I took in my BHLDN wedding dress to Juliya because of the stellar reviews. After having a terrible experience, I feel ripped off and deceived by the reviews claiming that her work is affordable. I suspect some of these reviews are fake. Maybe the people who wrote genuine reviews have different standards of what's considered affordable because she quoted me $450 then charged me $770.
The good: Juliya is friendly, and she did make my dress fit better. For this reason, I've rated her two stars. The dress required standard alterations: the bottom hemmed, the sides taken in, the arms shortened, and a very simple bustle added to the short sweep train. She quoted me $450, which practically gave me a heart attack. After doing some research, though, I realized that this was within the general cost range for wedding dress alterations and decided to go with her rather than look at other seamstresses. Ultimately, the dress didn't end up fitting radically different than when I had it taken in, but it did look nice on me.
The bad: First and foremost, the fact that I was charged $330 more than I was quoted without any sort of forewarning. (The $770 alterations were substantially more than the dress itself, which was only $600.) Of all the tailors I've been to, I've never once encountered such an enormous discrepancy between the initial quote and the ultimate cost. She only informed me of the final cost when I went to pick up the dress up. Moreover, she only accepts cash or check, and not anticipating such a higher charge than I was quoted, I didn't bring enough money with me and had to drive to and from my bank in heavy traffic.
Second, she ruined the bra I had spent ages searching for. My dress had a v-neck back that was low but not overly so, falling a bit above my elbows. Because I'm busty, she told me that I would need to wear a bra rather than have cups sewn into the dress. (In her words, girls who wear a C or D need to wear a bra. She's clearly has no idea about how bra sizes work because I'm a 30G and haven't worn a D cup since I was 12.) I didn't have anything that would work with the dress, so I asked for her recommendation with the assumption that she was an expert in this sort of thing. Her initial recommendation, a low-back Spanx bodysuit, was laughably bad. I was spilling out of the cups in the largest size, and the rest of the bodysuit was loose, defeating the purpose of shape wear. After going to several speciality bra fitters in New York and London and ordering 10 different options online, I finally found the Dominique Ariel Longline Bra. The smallest band size and largest cup size they carry is a 32DD, so I had to size up two band sizes (34DD) for the cups to fit. It runs a bit small in the band and large in the cups, so it fit pretty well (albeit not quite perfectly). It still peeked out ever so slightly over the edge of the dress's back when I was standing at certain angles, and Juliya said I could leave the first hook or two open. Without telling me, she completely removed several hook and eye closures and sewed back the band, leaving the back panel about half its original height. I was also charged for this unrequested alteration without my knowledge. The bra no longer provided adequate support or a correct fit, leading to pain and an unflattering silhouette on my wedding day. Because it fell too high on my torso, I ended up with a kind of reverse muffin-top (for reference, I'm petite, about 5'2" and 113 pounds). This is noticeable in the photos of me taken from the side - not the look I wanted on my wedding day, but I had to make do. I also paid $80 for a bra I can no longer wear. And her ignorance about bra sizing makes me question her knowledge as a seamstress specializing in women's dresses.
Here's the kicker: because this alteration made the band way too loose on my small ribcage, the bra ended up riding up such that it was even more visible than when it was unaltered.
Juliya was the worst vendor I hired for my wedding, and I regret putting my trust in her. read more