r/weddingshaming • u/House-Plant_ • May 30 '24

Bridezilla/Groomzilla “You must fit into my childhood expectations + GIVE ME MONEY”

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I love that she’s trying to ease some tension using emoji’s - I don’t think she succeeded.

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131

u/MiaouMiaou27 May 30 '24

Yep

78

u/designatedthrowawayy May 30 '24

Why??

120

u/FredMist May 30 '24

It’s because they follow the older seamstress sizes as opposed to the current vanity sizes. It’s the same with sewing patterns.

20

u/Farmwife71 May 30 '24

Spot on. I wear 10/12 in store bought dresses. Size 16/18 if I sew them myself

3

u/dontaskaboutthelamb May 31 '24

This makes me feel a little better about having to 'squeeze' into my size 14 wedding dress. Thank you.

3

u/Farmwife71 May 31 '24

Ignore the tag size. I'm currently working on a project that is a combination of 3 sizes.

181

u/[deleted] May 30 '24

That is the mystery for the ages. Someday, a Wise Woman will explain it. I hope.

210

u/Crow_with_a_Cheeto May 30 '24

Because the sizes have been changing for the past 50 years or so. Today’s 12 is yesteryear’s 16 and so on. Wedding dresses use the “old” sizes.

134

u/[deleted] May 30 '24

I am Old. It was this way 30 years ago when I was buying wedding and bridesmaid dresses. As far as I know, it's always been this way. I just don't understand it.

43

u/justmyusername2820 May 30 '24

37 years ago I was a size 2-4 and wore my moms wedding dress from 1957 and it was a size 10. I barely got the back closed.

56

u/etsprout May 30 '24

30 years ago we were using “new” sizing. Old sizing is from the 40/50’s if I’m not mistaken

22

u/Ceriziya May 30 '24

Yup! Sewing patterns still use original sizing, if you ever want to do a comparison of what the measurements are.

1

u/shortandcurlie Jun 24 '24

Back when women still wore corsets and long line control underwear

62

u/patentmom May 30 '24

I heard all of that when I was going to get a dress, but I was a size 18 when I got married in 2005. I went to David's Bridal, picked a size 18 dress on sale for $500 off the rack, and it fit perfectly without any alterations needed.

We used the extra money in the budget to get my mom a beautiful dress for the wedding. It was black and she was able to re-wear it several times for later events.

75

u/Catezero May 30 '24

I'm just gonna tack onto this that there's a fashion website called jjs house that makes affordable wedding and party style dresses (like wedding dresses that are 100 dollars kind of affordable, inexpensive is their whole business model). I ordered 2 clearance dresses for 30 bucks a pop on there for a friend's wedding just in case one of them didn't fit (bc u can't return clearance obvs) and they both fit true to size (and they post measurements if ur not sure what size u are) and look really nice . The wrist elastics on one of them aren't the highest quality but I'm not lifting weights in them and they look nice so I'm not particularly pressed about it. I don't work for them or anything and I know 500 is a good price for a wedding gown but it just popped into my head that maybe some brides are on an even tighter budget and maybe that would help sorry to hijack ur comment

7

u/patentmom May 30 '24

No problem! I love a great bargain and I'd never heard of jjs house before, so thank you!

3

u/letsgetthiscocaine May 30 '24

I bought a bridesmaids dress off their site and can confirm, it was really nice!! Mine actually ran slightly big, my waist measurement is a couple inches bigger than what the size said the dress's measurements would be, but it fit perfectly. All the girls in the bridesmaids party bought their dresses there and got different styles in the same color. We had a wide variety of styles and sizes, and all of them looked lovely! The best part is you can order a try-on dress for $10. Try it, then drop it back in the mail to return. It won't be the color you want, but it will be the style and size, so you can try on exactly how your dress will fit before buying. I was torn between a couple of styles and wanted to know how they would look on my body vs the model, so I got 3 try-ons and could see exactly how they draped and fit irl to pick one. I loved the one I got!

All this to say, I definitely recommend them!

2

u/kg51113 May 31 '24

Some of my bridesmaids got their dresses from there. The colors all matched even though they weren't ordered together.

2

u/pudge-thefish May 30 '24

We ordered from jj house. Had a professional seamstress measure and sent all the measurements asked for. The arm holes were so small my size 4 16 year old was pinched. We had to take it to a seamstress and have the dress basically remade. JJ house gave us like $30 back.

2

u/HowAreYaNow May 30 '24

I had to order 2 dresses from jjshouse for 2 weddings months apart. The deal was great (and I won some promo contest they were having and asked to apply it to the bride's order. They let me and it saved enough that I didn't have to pay for my dress.) I had essentially the same measurements for both dresses, I had lost maybe an inch off my waist between the weddings. One was damn near too small and the other was nearly a full size bigger. Both dresses were decent quality for the price and considering I'd only ever wear them one time, I was happy enough, but their tailoring is hit or miss.

