I’m doing this not just for price transparency but also because smashing the pay taboo helps everyone get the pay they deserve. And I am self-employed so I have the privilege of no boss to get in trouble with.
This veil was easier to work out my hourly rate because, unlike Happily Ever After in my previous attempt, the embroidery machine is not involved so all the work is me.
In this case, my customer was based in the UK (like me) and paid £200 for her veil on Etsy. Etsy then helpfully gives me a breakdown of fees to show my actual earnings on this sale – £178.16.
However, it doesn’t explain why only £157.52 arrives in my bank account. If anyone more familiar with the inner workings of Etsy, HMRC or maths in general can explain where the missing £20.64 went, I’d be grateful. I’ll even send it to you if you show me how to recover it.
The payment on my bank statement.
The cost of the fabric, crystals, beads, comb, thread etc bring this figure down another £40, to £117.52, while postage and packaging costs drop it a further £15.05, to £102.47.
I set my stopwatch to see how long it actually took me to make this veil, from cutting out the fabric, through edging it, to hand-stitching 18 crystals and hand-beading the 3-D spider. Including parcelling it up at the end, it was two hours and 14 minutes, so my hourly earnings were £45.54. Not half bad, but still short of the £75 hourly rate I generally base my prices on.
And for extra fairness, I stopped the timer to make my cup of tea.
How much of the cost of a veil actually lands in my pocket? The answer, it turned out when I tried to work it out, is not straightforward. I’m not sure whether I was surprised by the figure I kind of landed on, but I found it interesting enough to share it.
This example is based on an Etsy order I received before Christmas for a fingertip Happily Ever After veil.
Woohoo! A new order!
With the local taxes in the customer’s US homeland, the total paid by them Etsy was £421.20 (~$567.72 US).
Before the money leaves Etsy, there are a few immediate deductions, which Etsy very kindly lays out:
Fees laod out by Etsy
I get a little confused here because if you take that £83.58 away from £390 (after tax), you get £306.42 (right?!), but what lands in my bank account a few days later is actually slightly more, £310.52. Where the extra £4.10 came from is anyone’s guess but I’m not complaining, especially in low season.
The mystery figure that landed in my bank account
Either way, I then have some more hard costs to cover:
Hard costs for shipping and packaging
I use (almost award-winning; highly commended in the Quirky Awards 2023) sustainable packaging from Tishwish, Royal Mail’s international tracked & signed service with extra insurance, plus the new US 10% import duty (and Royal Mail’s 50p fee for handling this for me). All this brings what landed in my.bank account down to £242.52.
That’s before I even buy the materials for the veil itself.
Hard costs for veil materials
I make enough veils that I can buy many of these in modest bulk – not exactly the economies of scale big manufacturers see, but, for example, I can halve the cost of tulle by buying it in 50m rolls, knowing I’ll get through it. So, the cost of the raw materials of this particular veil are £26.52, just under 7% of the purchase price, bringing the total going to me to £217.
So let’s consider the time it takes to turn a pile of tulle, thread and ribbon into a Happily Ever After fingertip veil. It takes approximately three days to cut, embroider, sew and assemble to completion, so call it 24 working hours, based on an eight-hour working day.
I set my hourly rate at £75, but the time taken to make this veil for £217 slash that to just £9 per hour, which isn’t even minimum wage.
How much per hour
However, most of the time required to make this veil is for embroidering which my machine (theoretically at least) can mostly get on with without me. So, let’s say only a quarter of those three days requires me hands on. That brings my hourly rate to a more palatable £36 per hour, but still less than half what I should be charging (more on this here).
But, and here’s where it gets a bit tricky to calculate again, we need to consider the cost of that beautiful embroidery machine, and all the other equipment I need to make the veil.
