A Lilly Makeover.

As promised, I've got before and after photos of my old Lilly dress makeover. I picked them up Wednesday (it's two of the same dress in different patterns) and am SO happy with the results! I mentioned taking these to my alteration lady last week. I *think* this style is called Sabrina (from several years ago), but don't hold me to that - I could totally be making that name up. It's strapless with a tie in the back (though please ignore how I have it tied in these pics because I was just throwing the dress on really quickly for a photo opp.) and it hits a little below the knee. I've actually never been super crazy about the length on it, but never did anything about it. And the hip region on the dress seemed to run a bit large, but it looked fine - until I lost some weight over the last year. So now the dress just looked ridiculous on me. So instead of letting the two like dresses hang there and collect dust, I finally decided to make them over (er... tell the alteration lady how to make them over).

So here are the BEFORE shots, both front and back. The camera angle here is bad and I'm not sure you can appreciate how truly *frumpy* it looked. But overall it just felt very frumpy on me. And Lilly should never feel frumpy!

And then a week and $74 later (for both dresses)... the AFTER! You can tell I feel much cuter by my fabulous posing here...

I totally feel like I scored two brand new dresses since these are totally wearable again. Here's the other pattern I have (you know what - I don't think I've ever worn this one actually!)...

We've got an engagement party to attend Sunday afternoon and I think I will wear the orange one. It's a backyard BBQ - so this should be perfect. Although that tan-line from my scorchfest in Charleston looks awful in these pics... hmmm... Oh well. So is $74 total reasonable? I rarely have things altered. I'm short, but I wear heels with my slacks at work, so I don't usually have to get things hemmed... but I always go to the same lady near my parents' house everytime I need to go. I mean she basically reconstructed the entire bottom half of the dress, so it seems fairly reasonable to me. What do y'all think? Either way, I'm totally happy with the results and can't wait to sport my *new* Lilly this weekend!