Quick Tip: for your bustle

The bustle (like your DJ) can make or break the enjoyment of your wedding reception. Make sure that you bring someone (your maid or matron of honor, your mother, your planner) with you to your final fitting. Have the seamstress walk through with you and this person how to assemble the bustle. Let your guest practice several times before you leave and take a photo of the bustled dress before you leave. That person can either do the bustle or serve as a manager to the people that do.

As a planner, I can usually figure out the bustle -- but-- it helps us a lot if someone else has seen it done. Most dress bustles have either three hooks on top of the dress or the bustle ties underneath (french). A seamstress that I use a lot, Karen, has shown me a lot of tricks the past two years with regard to the way a final bustle should look. I've used those tools a lot at wedding receptions where we have in fact figured out the seamstress's intended bustle -- but adding these additional fastenings with pins make the dress look better and make the bride feel more at ease during her reception.

The most dramatic bustles I've encountered? One required the bride to sit on the floor while three of us tied the 35 bustle ties underneath the dress. The worst one ever had a combination of hooks, an under the dress tying layer and an over the dress tying layer -- we had a total of seven people (3 of my staff, a catering manager, a florist and two of her friends) look at this bustle the night of the reception and none of us could figure it out. I felt so bad for the bride that night. Since that wedding, I have told all my brides that they must follow paragraph one of this blog. Since then, we've not had this issue of no one being able to figure out the bustle for the blushing bride.