What I bought to make my veils
Embroidery machines are EXPENSIVE. I bought mine, an entry-level industrial multi-needle embroidery machine (swoon), for £6,000 a couple of years ago. It literally cost six times more than I paid for my car (priorities, my queens). For context, the next model up is £10,000. Even my first (now back-up) embroidery machine was £1,200 seven years ago, and that only has a single needle, meaning I have to rethread it myself for every colour change, which is every three minutes or so for this veil.
The software I use to create and edit my embroidery designs was £900 and I’ve since paid a further £250-ish for the latest edition. There’s also my Cricut (£300) which even actually works sometimes, but I do have to swear at it a lot first.
A few further costs not included in the image above are my business insurance (public liability, professional indemnity, stock in trust, etc) which is another £500-odd a year; machine servicing at around £200-300 a year and miscellaneous business costs including phone/WiFi bill, mortgage, etc.
As tricky as it is to put a fair price on my work, I think I usually get it about right. I only employ myself and I feel well compensated, so that’s a decent measure, plus I absolutely adore my job.
If you think I should be earning more for what I create, please consider that the next time you see a veil or wedding dress on an ultra-fast fashion site for next to nothing, and think about what the person who actually made it will earn from it.
It’s the question in Facebook groups that makes me twitch: “What are you paying for your wedding dress alterations?”
It’s usually asked to get an idea of how much the poster should expect to pay for their own.
With no additional info it’s probably the mechanics’ equivalent of, “How much will it cost to get my car through its MoT?” I even asked a similar question of the RAC man this week as he poked under my car bonnet to ascertain why it had stopped dead on the school run, would no longer start and even the hazard lights had given up the ghost.
The alternator was kaput he informed me as he closed the bonnet with a tinny click. “Oh. How much is a new alternator then?” I asked, trying to sound like I might know what an alternator actually was.
Even knowing the make, model and pitiful state of my car (*cough* rollerskate *cough*), he could only guesstimate a range of £70-£400+ before checking online. There are apparently many options.
And so it is with wedding dress alterations. Wildly variable. Moreso than alternators even.
What your alterations will cost depends on a great many things, chief among them:
Your dress. Specifically, its design, construction, structure and embellishments etc. Taking up a dress with two plain layers is much easier, quicker and therefore cheaper than a dress with 11 layers including one with a lace hem that needs to be unpicked and stitched back on. Does it have beaded lace covering the bodice seams that needs to be removed and replaced to bring it in, sleeves that need shortening or is it strapless, etc?
What you need doing. Your dress might need letting out taking up, taking in, straps shortened, sleeves narrowed, back shortened, new cups, extra support, a bustle hook (or 12), extra embellishments, custom embroidery, a reshaped neckline, bespoke elements and any combination of these.
Where you live. There are differences between countries and within countries. A dressmakers’ Facebook group I’m in is currently conducting a UK-wide survey to get an idea of what we charge for common alterations by region but it’s proving tricky because of the wide variation of work.
Where your seamstress works. Do they have the overheads of a studio or are they home-based? If home-based, have they had to buy a much larger house beyond the required living area to accommodate a home studio? ‘Working from home’ as a seamstress requires a lot more space – several rooms in my case – than a corner with a laptop.
The seamstress’s relationship with where you bought your dress. Are they attached to the boutique and recommended exclusively (as most boutiques work) or one of many on a list (like Wed2b provides), or did you find them yourself? When I’ve worked as the exclusive seamstress for boutiques, they’ve taken between 10 and 25% of my alterations charge as a referral fee, which I had to add on to the customer. With the Wed2b list for example, I don’t have to pay to be on it and don’t get paid by Wed2b. You also won’t pay the fee if you find the seamstress independently.
The skill level, training and experience of the seamstress. A dressmaker friend Anita Dudley points out that just as you would expect to pay more for a senior stylist in a hair salon, a more experienced seamstress will likely cost more. When I was starting out, I offered enormous discounts to counter my lack of track record, even though the work took me at least twice as long as it does now.
The level of service that comes as standard. Some pros steam or fully press every dress they get or even offer a full cleaning service or storage facility. Others might charge differently for regular fittings vs family and friends dress reveals with champagne and canapés.
