A Toile/ Toil - How not to do it

I chose a really nice fabric for the toile. Its a plain white cotton with a white printed, small leafy pattern. In fact, I even lined my toile, but the lining was a cheap fabric that frayed even when I looked at it and proved incredibly slippery in the machine. Luckily as the wedding is in September, I could afford to use a thicker lining for the real thing.

I live in a flat/house with my fiance; nobody else bar two rabbits. And I have done 90% of the work within these four walls.  So perhaps it should have occured to me that making a version of the dress that I would be able to put on inside out, pin alterations into and so on should be easy to put on and off myself.

No such luck.

Instead, I made a mock up of the real thing (which, as you might notice, has pleats at the waist too - an undesired design feature with all the other things that would be going on) with the plan to pin the zip seam together to check the fit.

Having reached this stage, I could have also just - shock horror - put a zip in and checked the fit that way.

Here is what I did:

Yep. I stitched the back seam; no use for that here!
And I slashed the WHOLE FRONT down the centre, including across the folds, so that I could do up and undo the dress with these stylish yellow grosgrain ties.

As you can see, there was a LOT of room in the back to take in, and I've really distorted the bust seams by taking in from both the centre piece and the sides. On the plus side, I found a neckline shape I liked quite readily!

So in future: JUST put the zip in. And on the side too! Although would this add its own problems?