Maui Brides - Dress Pressing Recommendation

fabutan

Thought this would be useful as a separate thread, since a lot of brides probably require this service.  Sorry about the re-post!  

I had my dress, veil, reception dress, and FI's suit steamed by Vanessa Thompson (Silver Stitch).  She works out of her home in Luana Kai Condos (on S. Kihei Rd - easy to miss it!).  Her phone number is 808-879-0439 (no e-mail).  

http://www.luanakai.com/maui_condo_weddings.php#silver_stitch

Call Vanessa maybe a couple days or one week in advance to book an appointment.  Try to pick up your dress at the last moment possible (i.e. day before the wedding), so the dress doesn't get wrinkled and looks in tip-top shape.

Vanessa offers probably the best prices on Maui for dress steaming.  She works out of her home, but she sure knows her stuff!  (She gave me so many tips about how to wear my dress - it sounded like a science, LOL!)  She's also unbelievably nice.  

One tip...Vanessa offers different pricing if services are booked via a wedding coordinator.  The coordinator usually adds a service charge on top (i.e. the standard 20%).  Maybe check with your coordinator whether she/he works with Vanessa?  Or check with Vanessa how much she would charge if booked directly...  In our case, we found booking via our coordinator resulted in SUBSTANTIAL savings...it was crazy/unbelievably cheap...

 Thanks to Vanessa's advice, she reminded me that I needed a crochet hook for helping to undo buttons on the back of my dress...I hadn't realized this!  (BTW, they're available at the Maui Quilt Shop)  She also gave tips about how to put the gown on properly, etc.  Saved us a lot of little inconveniences on the day-of!  Highly recommend    

NurseJo34

Thank you so much for sharing!!! I'll keep this in mind for sure!

ReginaJ

Thanks for the info.

I see she helped you out alot and she was cheap.
How was the final product?
What material is your dress made out of?

fabutan

ReginaJ - my dress was made of satin - several layers and very thick!  Not the easiest to steam.    I'm not an expert, but I think the final product turned out perfect.  After picking it up, we tried our best not to wrinkle the gown.  Considering it was packed into a tiny bundle while being transferred, there were no noticeable creases and it looked exactly like how I expected...

I only had two minor "mishaps" - (a) Vanessa was kind enough to examine the dress and noticed a loose thread in one of the folds.  She promised to fix it for free, but it wasn't done when my sister picked it up.  Minor detail and my mother fixed it in literally 2 minutes...  

(b) My dress was COMPLICATED....I had an eleven (yes, 11!) point bustle.  I gave the dress to Vanessa with the bustle done up (probably not a good idea).  So she missed undoing 3 of the points.  On wedding day, none of my bridesmaids noticed either.  We only noticed when we were doing up the bustle that 3 points were already done up (so my dress was semi-bustled the entire time, haha).  Fortunately, no one noticed (including me!).  Lesson learned - unbustle your dress before steaming.  ;-)

fabutan

Hehe, so I rummaged around my computer files and found photos of my dress before and after steaming!

This is how tightly I bundled it into my carry-on case....

...and this is what it looked like when my sister picked it up from Vanessa's home (Silver Stitch)...I think she did a nice job:

Thought I'd post these, so you can judge the quality of the steam/press for yourselves.    Hope this helps!!