Another dressmaker friend Amanda Davies reminded me that one thing highly unlikely to have a bearing on alterations costs is what you paid for your wedding dress in the first place.
I’ve done alterations that cost the bride £50; I’ve also done alterations that cost nearly £1,000. I could work out the mean, median and mode of those and everything in between but still wouldn’t come up with anything informative until I had seen your dress in person and knew what you needed doing.
My dressmaker friend Kate Edmondson reminds me here that one thing highly unlikely to have a bearing on alterations costs is what you paid for your wedding dress in the first place. You might have got an absolute bargain online, in a sample sale, or even brand new but if it takes the same amount of skill and time to alter as a much pricier dress, the cost to alter them will be the same. Yes, that does mean that sometimes alterations cost more than the dress itself.
My advice to find out how much YOUR wedding dress will cost to alter is to get recommendations of seamstresses in your area and get some quotes. You can also use it as an opportunity to see how well you click with different people. After all, this is an intimate, high-stakes process so make sure the person you choose is someone who gets you.
A good starting place if you’re in the UK is the Find Your Bridal Seamstress Facebook Group, which is linked to the group for pros I’m part of that is running the regional cost surveys I mentioned.
Some extensive alterations included completely reshaping the back of this dress.
The car gets a new alternator tomorrow. It’s costing £250. 😏
Back in a previous lifetime when I worked on a student newspaper in the Canadian capital, I received a double award at the end of my year abroad: the International Correspondent Of The Year / What’s In It For Me? Award.
Apparently, in addition to my hard-nosed journalism covering the Zapatista movement in Mexico, I’d accidentally earned a reputation for only offering to review the movies and music we were sent if it was a DVD or CD I already knew I wanted (Robbie Williams’ North American debut album was a highlight).
No-one working for The Charlatan was getting paid, other than in honed journalistic skills and CV fillers. I’ve also worked for no pay on my student paper in the UK, my local newspaper in Bedford and the Evening Standard I’m London.
In this incarnation, as a weddingwear designer and dressmaker, I’ve also worked for no money. Here are some examples:
I made three wedding dresses for brides working in the NHS who had had to postpone their weddings because of Covid-19 lockdown. I had already decided to use the cancelled wedding season to make some sample dresses, then realised the time and fabrics would be better used for actual brides rather than my cupboard;
Rock n Roll Bride magazine asked me to make the Geri Halliwell inspired Union Jack cape (worn as a veil) for its ’90s icons shoot in return for a free place in the shoot (otherwise £250) plus social media inclusion and return of the cape which I wore to my child’s school Coronation party;
Credits below
Surprise additions for customers. Sometimes I add something blue, sometimes I include a gift or embroider their cat on their dress lining;
I did bridesmaid dress alterations because the bridesmaid suffered from the same condition I did 30-odd years ago and I finally had the chance to pay forward the kindness shown to me then. This was a spontaneous decision when she came to collect it;
Any time I’ve lent something I’ve made for a TFP (trade for print) photoshoot. No-one involved in these is paid.
In all of these cases, as altruistic as I might like to think I am, there has always been something in it for me. They might not pay the mortgage, but exposure and warm fuzzy feelings do count for something.
I’ve also made costumes for Star Wars (the Andor series) at minium wage to help out a friend and because STAR WARS!
Value
The crux of what I decide to do for no pay boils down to this: whether my work is being undervalued and/or the person I’m doing it for is exercising an inflated sense of entitlement.
This week’s risible request to “create synergy” with Miss Europe Continental for Amazon Prime galvanised my thoughts. In case you missed it, the “synergy” would have seen me design and create two gowns for a contestant at my own expense and for no pay AND I would have had to pay the organisers €1,980 for the privilege of my involvement. Never mind that the project manager requesting this hadn’t noticed that I only do bridalwear.
