I thought the hardest part of sewing wedding dresses was dealing with tulle explosions and last-minute panic fittings. Turns out, the real nightmare is when the bride is your best friend, and everything else that could go wrong from there does. My name is Claire, and this whole mess started with a wedding dress.
I’m 31, American, and I sew for a living. Not in a fun, Pinterest-hobby way either. I work full-time in a bridal salon, then come home and sew more for private clients until my eyes blur and my back screams.
It’s not glamorous, but it keeps the lights on and my mom’s prescriptions filled. My dad died years ago, and it’s been just the two of us since. Mom’s not in great health, so a lot of my paycheck disappears into co-pays and pills with names I can’t pronounce.
Some months, I’m doing mental gymnastics over rent, groceries, and her meds, which is why side jobs matter. And for most of my adult life, Sophie was my person. We met in college, bonded over terrible cafeteria coffee and worse boyfriends, and somehow stuck together after graduation.
She was always a little shiny—designer knockoff bags, big plans, big stories. I was the quiet one, hunched over a sewing machine or taking extra shifts. She talked about the life she was meant to have; I tried to survive the life I already had.
But she was there when my dad died, sitting with me in my dorm while I ugly-cried into a hoodie that smelled like hospital air. She showed up with takeout and dry shampoo and stupid memes, and I decided that whatever her flaws were, Sophie was family. So I learned to live with the little digs, the bragging, the way she sometimes talked about money like anyone who didn’t have it was just lazy.
You accept the whole package, right? When she got engaged, I was genuinely happy for her. I knew she’d been planning her wedding in her head since we were 20, and I wanted to see it finally happen.
I assumed I’d be part of it—help with planning, maybe stand up there with her, at least sit in the crowd and cry like everyone else. A couple of weeks after she got engaged, Sophie came over, eyes sparkling like she’d had three energy drinks. She dropped onto my couch, pulled out her phone, and shoved it in my face.
“Claire, look,” she said. “This is the dress I want.”
On her screen was a gown that looked like it had crawled out of a couture magazine—ivory silk, fitted bodice, delicate lace, dramatic train. “Can you sew it for me?” she asked, all hopeful.
I studied the picture. It was gorgeous and complicated as a woman’s mind. “I know,” she said quickly.
“That’s why I want you. I trust you more than any salon. You’re amazing.”
I hesitated because the wedding was in two months, and my schedule was already brutal, but she was my best friend.
“Okay,” I said finally. “I’ll do it.”
Her face lit up. “Thank you!
You’re saving me so much money. I’ll pay you for everything, I promise. I just can’t right now because of deposits and stuff.
But once the dress is ready, I’ll pay in full.”
I believed her. That night, after work and after checking on my mom, I spread muslin over my tiny kitchen table and started drafting patterns. I bought fabric, lace, boning, zippers—charging more than I was comfortable with to my nearly maxed out card.
“It’s fine,” I told myself. “She’ll pay me back when it’s done.”
For the next month, my life turned into work, Mom, wedding dress, sleep, repeat. I’d finish my shift at the salon, smile at brides who’d never remember my name, then drag myself home and pin lace until my fingers ached.
Sophie would text things like, “How’s my baby?” with heart emojis and send me TikToks of dramatic veil flips. Every fitting, she gushed. “Oh my God, Claire, this is perfect!”
She took mirror selfies, sent them to her bridesmaids’ group chat, and even cried a little.
So yeah, when she came for the final fitting a few weeks before the wedding, I wasn’t expecting a problem. She stepped into the gown, turned in front of the mirror, and did that slow, appraising spin brides do. At first, she smiled.
Then something shifted. Her mouth twisted. “Hmm,” she said, tugging at the waist.
“I don’t know… It’s not exactly like the photo.”
I felt my stomach clench. She shrugged, eyes still on the mirror. “Yeah, but now that it’s finished, I’m seeing little things.” She pinched the skirt.
“Like the lace is kind of… different? And the skirt feels heavier than I imagined.”
It’s literally the same lace you picked, I wanted to say. The same skirt you spun in and called ‘a dream.’
“If there’s anything specific you want adjusted, tell me, and I’ll fix it,” I said.
She sighed as I’d just inconvenienced her. She stepped off the stool and started easing the dress off like we were done. As she folded it carefully into the garment bag, I cleared my throat.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page to discover the rest 🔎👇
