boy, I just dated myself. Lol!)

Please, don’t get me wrong. I do love the color pink. It just has a bigger tendency to look “muddy” against the skin since it washes out the wearer, which is probably why I have not seen anyone yet that looks good in any shade of pink that a bride has picked.  I am glad, however, that brides have followed the trend of letting their bridesmaids pick the style that best suits their figures in recent years. That at least makes wearing this required dress a bit more palatable. Still, their color shade choices sometimes leave a great deal to be desired, so about the only thing that a bridesmaid can do if she likes the style of dress is dye the dress black afterwards.

To address this, let’s talk about color theory for a minute. If you line up a random bunch of people from lightest skin shade to darkest, you will notice that the undertone of each skin color is different. Some people, like myself, have a blue undertone to their skin. These folks are classified as either “Summer” or “Winter.” In other words, they look good in colors with a very strong blue undertone. “Winters“ are the easiest to identify because they look absolutely fabulous in jewel tones. The other set of folks have a yellow undertone to their skin. These people look good in fall or warm colors; hence, their classification is either “Spring” or “Autumn.”

So, what’s a bride to do? Well…aside from hiring a color theorist to line all your bridesmaids up and figure things out, you can do one simple test. You will need two fabric swatches, one orange and one royal blue. When you hold each fabric just under the chin of your bridesmaid, you will find that one of those colors will make her skin glow. If the orange makes her glow, then she has yellow undertones in her skin, and if the blue makes her glow, then she has blue undertones in her skin. If you luck out and everybody is one type, fantastic! That makes your job of choosing a color and a shade easier. If you have a mix, like most people do, then you should consider looking at neutral shades if you want your bridesmaids to be able to wear the dress again–or, at a minimum, not to look like they’re ghost extras in a bad horror movie.

By now, you might be wondering what my favorite choices are. Most of the dresses that have come through my studio that looked good–or, at a minimum, decent–on the bridesmaids are navy, darker shades of green, red (believe it or not), burgundy, and taupe. If you still have your heart set on pink, however, please use the color guide link I’ve included below. 

Your friends love you enough to be part of your special day. Love them back by choosing a color and shade that compliments them.

Check this blog out for a very easy to understand detailed explanation as well as color samples: https://www.simplifiedwardrobe.com/blog/how-to-do-a-color-self-analysis

Until next time dear reader!

Heather