So I’ve been walking around with a big smile on my face after yesterday’s purchase. I emailed two friends of mine who married a few years ago to find out where they had their dress altered, how much it cost them and about dry cleaning details. 

One of them was very helpful and sent this to me: 

I bought and had my dress altered at Berkertex in Regent St (think it might have shut down now). Think it cost me just under £200. The cost really depends on what you need altered. With my dress, there was a lot of bead work at the base of the dress so they had to redo all of that stuff, so it was quite labour intensive (wish I’d thought about that before!). Can you not have it altered at the place you bought it? They’d at least be more familiar with what they’re working with and if anything went wrong, at least you might get some kind of compensation. Whereas if you take it to an external dress alteration place, if they mess it up, who can fix it for you? 
Dry cleaning though is a different matter. Yes, when I tried to get my dress dry cleaned here, I was quoted about £100. And also the dress label recommended a ‘P’ cleaning chemical, which apparently is banned in the EU, so they can only use an ‘F’ cleaning chemical. As a result, if anything goes wrong with the ‘F’ clean, then the dry cleaner won’t compensate you because they have made you aware of this already. So when I went back to Hong Kong, I took it to a dry cleaners there and they did it for around £30. Might be slightly more expensive now with the weakness of the £. 

So I went online to find out the average costs of wedding dress alterations and dry cleaning. I found that on average, the dry cleaning cost about £120 and the alterations were about £200. Some stores do allow alterations as part of the price which is really helpful. Or they recommend someone who alters wedding dresses specifically. Pronovias recommended Bridal Alterations but I think it might be the same as Busting Divas, another alteration company or maybe they are both near Sloane Square and have very similar prices. It just seemed a bit pricey because they quoted £15 to sew on a button. Also, to make a dress from scratch was from £1500 onwards. Usually other places quote about £500 onwards for dress making so I know these two alteration companies are going to be very expensive. Also, they had a fee of £60 to come out to see you and make the alterations or £25 to go to their offices. I think this is a bit ridiculous for just a quote if thats what they mean.

So I looked online to find some wedding alterations and dry cleaning places. Ideally, I’d like to have them both done at the same place so that I dont have keep going to different places and lugg the wedding dress around. I found two in SE1 London (where I live - South East London). The first was Laundry Box at 1 Shad Thames. My tailor looked at my dress and said he couldnt do it because it had to be taken in 14 cm and there was a lot of intricate beading. I found this very dissappointing because I read that lots of brides have dresses taken down from size 10 to size 0 (so more than 2 sizes as normal alterations go) Then as I was leaving, he said that he could do it but it would be 500 pounds. It really makes me mad when people use this salesman ploy to try to get you to do the alterations with them. He said the dry cleaning would be atlesat 50 pounds. 

The second place I went to was called Nellys at London Bridge station. I read somewhere a bad review about them but Im not sure if it them exactly because there was just a reference to the alterations place on that road and this was the only store there. Anyways, the woman said the dry cleaning would be 75 pounds and she would be unable to do the alterations. 

By this point, I had walked around 2 and half hours with this huge wedding dress so I was about to give up when I saw SE1 Dry Cleaners on the way home. The shop keeper said that it would be 50 pounds. I asked if he did wedding dress alterations as I only saw rows and rows of shirts and suits. They also did not specifically state they did wedding dresses outside. I would be completely devastated if someone ruined my dress just because I went for the cheapest dry cleaning option (it has happened to me before when I was a poor student.Also, he said that he wouldnt take liability for not taking out all the stains and for any loose beads…aaaaaaaaahhh… 

After showing me some other dresses that they had to alter, I felt some reassurance that they would be able to alter my dress. He said I could leave the dress with him and he was qualified to tell the tailor the necessary adjustments. I really wouldnt recommend this because you want a perfect fit. So I asked where the tailor is. He’s given me the address in Kennington. 

The most important thing I learnt today is that if you had a slightly dirty dress - mine is slightly dirty as it has been in a sample sale - then get it altered first and then do the dry cleaning. Otherwise, if you dry clean first and then alter, it gets dirty again in the process. Also, I would recommend you buy your wedding shoes so that you know the length of the dress you want it to be altered to. I’m on the look out for some long heels so that you can see the full mermaid style.