The Dress

I fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it! I got it at a sample sale for $1,800 then spent $600 in alterations. It was one size too small, so the zipper was lowered in the back, and extra loops added. I then lost weight before the wedding, so cinched it pretty tight on the day of. I had it shortened (that cost nearly $400 to shorten it around the lace on the thigh and maintain the scalloped edge). I am just under 5'7". I wore 2.5" heels for the ceremony and flat sandals for the reception and was comfortable in both. It does have a simple hook and eye bustle. The eye fell off at some point, so could just use a new one sewn on.

With the style of the back and lowered zipper, plus the fact that the nude layer under the lace is a STRETCH jersey, this would fit a wide range of sizes. I'd say a waist of 28-31 should fit just fine. This dress was SO comfortable. I did change later in the evening, but wore it for ~5 hours; I danced in it, sat in it, and more. I never felt like it would fall down, and was very comfortable the whole time.

It came with a 1/2" wide satin material for lacing the back (I want to call it ribbon but it's thick and nicely sewn so definitely much higher quality than ribbon). I preferred the look of the marketing photos with the very thin satin cord, so I bought some at Joann's. I'm including the ~2 yards of satin cord as well as the satin "ribbon" it came with.

Alterations

Zipper was lowered slightly in the back to allow a wider range of waist sizes (and two additional loops added for lacing). The dress was also shortened about 3 inches from how it came, but done so in a way that maintains the train and scalloped edge.