Petite Wedding Dress Alterations: What Shortening Costs

What the work cost

Every row is one bride and one quote or bill, cheapest first, so the range is visible rather than averaged away.

What brides described

The accounts without a figure attached carry the mechanics: what the shop said, what the tailor did, and what turned out to matter.

• Suggests asking David's Bridal to order the petite cut of the same gown, which would fit better and cut the alteration bill; removing the lace appliques to shorten the sleeves is the expensive part, and taking in the waist may also mean shortening the dress
• At 5 ft the Berta mermaid she planned on put a horizontal seam across her knees and made her look shorter; she changed silhouette to an Allure gown, and a custom detachable overskirt plus alterations took it from 1950 to 3750
• At 4'11.5" and about 97 lbs she bought off the rack at Elisabeth & Beau in a bridal 10/12 and had a seamstress take it down to a bridal 0/2. Charity-shop samples needed only shortening and a slight take-in.
• On the tiered Heavenly Hues at 5 foot 3 in three-inch heels the bottom layer cleared the floor and only the top layer dragged slightly; the real problem was straps that were too long and needed shortening.
• At 5ft2 and 115lb with heavier upper arms, she found the sleeves that come with gowns in her size run too tight, so covering her arms would mean ordering a size up and paying for far more alteration.
• No-cost fixes for a dress with too much fabric on a small frame: full petticoat so the skirt holds a shape, a belt to mark the waist, and shortening or removing the sleeves with a rolled hem
• At 5 foot 3 with a 26 to 27 inch waist, the waist was the limiting measurement on every budget dress she ordered, and she expected to need hemming on all of them even in three-inch heels.
• Bridal seamstress questions sizing up when the sample was already clipped at the back, and warns that raising a heavily beaded waistline for a short frame means moving all the beadwork.
• 5'3 and 90 lbs, said no dress would fit her off the rack. Her David's Bridal Galina Signature gown arrived in four weeks and alterations ran about six weeks over two fittings.
• Selling a gown already hemmed for a 5'2 bride wearing 4-inch heels, with straps shortened and a bustle added; she pitches it as saving a 5'1-5'3 buyer hundreds in alterations.
• At 5 foot 3 she found mermaid gowns lose their proportions once hemmed; she stepped off the fitting pedestal at appointments to see the real length and chose an A-line instead
• A petite size 2: every dress she ordered from Lulus and Davids Bridal and everything she tried in store was both too long and too big, so she added 300 to 400 for tailoring.
• Gown was cut for a much taller woman and needs a substantial hem; the shop also ordered one size up because the cups were too small, so the bodice sits lower than it should.
• At 5'2 she had her Mori Lee gown ordered in a petite cut, and says most designers offer the same dress in petite so the budget need not stretch to cover extra length work.
• 5'0" bride bought the floor sample in the only size the shop had, a touch too small; the consultant says the hips can be let out a few inches so the dress drops into place
• Davids Bridal petite sizing meant no hem at all at 5ft2 in 4-inch heels, though other parts of the dress still needed tailoring; you can filter their site for P sizes.
• Asked whether charity and consignment shops stock size 2 rather than sample sizes; answers were that stock varies but smaller sizes do turn up, especially in Portland.
• A size 2 at 5ft3 bought a size 12 sample cheaply, then had to pay to take it in and shorten it so far that the dress was essentially remade, wiping out the discount.
• At 5'4" she found ball gowns and poofy A-lines swallowed her and made her look shorter, so she chose a draped fit-and-flare that brides said reads as statuesque
• 4'10.5" and 95 lbs, shopped Sash & Bustle, Oh Happy Brides, Becker's and Felichia in a couple of weeks; found budget options at Oh Happy Brides and Felichia.
• Very small; the sample was a 12 pinned back and the shop said size 0 but ordered a 2. After alterations it is heavy, sits wrong and has oversized fixed cups
• At average height she needed serious hemming on the Birdy Grey dress but none on the Azazie one, so hemming cost is not evenly split between the two brands.
• Same Azazie style had 3 to 4 inches of extra length on a 5 foot 8 wearer, so a 5 foot 3 guest should expect a significant hem on top of the purchase price
• Warns that bridal sample sizes run very large relative to a petite frame, so a no-pressure sample sale is a cheap way to learn shapes before committing.
• On a 5ft3 bride with a short torso the bodice runs long and the waist seam lands below her natural waist; raising it changes the whole line of the gown
• the bride who asked is 5'0 and 110 lbs, usually an XS or size 0, shopping eight months out and worried petite fit plus a $2,500 ceiling would leave her nothing to try.
• 5 foot 3 and an XS or 0-2; the volume-heavy sleeved dress she bought has no fitted point to balance it, so brides read it as swallowing her frame
• Short torso made the dress hips sit above her own, which read as stretched fabric; hiking and pinning the dress fixed it without letting anything out
• Being short, she always has to alter straps and hemlines; notes that shortening straps alone lifts the whole bodice and can be enough on its own.
• Warns small brides not to buy off the rack more than a size or two too big: taking a gown down several sizes can cost more than the dress itself.
• Short and narrow-hipped: the BHLDN tulle skirts she tried poofed out and made her look larger, so nothing she expected to love worked in person.
• Was told bridal gowns are made for women around 5 ft 8 in; being well under that, she treated the hemming bill as the price of being short.
• Says shortening the waist by an inch would fix the dropped waistline; her own seamstress refused to raise hers and it bothered her all day
• Petite bride with a $98 mesh maxi expects another $100-200 at a tailor in a high-cost city to shorten the hem and take in the shoulders
• the bride who asked is 5 ft 2 and petite: volume-heavy styles swamp her frame, so she is filtering the whole search for minis that suit a small figure.
• A made-to-measure Etsy gown at 5ft4 needed almost nothing done; the only alteration came from weight gained on a medication change.
• Gowns are cut for roughly a 6ft bride so they can be shortened to anyone; at 5ft2 she needed a significant hem even wearing heels.
• Short bride bought a Meshki dress and only had the front shortened so she could walk comfortably; the rest fitted as bought
• Her very thin daughter had the same effect in a fully custom-made gown, so made-to-measure construction does not remove it
• the bride who asked puts herself around a size 0, maybe a 2 depending on cut, and expects alterations on almost anything she orders online.
• the bride who asked says the Jenny Yoo Celine only works on a tall very slim frame and reads quite differently on her short curvy figure
• At 5 foot 2 she knows her David's Bridal gown, a size 16W, will need trimming, and is nervous about who she lets do it.
• Under five feet tall, so she ordered a pile of dresses online and donated the rejects rather than shop bridal stores.
• Short bride: gowns run long on her, and warns that hemming lace specifically is one of the expensive alterations.
• Petite bride who had Felichia Bridal order a new gown in her own size rather than altering a sample.
• Skipped hemming an online dress entirely by buying very tall wedge shoes to take up the length
• At 5'0" she had the straps shortened, the length hemmed and a bustle added to an online gown
• A size 2 bride reports the identical skin fold above the corset in her own wedding dress
• Short bride paid only a few pounds to have a 50 pound non bridal Vinted dress hemmed.

What they paid for the gown

Common questions

Sources

Price reports on this page come from 29 public discussions where brides answered in their own words. Each comment that stated an amount became one row; notes are paraphrased, never quoted.