Other requests I’ve turned down include:
A discount because the couple had already overspent on other wedding supplies (like it would make me feel better to know that everyone else involved in the wedding got paid their dues, just not me);
A discount on alterations because they were going to cost more than half the purchase price of the dress (never mind that the dress in question was an absolute steal);
Let’s not forget the troll who was very cross my moon veils were out of her budget.
Finally, one I did agree to a discount for but only because she caught me off-guard, very early in my career. About an hour after her fitting, she called me and asked to cut her bill by nearly 30%.
Her hen-do dress that she’d also asked me to alter was dropped off to me unwashed and with sweat stains and crusted deodorant under the arms – where I was to take it in – and fake tan covering much of the rest. She spent her next fitting on the phone to a friend, boasting about how cheaply she wangled her latest wedding supplies and how much discount she’d got from someone else.
She doesn’t know I keep a list of customers I will never work with again but it makes me feel a bit better that I do. She’s the only person on it.
A marriage based on a lie is not likely to end well, so it’s startling to see a purported wedding expert recommending starting a relationship with a lie. OK, not quite a relationship with someone you’re marrying, but Bridebook has just been caught advising couples to approach wedding suppliers by saying they’re having a party, not a wedding.
Screenshot of Bridebook’s advice to engaged couples
Lie to your suppliers? Where’s that going to get you? There’s a reason wedding-related services often cost more: they ARE more. You GET more.
What’s especially galling for vendors – on whom Bridebook relies to fill its own coffers – is that it’s annual wedding report published in the last few weeks extolls the importance of trust, connection and price transparency.
Bridebook’s ‘This you?’ moment
In my case as a bridalwear designer and dressmaker, the very fact that that is all I do tells you everything you need to know about how specialised it is. So actually, if you come to me for asking for a party dress, I’m not your woman and the answer will be no. Tell me then it’s actually a wedding dress you want and you just didn’t trust me to price it fairly, and how keen do you expect me to be to work with you?
Bridebook also seems to forget that vendors have often planned their own weddings at some point too. I swore when I started my business that I would never charge extra for my services just because the dress was white. But I will charge accordingly for additional structure, delicate fabrics, intricate embroidery and beaded details, all the additional layers and the complexity of the design. Because all that is more work and takes more time. Beautiful, enjoyable time in which I’m in my element but I can’t do it for nothing.
Keep asking my husband though, because his business is going well and apparently this time next year, we’ll be millionaires.
This time next year, Rodney
Although he has been saying that for nearly four years now. Oh shit, was that a lie?
Specialthanks to Plaits & Pin Curls, Bex Brides, Magpie Wedding and Rock n Roll Bride for bringing this to my attention and for all you do to actually support our wedding world.
Update: Bridebook has apparently now removed the article from its website.
Me: Always choose a couture bridal specialist to work on your wedding dress. The skills they have over your aunt’s friend or your own DIY efforts if you’re not a pro are worth every penny.
Also me: I’m not spending £8 – eight whole pounds – on that Hobbycraft kit when I can make one myself for my children’s birthdays.
I broke my wrist last Thursday. My right, and I’m right handed, at the start of what are typically my two busiest months of the year.
Sad, tired face; lumpy bent wrist
I was booked solid with alterations, bespoke creations and embroidered veil orders and one split-second stumble backwards rendered me on my arse in every sense. I have a Colles distal radial fracture, more technically known as A Proper Number.
By Friday lunchtime, I’d found that I could accomplish many routine tasks with my left hand, even if brushing my teeth was more like punching myself in the face. Crucially I could still sew, with the exception of some techniques, BUT I couldn’t cut fabric.
The largest scissors I could wield were my tiny stork-shaped embroidery scissors which barely nibble fabric, and I couldn’t exert enough pressure on my rotary cutter to get the blade through even the lightest tulle.
So, painstakingly (and painfully), I typed out a message with one thumb, dropping my phone on my foot a couple of times, to the A-Level student I’d told the previous week that I couldn’t take him in for work experience.
