‘Devastated’ — Blind bride’s dress blast

EMBARRASSED . . . Andrea and her mum Kathleen with two of the dresses

DEVASTATED bride Andrea Heaton, who has been blind since birth, says she had her dream wedding ruined by disastrous dressmaking.

But dressmaker Sarah Jane Bushara, who has made clothes for the cast of “Coronation Street” and pop band “Girls Aloud”, says she was messed around by the bridal party from start to finish and still hasn’t been paid for the dresses.

Andrea, of Corona Avenue, Hollins, bought 12m of duchess satin and took a picture of the design she wanted to Sarah’s shop in Hollins Road.

As the day of Andrea’s wedding — to long-term partner Michael at Union Street Methodist Church on Saturday — drew nearer she began to worry about when she would receive her dresses.

But Sarah says Andrea and her mother Kathleen Pickering kept changing the design and asking for additional pieces, such as capes and sashes, to be made.

Andrea (36) picked the dresses up at 11.30am on the day of the wedding and rushed off to get her hair and make up done without a second thought.

At the wedding, several people commented on the poor condition of the dresses to Kathleen but she only told Andrea the day after.

Orange and black cotton had been used on burgundy satin and there were unfinished seams, holes in the bows on the back of the dresses, netting cut roughly and sewn in incorrectly, straps sewn on inside out and left flapping around inside the dress and zips not finished off.

Andrea said: “I was devastated when I heard about the state of the dresses. It is all I can think about now. I am so embarrassed.”

Sarah, who opened her shop nine months ago, said: “Andrea only brought the fabric to me two weeks before the wedding and each dress took around eight hours to make.

“Because of their last minute requests I was up until 2am on the day of the wedding making sure everything was finished because I didn’t want to let her down. I had to pay for a babysitter for my children.

“The mother and daughter musn’t communicate properly because one of them would ring and say one thing and then the other would come in and say something different.

“They said they didn’t mind picking the dresses up on the morning of the wedding and when they looked at them they said they liked them.

“I have never had any complaints about my work in the past and I didn’t take any money from Andrea for the dresses. I am mowed out making prom dresses at the minute and only took the job on to do Andrea a favour.”

Kathleen said: “I have not stopped crying since the wedding.”