Isn't your mother hundreds of miles south? If need be, I volunteer my services for shepherding you around bra shops (well, it worked for catnip_junkie - if you heard how much her graduation ballgown cost, you might be feeling reassured about the cost of your Armstrongs dress), and having gone insane trying to find a dress and bra for the wedding last year I know most of the places by now. Since you're a relatively normal size, I may end up standing there and hissing as you actually find bras in the shops, instead of being told time and again that they're out of your size) and strap-sewing; there's Edinburgh Bargain Stores opposite me which might have useful stuff, failing that John Lewis is only a short hop away.
Sewing thin straps to the dress and a strapless bra is a good compromise, I don't think I'd venture further if there's vigorous dancing involved. If you go for a strappy bra too, on the one hand it won't do odd things to your back (with certain dresses that sort of thing doesn't show, though) and it won't start shimmying down and need hiking up throughout the evening, but on the other the straps will show and that might be annoying.
I'm now being tempted to finish off adapting that brown/orange/pink dress and wear it to the barbecue tomorrow, but it's far too dressy. I think. Plus the problem that it's moderately indecent: let's put it this way, when I modelled it to D the other week, he ended up staying the night and he hadn't planned to. Er, what do people wear to Liberal Jewish community annual barbecues? I know I went to the one last year, but I can't remember! Pictures can be retrieved if need be, it's the one I put up that post about a few posts down my LJ. It's probably at least half an hour's sewing. Tonight's plans involve some tidying of the living room and some work, I could probably get the sewing in there. It also depends on whether that backless bra thing I got from eBay (which is posing as the La Senza one and I suspect isn't because the front doesn't plunge as much), and which, incidentally, I bought because I'm not overly fond of strapless bras (this dress is so tight I can hopefully just sew the bra thingy into the front) actually fits properly. Not to mention tomorrow's weather. In some ways I suppose it's just a summer dress that's a little sexier than some of them; the plan was to wear it with a plain dark brown scarf, and I wear scarves to everything these days.
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Sewing thin straps to the dress and a strapless bra is a good compromise, I don't think I'd venture further if there's vigorous dancing involved. If you go for a strappy bra too, on the one hand it won't do odd things to your back (with certain dresses that sort of thing doesn't show, though) and it won't start shimmying down and need hiking up throughout the evening, but on the other the straps will show and that might be annoying.
I'm now being tempted to finish off adapting that brown/orange/pink dress and wear it to the barbecue tomorrow, but it's far too dressy. I think. Plus the problem that it's moderately indecent: let's put it this way, when I modelled it to D the other week, he ended up staying the night and he hadn't planned to. Er, what do people wear to Liberal Jewish community annual barbecues? I know I went to the one last year, but I can't remember! Pictures can be retrieved if need be, it's the one I put up that post about a few posts down my LJ. It's probably at least half an hour's sewing. Tonight's plans involve some tidying of the living room and some work, I could probably get the sewing in there. It also depends on whether that backless bra thing I got from eBay (which is posing as the La Senza one and I suspect isn't because the front doesn't plunge as much), and which, incidentally, I bought because I'm not overly fond of strapless bras (this dress is so tight I can hopefully just sew the bra thingy into the front) actually fits properly. Not to mention tomorrow's weather. In some ways I suppose it's just a summer dress that's a little sexier than some of them; the plan was to wear it with a plain dark brown scarf, and I wear scarves to everything these days.