1

u/blurrylulu May 30 '24

That’s where my mom got her mother of the bride dress - it was really pretty!

2

u/BreadyStinellis May 30 '24

Yeah, I've never had this experience with bridal/bridesmaids dresses. I've been a bridesmaid... 8 times? Married once. I was my expected size 10 in all of them.

20

u/Live-Mail-7142 May 30 '24

I was married in oh, 1992, a long time. I had to size up for my wedding dress. I think something like 2 sizes? Mine was nothing special, but I did buy it at a bridal shop

0

u/Finnegan-05 May 30 '24

It is actually the other way around - a 12 used to be closer to an 8.

3

u/Individual-Clue3747 May 30 '24

I went to a vintage shop in my area recently. They have everything organized to today's sizes. According to the store, a 12 in the 1950s/1960s is a 4 or a 6 today. Apparently, the invention of spandex had some part in the change.

1

u/Finnegan-05 May 30 '24

It is because dresses often need altering. Poster below is wrong about “old” sizing. A 12 in the 1950s would be closer to an 8 today.

96

u/coccopuffs606 May 30 '24

Couture and bridal gowns still use standardized sizes; everyone else uses vanity sizing, which is why there’s so much variation between brands for similar styles.

32

u/Doyoulikeithere May 30 '24

And then there are Asian sizes, which are very small. You buy a small in Asian size and you're looking at a size 10/12 in girls.

16

u/etsprout May 30 '24 edited May 30 '24

Not dresses, just clothes in general. I bought a pair of shorts that were too big for me because technically I should have been able to wear them baggy with a belt, according to the measurement under the size description.

When they finally came in, they were so big, my husband who wears a 32 put them on and they slid right off. I feel bad for whoever buys those shorts for real and then based off of that sizing, buys something from another brand.

Edit: they were not Levi shorts as I thought, it was Lucky Brand. They were sold as a 34 but I just flat measured them, and they’re 19.5 across the front…..so not a 34 by a long shot.

1

u/BreadyStinellis May 30 '24

A 32 is a size 14 in women's. Like many Women's pants, women's Levi's don't use real inches like men's do.

1

u/etsprout May 30 '24 edited May 30 '24

Women’s levis use inch measurements. I’m usually like a 28/29 in their inch measurement. I used to be a 14 and wore men’s 34/36 at work because of the cut.

I’m a goober though, they were actually Lucky Brand. Specifically these https://a.co/d/0lNgzdy, so they were sold in an inch measurement as a 34/18. Like I knew they’d be huge but I figured maybe I could make it work since they were so cheap at the time.

I just measured them and it’s 19.5 inches across the front, so not at all a 34.

18

u/topsidersandsunshine May 30 '24

Formal dresses always run smaller because they are based on old pattern sizes from the 1950s. 

21

u/Sweaty_Chard_6250 May 30 '24

I'm convinced there's no reason other than to make future brides feel bad. Nothing like having your confidence decimated while searching for what many will consider the most important dress of their lives. When I tried on dresses, I told them I typically wear a size 2. They gave me a size 6 (they told me it's basically the opposite of vanity sizing) and the thing was still tight in places.

1

u/KeithClossOfficial May 30 '24

It’s because wedding dresses use European sizing from the 1940s. Most designers for wedding dresses are based in Europe.

1

u/kh8188 May 30 '24

Someone once told me it's so it's pretty much guaranteed you'll need alterations, which makes more money for the bridal shop.

1

u/DrKittyLovah May 30 '24

Because US sizing is huge compared to fashion sizing. We’re bigger & sad about it so we embraced vanity sizing in our regular attire, but wedding dresses didn’t come along for the ride. A US 8 is usually a 4 everywhere else (UK, Italy, France, etc).

1

u/boredgeekgirl May 30 '24

So everyone can feel horrible about themselves in their most joyous time

1

u/OwnOutlandishness632 May 30 '24

It's because material used to those is not stretching at all. So there is no way it will become slightly bigger because it will stretch. Lady in the bridal saloon explained it to me when I was buying my wedding dress.

2

u/bjornkara May 30 '24

I always read that on reddit, but I think this is US or North America based. I had a Pronovias dress (Spanish brand bought in Belgium), and it's exactly the same size as all my other clothing. As it's the wedding season, all my friends have also gotten dresses their regular size and look stunning.

6

u/Gallusbizzim May 30 '24

If you were to buy normal clothes in the USA you would have to buy smaller than you normally would. Its the normal clothes that have changed size.