Krishal the wunderkind
Krishal came over almost immediately and I liked him even more quickly than that. Actually, everything was speedy. He’d said he was a fast learner and I threw him in at the deep end with techniques he’d never used; he swam with them all. Rotary cutter, narrow-hem machine foot, seam ripper: all nailed first time.
Get this: he’d never used a seam ripper (aka stitch unpicker, the Ctrl+Z of sewing) because he’d never needed to. He’d never sewn a thing wrong. Ever. Including on his first A-Level project, an ambitious cocktail mini-dress with crinoline underskirt in fabric he dyed himself.
Not only that, but he’s taught himself French and Japanese, because he wants to work in Paris and Tokyo. And he’s a gifted musician. And tennis player. And 5,000m runner. Oh, and he’s been approached by a modelling agency.
We’ve been geeking out about sewing AND linguistics AND Disney films (these are a few of my favourite things 🎶) and I think I want to adopt him.
True, I do ❤️ yoga.
A week on, I’m sustaining fewer facial injuries while cleaning my teeth and I can now cut fabric again. Far from simply shadowing and observing me on work experience and making cups of tea, Krishal has been doing skilled work for which I have paid him the rate I would receive for the same jobs.
He is clearly someone who will go far. If his mum and dad refuse to surrender their parental rights to me, I at least hope that one day, while jetting between his Paris and Tokyo ateliers, Krishal remembers me and that he was once – literally – my right hand man.
Have you ever been asked to work for no/less money? How did you respond and how did you feel afterwards?
The Un-Wedding posted this on Instagram today, and it chimed with some recent conversations with fellow designer-dressmakers who have been asked for discounts, or even to work free in exchange for “exposure”.
I’m either not famous enough or too scary looking to have ever been asked to work for nothing by an influencer or celebrity, and the vast majority of people do recognise the value of what I do. (Actually, one influencer didn’t even tell me about her YouTube channel until after she’d booked me).
Who even does that?
However, on the odd occasion I’ve been asked for a discount, it’s been for wedding dress alterations. This tends to be the last thing to be paid for when planning a wedding, because alterations typically happen as close to the big day as possible so your body is the size and shape it will be on the day.
I’ve become a lot stricter – nay, assertive – about discounts, because every single time I’ve agreed, I’ve resented the customer, hated the work, and gnashed my teeth with every stitch. I’m not out to rip anyone off or obsessed with making as much money as possible; I’d have stayed in corporate PR if I were.
I’ve become more assertive about discounts. Sorry, not sorry.
I usually do put in a lot more work than agreed for the sheer fun of it, and on the odd occasion I’ve even waived my fee entirely just because I wanted to.
Top ‘reasons’ people have expected a discount
Below are the reasons I’ve been given for why I should agree to a discount and my response to each:
1. “We’ve overspent on everything else and run out of money.” (Three instances of this)
Think back to before you booked a single thing. Would you have called me – a stranger – and asked me to buy, say, your cake, or pay for the extra flower arches? Because that’s effectively what you’re asking me to do now.
2. “The alterations are costing more than half what I paid for the dress!”
Your dress was an absolute steal but is three sizes too big for you, eight inches too long and will need to have most of the lace removed, replaced and re-beaded by hand.
3. “If I pay that much, I will cry.” (Actually the same person as 2, above)
The work you need will take me around three days in my busiest month of the year when im already starting work at 5.30am and finishing around midnight, and if two of those daysare unpaid, I will show you bloody crying.
4. Calling me after the fitting: “Can we round it down to £xxx if I give you cash?”
Err, oh. OK. I was caught off, in a flap and acquiesced. But why should cash necessitate a discount? It actually creates work for me because I have to make a trip to a real-life bank to pay it in. Plus I’m far too socialist to not declare any income on my tax return.
