E.Veli Atelier & Alteration — Local services in Barrington

I bought my dress downstairs at The Altar and was in love with it. For alterations, I asked for the bodice to be lined in white because you could see skin between the lace appliqués, to close the v neck to be more appropriate for a church wedding, and to bustle the dress.

After setting appointments months in advance, she had to reschedule my second appointment and when I arrived at the new date and time, all of the pins were still there from the first appointment, which means nothing had been done. For my third fitting, which was supposed to be my final, I brought family to learn how to bustle the dress, but it was not done and the bustle had not yet been added. I pointed out several other issues and she assured me they would be done. We had to come back again the next day, which is another 40 minute drive each way, and I had to have different people come with because of scheduling conflicts on such short notice. Instead of teaching my bridesmaids how to bustle the dress, which had a very complicated bustle, she flew through it and we had a very difficult time figuring it out on my wedding day.

She placed the lining in incorrectly so there was horrible rippling on the neckline, which made it look like I had a bra WAY too small on and was pouring over. She showed me how to pull the lining down and dress up to mostly fix it, but I had to do it EVERY TIME I moved on my wedding day because it was so noticeable in pictures. To help remedy it, she added bra cups, which I had said I did not want as the dress was already very fitted in the chest, and only added two small strings to attach each. One snapped as we put the gown on, so one of the bra cups was floating loose in my gown on the wedding day and had to be adjusted constantly. Finally, as we put on the dress the morning of the wedding we found FIX OR SIX holes in the fabric that had been safety pinned closed and not sewn. This was horribly disappointing especially after paying $1,225 in just alterations.

At the end of the day, I still had the beautiful dress I bought at The Altar, but there were so many nips and tucks I had to do constantly all night. By the time we took reception photos, I was so sick of fixing the neckline that I just started posing with my bouquet higher. This experience made the alteration process and my wedding day so much more stressful than it needed to be, which was very...

I've never written a Google review in my life, but I absolutely had to write one for Ellen! My dress was a sample size 10 (I am typically a zero). It needed the sides taken in, seven layers of skirt hemmed, bustle placed, straps fixed, and top restructured (I'm sure there's more!). She was so understanding in hearing my concerns and gave me lots of options and professional help when it came to understanding the structure of my dress and what alterations we could do. Initially I was nervous that my dress wouldn't fit me perfectly since I purchased such a big one, but Ellen beyond exceeded my expectations and created an actual work of art with those alterations. I truly cannot say enough about how wonderful she was to work with- let alone her level of expertise and craftsmanship with my dress. If you're looking for an alteration location- you won't regret choosing Ellen! I would recommend her 1000x over- she is...

Truly the worst experience ever. Very unprofessional business. We booked an appointment , came early, the appointment before us was late, and we were told to rebook or wait if we wanted which set us back an hour and a half. On top of that our dress that this woman has had for over a month still was not where it should have been by this appointment , excuse after excuse was made, and no apologies were given. Ellen was extremely rude on our first visit- we brushed it off. The second visit was even worse. For the inconvenience we were offered a “discount” which was never given because Ellen does not have that authority to do. She threatened to cancel our contract , but we decided we weren’t going to deal with her nonsense anymore and left. I wouldn’t even recommend this place to my worst enemy. Do not go here save yourself the...