Button Hooks- how did yours hold up?

Daughter's dress sounds like it was similar to yours, with a zipper to the waist, then buttons with elastic loops on the low back of the bodice (hers came up maybe 8" from her waist, it was fairly low). Her dress came with metal hook & eye closures at the waist and at the top of the back. From the time she first tried her dress on when it arrived, the salon staff told her not to do the button loops until the day of the wedding because they would stretch. In looking at photos from the day of the wedding (and she was in her dress for around 9+ hours), probably about mid-way through the reception you can see that a couple of the loops were starting the stretch, so the buttons going down the back weren't lined up as perfectly as they were at the beginning of the day. Now, keep in mind, daughter was a crazy dancing fool for probably 5 straight hours (her bustle broke about mid-way through the reception and we had to use safety pins to fix it...). If the hooks & eyes aren't killing you, I'd probably leave them. (Also, daughter's chest is 36DD, and all of the "structure" she needed for support was built into the bodice of her dress, so the back of her dress was pretty much having to serve like the back band of a bra would normally.) Good luck!

I can't find a good photo of daughter's dress at the start of the day when the buttons and loops were in a perfect straight line (her veil is covering it in all the pre-ceremony photos), but found this one from the VERY end of the night (she's literally hugging her MOHs good-bye, just before they left), so this is after at least 9 hours in her dress. Good luck! (Obviously, this is extremely cropped to make it so close-up; I doubt anyone noticed, but you can see where the loops started to stretch out -- and you can see one of the safety pins we used to replace the broken bustle loops....) She had a GREAT DAY, that's all that counts!

The elastic generally used for buttons on bridal gowns are not really meant to be the only support for the button areas. It is VERY flimsy...mostly for decoration. My friend had buttons and a zipper going up the back of hers and only the top 6 inches were button only and 2 hours into her wearing the dress we were having to replace the elastic on the buttons or pin it in spots to prevent it from coming apart. That was only with getting ready, driving to the venue, and the final once over before the ceremony started. She is a tiny girl (street size 2) and wasn't doing anything crazy. I agree with the previous posters...trust your seamstress.