This particular person had also given me an unwashed dress to take in that she had worn clubbing and needed for her hen do (lots of fiddly work to the underarm section) and was condescending to her lovely sister in every appointment.
She also spent one fitting on the phone boasting about how much money she’d got another supplier to come down by. I agreed to the discount but hers was the only name I’ve ever made a mental note of to never work for again.
Same same but different
There are some inquiries that might sound or feel like asking for a discount but aren’t, so please don’t feel afraid to ask (and vendors, please don’t feel offended of you encounter them). Asking for a starting price or rough estimate isn’t rude and neither is surprise when finding out the cost.
Not many people have ever bought anything wedding-related before they plan their own so it’s not reasonable to expect anyone to know what things cost.
Manners for makers
A discount means a compromise on fabrics, my time or both, and you can’t do that with couture. Moreover, I’m not willing to do any of those and still put my name to the result.
Even MORE-over, asking for a discount is rude. Either you value my work or you don’t.
Aah, that was cathartic. Therapy I didn’t know I needed.
…(hopefully) recognise yourself in at least one of these:
If you trusted me to design and make your wedding dress, veil or part of your outfit this year;
Some of my 2022 brides, plus model bottom right for Rock n Roll Bride magazine’s ’90s nostalgia shoot
If you chose me to restyle or alter your dress;
If you collaborated with me on a styled shoot, design, blog or magazine feature;
Belladonna, from my collection in collaboration with The Pickety Witch
If you liked, shared or commented on my a post, story, or reel, or tagged me in yours;
If you recommended me to a friend, wrote a review or followed me; If you saved my sanity when a pattern draft/embroidery machine/tax return threatened it (again);
If you sent me your wedding pictures showing you in something I made, or dropped me a message just to say you liked my work;
If you sold me a beautiful fabric, some sparkling beads, or the badass embroidery machine that cost six times more than my car;
No cup holder?
If you sent me a card, flowers, chocolates or pins with heads shaped like bats;
If you entertained/fed/tolerated my children so I could put the extra time into my work;
If you are either of my children and told me you loved me;
If you helped me set up, pack up, ferry my gear or cut the breeze at a wedding fair;
If you taught me a new sewing technique, design trick or social media idea;
Oh look, I just drew my state of mind.
If you made me laugh until it hurt, let me cry until I felt better or at any point made me a cup of tea,
Helping brides whose wedding dresses were being made in Ukraine, AND their Ukranian dressmakers.
While Putin’s troops attacked Ukraine this week, two british brides contacted me. Both had ordered wedding dresses that were being made in Ukraine. Now this can no longer happen, they asked if I could make them instead.
I could have rubbed my hands with glee and snapped up the extra orders. But I shouldn’t profit from a loss of business from someone potentially losing everything, just because they happen to have had their country invaded this week, and I haven’t.
So I *think* I have figured out a way to help both the brides and their original dressmakers in Ukraine. I will make what they had ordered, for the same price. Then, after hard costs (fabric etc), I would donate the rest of the price to the ukranian dressmaker (if it was a small, independent operation like mine) or to the Disasters Emergency Committee (if it was a factory contracted by an international brand).
The first bride has just agreed and we tracked down her original, ukranian dressmaker on Etsy. Her name is Vera. She leads a small team and, her shop’s announcement tells us, is currently living in an underground shelter with her family.
Part of Vera’s heartbreaking Etsy shop announcement, which can be read in full here
As a stroke of genius, Vera created digital, downloadable postcards so people can donate directly. So I did.
I’d been wondering how the hell I could offer practical support in a war zone from the UK, with my skill set limited to making wedding dresses and writing the odd blog. I know what I’m doing* is a drop in the roaring ocean but it’s something. I hope.
💛🇺🇦💙
If you or someone you know is in the same position as my two brides, please get in touch and I will help if I can.
To my fellow wedding industry pros, if you’re able to help by doing something similar, let’s work together.
*For what it’s worth, I have also donated to the DEC and encourage those who are willing and able to do the same.
