I'm like Suzie - I'm self employed, do a lot of alterations and some bespoke commissions, but the main income is from bridal and prom alterations. I don't work for any bridal shops, I prefer to be independent and decide who, where, when and how much for myself.
I like the bridal alterations. In my 11 years in business, I've only turned away two brides from a "the job's not possible" point of view.
One was a girl who'd bought her dress in a charity shop and it was way way way way waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big for her. It had sleeves, and was made for someone about a foot taller than her. The shoulders stood level with her ears, the bust shaping was at her neck......she was teeny. Basically the amount of work required to take apart this dress was pretty much a total re-make for her, and she wasn't prepared to spend the money it would cost.
The second was a girl recently who brought her dress to me three days before the wedding. Three days. She'd had it months and had planned to "diet into it". Instead, she admitted that she'd put weight on.......She told me over the phone that it was a "little tight" so I agreed to squeeze her in. Oh boy, I should have trusted my instincts.... A "little" turned into a gap of 8 inches. All the way down the CB zip and way beyond it. She couldn't get the dress past her thighs. I offered to add a corset laced back instead of the zip and open it up a bit more, adding a modesty panel, but she wouldn't consider that and told me I had to find the extra fabric from the seams. The seam allowance was 1cm. A total of 6 seams round the bodice would have given me about an extra inch, tops, not the 8 she needed. She wouldn't even consider a wedge insert in the CB seam because I didn't have a perfect fabric match available. I had to tell her I wouldn't be able to purchase a perfect fabric match in the time we had, we live rurally and don't have fabric shops here! So I had to tell her that I'd be unable to help her. I then rode my rainbow unicorn to the kitchen and made myself a well deserved cup of tea!!!!