When Jess and Michael get engaged, her cousin Sarah decides to make her a wedding dress as a gift. But during her final fitting, Jess discovers that the wedding dress is two sizes too small. Will Sarah correct her mistake, or will Jess have to take matters into her own hands?
My cousin Sarah and I have always had a complicated relationship. She’s loud and boisterous, but she also craves being the centre of attention. And so our whole family gave her as much attention as she wanted. It made more sense to pay attention to Sarah than to myself.
When Michael and I got engaged after four years together, my whole family was genuinely happy for me.
Sarah even gathered all of our cousins together with my best friends for a night out. It ended at an Airbnb where we continued the party because I was the first one of us to get engaged.
During this night out, Sarah came up to me with a glass of champagne in her hand.
‘Jess! I have a great idea!’ – she said.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want to make a wedding dress for you!’ – she exclaimed, swaying to the beat of the music.
Sarah is an excellent seamstress and has made some incredible outfits in her young career. Despite our uneasy relationship, the thought of Sarah making a dress for me was actually a great idea.
‘Really? You’d do that for me?’ I asked, touched by the gesture.
‘Of course, Jess! It would be perfect!’ – she replied with a smile that just seemed genuine at that moment.
The rest of the evening went off without a hitch. I was surrounded by people who loved me, and even more so, my cousin wanted to do something so intimate by making me a wedding dress.
Everything felt right.
We spent weeks choosing designs and fabrics. We browsed magazines and websites, and finally I had an idea.
One day I met Sarah in her office, ready to take my final measurements so she could start creating the dress.
‘You’re going to look amazing,’ she said, precisely taking my measurements and carefully writing everything down in a notebook.
‘I hope so,’ I said, taking a sip of coffee as Sarah set aside the tape measure. ‘I’ve been on a strict diet and I’m finally happy with my weight. So now I just need to maintain my figure.’
‘You look good, Jess,’ she said. ‘But if anything changes and you find yourself losing or gaining weight, just let me know and you can come in for a second fitting.’
I nodded and left, eager to see how my dress would turn out.
But when I arrived for my final fitting, the situation had changed.
I got into the dress, but something was wrong-it was too small. I couldn’t even button it up no matter how hard I tried.
‘Jess! Are you crazy to gain weight before the wedding?’ asked Sarah, mocking concern evident in her tone.
My heart dropped. The wedding was two weeks away, and judging by this fitting, I didn’t have a dress yet.
‘I haven’t put on weight, Sarah,’ I replied. ‘I was too stressed to eat. If anything, I should have lost weight because of it!’
Sarah shrugged, barely hiding the smirk that froze on her face.
‘Well, I’ll try to fix it, but since the wedding is so close, I can’t promise anything. I have other clients waiting for their orders, Jess.’
Her words rang loud and clear in my head as I drove away from her office.
And then it hit me-it wasn’t a coincidence. I remembered the way she’d spoken to me, the intonation in her voice. There was no remorse in her mistake. There was no confusion of measurements. I hadn’t put on weight.
It was intentional, and Sarah had purposely made the dress too small.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said to Michael when he got home that evening.
‘Show me the dress?’ – He asked, pouring himself a glass of water.
‘What! No!’ I exclaimed. ‘The dress may be a mess, but it’s bad luck for you to see it!’
‘Look, why don’t you take the dress to Mrs Lawson? She’s a friend of my mum’s and does all the alterations. She’s also making Mum’s dress for the wedding.’
So I packed up the dreadful dress and went to Mrs Lawson, who was a retired seamstress and had a reputation as a miracle worker.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said when I walked in. ‘Michael rang me and told me all about it. But I’ve seen the worst of it and made it a hundred times better.’
‘And this one might be tricky,’ I said, showing her the dress.
‘Honey, I’ve seen it all, trust me. Let it all work out,’ she grinned.
Together we turned the original design into something completely new. A gorgeous short cocktail-style dress, bold, unconventional and a bit epathetic for a wedding.
But it was absolutely stunning. It had everything Sarah’s dress didn’t: fun, flirty and totally me.
When it was time to walk down the aisle, my heart raced. I stood in the bridal room in the wedding hall and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked beautiful. I felt beautiful.