Removing Dress Straps??

I think you should wear the dress however you want that makes you feel the most beautiful.

I don’t think it’s too plain but only you know how you feel.

I'm definitely no seamstress, but I'm positive it would be very expensive to remove the straps, if even possible. Strapless dresses are made to support the dress around the waist, they would essentially need to reconfigure the entire bodice to keep the dress up and avoid a huge wardrobe malfunction. It's not just a cosmetic change.

This might be a much bigger job than you expect. Typically, strapless dresses have a lot of built in support (e.g., boning, etc.) and need to fit pretty tight in order for the dress to stay up. Because your dress was not designed as a strapless dress, it may not already have that "infrastructure" built in. I think the dress is beautiful as it is, but if it's not really what you want, I'd probably go try on more dresses and see if you can find something you like better. Based on the photos, it looks like you bought your original dress at David's; they are generally pretty good about letting you exchange an unworn dress for another dress that costs at least the same amount. Good luck!

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It was on clearance and they won't let me exchange it. Which I didn't know when purchasing it :/

You can probably alter the dress to *appear* strapless but really it would just be illusion straps, that is a soft flesh colored mesh/netting of some sort. That way maybe the whole structure doesn't have to be reworked? I definitely don't know if this is possible but when I first saw your altered google photos I actually thought that's what the bride was wearing - illusion straps. But I've never even seen illusion straps in real life, only illusion necklines so again I may have no idea what I'm talking about!

Strapless dresses, particularly wedding dresses, have a ton of built in structure that other dresses typically don't have. It might theoretically be possible to convert the dress, but the cost, if it is doable, will likely be a lot more than you are expecting. I'd try to think of other things that could make you feel bridal, veil, special updo, a bouquet, fabulous shoes, jewelry. Bring those things with you for fittings. A quick updo and grocery store flowers should be enough to get the feel.

View Quoted Comment It actually does look like the altered Google photo is wearing illusion--it might just be the photo but you can kind of see a little line running up her shoulder.

I agree with the other posters that it's going to be hard to take the straps off because of the lack of support your dress will have without them. I've seen brides add straps to a strapless gown and that's pretty simple, but with the money you would spend trying to alter your dress, you could very likely just buy another that fits your vision and sell this one.

View Quoted Comment By altered, I copied the photo with straps and “painted” over the straps. She’s not wearing illusion. I did that for visual since the dress fit her better than mine does since it’s not altered.

The problem is I can’t find another one that I like enough that’s not over $1500 plus alterations :/

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I would start by talking to a seamstress who can give you a better answer than we can about how much it would cost to turn the dress into a strapless dress. It's also worth talking to her about adding the illusion and what that would look like.

Your dress doesn’t seem like a style/cut that you can just “take the straps off”, especially with it being a v-neck. How would it stay up? As others have mentioned, strapless dresses usually have a lot of boning and structure to them so that they do not fall down. I would take it to a seamstress to see what your options are and what the cost would be.

Instead of making it strapless, could you remove the straps but replace them with an illusion? Maybe that would fit your vision better. As pps said it would be tough to get it to stay up if it wasn’t intended to be strapless. But the illusion seems like a good compromise

It may not even be possible. If there is no caboning in your strapped dress cutting the sleeves off would cause your dress to fall. The boning is the support to hold it up. Not a cheap fix if at all possible. The entire dress would have to be reconstructed