Tailor Troubles...Part I

You know, taking some time to step back and “cool off” about some of the aspects of wedding planning really does help keep some of your posts short! I started this post the other day...well, actually two weeks ago when it all happened...but decided to take a deep breath and calm down about it all first. Before I hit the Publish This Post button...I’m thinking that it was a good thing.

I wrote here about my experience with Norma, my alterations lady. On that same post, you might recall me telling you to not forget something...something about me telling B that having me pick up his suit without him trying it on first was a bad idea? Remember that? Yeah, well, that’s where today’s story starts...with me picking up his suit.

Norma brought the suit out, and I paid. It all started so simply...then MOH and I left her shop and headed for several stores that I wanted to stop at – the Mall, Michael’s and most importantly a big, fat, juicy, greasy hamburger from Mighty Fine Burgers...YUMMY! So it was several hours later when MOH and I arrived back at our house with all of our purchases and B’s suit in tow. MOH and I settled in to work on music selections and we waited for B to get home. Once he did, the first thing that he wanted to do was to try on his suit. MOH and I were upstairs while he did this, but we knew right away that something was wrong.

It could have been the explosive cursing that we heard all.the.way. up the stairs. I don’t know, I’m just guessing...

Either way, when B got to the top of the stairs, we were both panicked about what we would see. He had slipped the jacket on over his normal T-shirt and we could immediately see that the sleeves were hemmed too short. The jacket also looked a big large through the waist still...and B quickly pointed out that the shoulders were too tight as well. Somehow, I’m really not sure how, I managed to talk him into slipping into the pants as well, to see how it all looked together. Because at this time we’re 9 days out from the wedding, right?

He slips the pants on and comes back out to the living room where we were waiting. The pants were hemmed too short and I can’t even tell you what was wrong with the area that spanned across his crotch and thighs. It was tight. Like pulled too tight, and the pockets were not laying flat – they were all poofed out like they were crammed full, but they were empty.

The suit was ruined. That was our first thought.

After getting him back out of the suit, I took a look at the seams to see if there was anything that could be done. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see a lot of salvage left from where Norma took everything in. My hope was that she had taken it all in, but left the salvage so that maybe it could all be let out again. Not really.

I encouraged (and MOH backed me up) B to take the suit back to Norma the next day and talk with her about it. Unfortunately, B was REALLY mad, and didn’t want her making anything worse, and he was convinced that nothing could be done. I waited a few days to see if he would change his mind...but by Monday I knew that it was a lost cause on her repairing her own damage. He just didn’t trust her enough to make it right.

So the Monday night before our wedding, I got out my sewing machine (which had just been put away the day before) and my seam ripper. I opened up the seams in the pants to see if I could give him enough room to make the pants comfortable enough to wear all night. I was able to put in another seam, but unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough salvage to give him enough room to be comfortable in the pants. Once I knew that, there was no point at looking at the jacket, right?

So a $500 Calvin Klein suit was ruined. One that he never even got to wear. How did we resolve this? Stay tuned for Part II to find out!