Freda's Tailoring & Upholstering definitely went ABOVE & BEYOND on not just the alterations on my…read moreMOB Dress, but my daughter's Wedding Dress.. Freda is sooooooooo TALENTED with her love & patience with each stich, let alone her expertise & patience to detail. Being "Little People" we continously have to have our clothing altered & again... Freda is whom we ALWAYS return too because... "SHE IS THE BEST!!"

Let me start by saying I love my wedding dress, and I want to give Freda a better review because…read moreshe was very kind and sweet, but unfortunately there were several things during my experience that are preventing me from doing so. I was recommended to Freda by my sister-in-law. At the 1st appointment I requested to add fabric underneath the top - it was see-through and I didn't want so much of my skin to show. Freda recommended against this and instead suggested I find shapewear that could help with coverage. Services we decided on were: hem, bustle, taken-in, replacing built-in cups, shortening the off-the-shoulder sleeves, and securing the buttons on the back - they were loose and even 1 fell off. Freda said she would have everything but the hem completed by the 2nd fitting. She broke down the price for each component and I paid the deposit. At the end she asked that I call a day before my next appointment to remind her, which I thought was a bit odd since I watched her write it in her calendar. Between the 1st and 2nd fittings I decided against altering the sleeves, so I contacted Freda to remove this. Also, in this time between appointments, I'd searched for shapewear per her recommendation and came up empty - I could not find anything that would work with the low plunge and lack of sleeves. 2nd fitting: the only part of the dress completed was the bustle - none of the other things she promised to have done at this point. I told Freda that I had searched for shapewear and could not find any and asked again to add fabric underneath. Freda declined this request again and said it's because "it would make the dress tighter". I thought this was odd because 1) she hadn't taken it in yet and there was plenty of room to work with and 2) shapewear would also make the dress tighter. At that point I realized I was going to feel more exposed than I was comfortable with on my wedding day. When I was getting measured for the hem, we had issues with me stepping on the bottom and Freda seemed to get frustrated and took all the pins out and started cutting off the bottom while I was in it. This startled me and I had to be very still so that it was cut evenly. She kept making comments about "once it's cut it can't be made longer" and this was making me very nervous. At the end of the 2nd fitting, Freda reminded me of the balance, but it still reflected the total with sleeve shortening so I had to remind her to remove that. She again asked me to call before the next appointment. 3rd fitting: I noticed that 2 buttons on the back were super close together - the 1 that had fallen off at the 1st fitting was not evenly spaced. When I put my dress on, I saw the hem on the first few layers was a good inch or more off the floor and could see the underneath layers. When doing up the buttons one fell off (not the one that had been re-attached) and there were others that were very loose. Then, I saw a very noticeable dimple/dent above one of the cups -we agreed to remove and replace them again. When they were removed, Freda said she thought it looked better without any cups. Reminder - the entire upper part of my dress was SEE THROUGH, I could clearly see the nipple cover I was wearing! I said absolutely not! It seemed like she didn't want to do more work, but obliged and fit me for 2 more cups. I waited about 20-30 minutes while she fixed the cups and (finally) secured all the buttons. If everything that was completed as promised prior to my 2nd fitting, this issue could have been avoided during the end of my last fitting. Lastly, Freda said because of the fabric I wouldn't have to steam my dress again before wedding day which I was excited about, but this ended up being untrue. The day before my wedding day, I noticed some wrinkles and decided to do some touching-up with the steamer. I'm glad I did because once I started, I noticed a LOT more wrinkles as well as some hair/debris stuck between the layers. On wedding day, once my dress was on, we noticed multiple stray strings coming off the details - one of my bridesmaids cut them all off. Then at the end of the night when I was taking my dress off, one of the buttons came off easily again. Overall, my take-away is that Freda is a very busy, tired and likely burned-out business owner. She shared on multiple occasions that she is always booked and hasn't had any breaks. I think that due to this she is missing key details and does not want to do more work for each item than the bare minimum. I did research online and everything I found supported my assumption that a seamstress is responsible for working with their customer's desired vision, and that adding fabric underneath garments is both common and simple. Additionally, the sister-in-law who recommended me has also revisited Freda and reported noticing a clear difference in workmanship and attitude. The pictures included show the overall dress, the difference in lengths in the layers, and the dent in the cup prior to fixing.