Where can I find plus size formal dresses near Scranton, PA?

Elizabeth's Boutique at 724 Cedar Avenue, Scranton, carries formal dresses from size 000 through 28, with most styles on the floor to try on the same day. Prom, homecoming, quinceanera, bridal, bridesmaid and mother of the bride are all stocked across the range.

Do you carry petite formal dresses?

Yes, at the 000 to 2 end of the range and in stock rather than as a special order. Petite is actually less well served locally than plus size, and the fix is usually the same: try it on, then let a seamstress shorten the bodice as well as the hem.

Is it better to buy a formal dress online or in store if I am plus size?

In store, and the reason is not loyalty, it is arithmetic. Sizing is not standard between brands, so a size 20 in one label is a 24 in another and no amount of careful measuring fixes that. Trying ten dresses on in an afternoon tells you more than three online orders and three return windows.

What size can a dress be altered down to?

As a rule of thumb, a dress can usually come in one to two sizes without losing its shape, and out by much less, because letting out depends entirely on how much seam allowance the maker left. Buy the size that fits your widest measurement and let the seamstress take in the rest.

Can a formal dress be altered if I lose or gain weight before the event?

Usually yes, and a corset or lace-up back gives the most adjustment range of any closure. What makes it hard is a dress that has to be shipped somewhere to be altered. When alterations are done in house, a change of plan is another visit rather than a crisis.

Do you charge more for larger sizes?

No. The price is the price of the style.

Sizes 000 to 28: Formal Dresses That Actually Fit

There is a particular experience that happens to people at both ends of the size range, and it is the reason this article exists. You find a dress you love, you check the size chart, you order it, and what arrives is either wrong or nearly right in a way that cannot be fixed in the time you have left. It happens at size 24 and it happens at size 0, and it happens because a size chart is a guess about a body it has never seen.

What We Actually Stock

Sizes 000 through 28, across every occasion: prom, homecoming and semi-formal, quinceañera, damas, Sweet 16, bridal, bridesmaids, mother of the bride and pageant. Most styles are on the floor to try on the same day rather than ordered in.

That last clause is the whole point, and it is worth being precise about why. We are not claiming to be the only shop in the area with a broad range on paper, because that is not true and a competitor could rebut it in one sentence. What we are saying is narrower and more useful: the dresses are physically here, in that range, and you can try ten of them on an afternoon and walk out with the one that fits.

Nobody on the first page of a search for plus size prom dresses can offer you that. Every one of those results ships a dress to your door and hopes.

Why a Try-On Beats Three Orders

Sizes are not standard, and careful measuring does not fix it

A size 20 in one designer line is a 24 in another. This is not carelessness, it is that every maker drafts to a different fit block. So the sequence that feels responsible, measuring carefully and matching the chart, still produces a wrong dress a great deal of the time. It is not a failure of effort.

Fit is not one measurement, it is four

Bust, waist, hip and torso length. Most people are not the same size in all four, which is the actual reason off-the-peg formalwear is hard. A dress that fits your hips and gapes at the bust is not a wrong size, it is a dress drafted for a different proportion. You cannot see that on a screen and a chart cannot tell you.

Photographs lie about structure

Not deliberately. A boned bodice photographed on a mannequin shows you what the boning does to fabric, not what it does to your ribs. A corset either sits where your waist is or it sits two inches above it, and there is exactly one way to find out.

What a Seamstress Can and Cannot Change

This is the part that changes how you shop, once you know it.

Straightforward: taking in the side seams, shortening a hem, shortening straps, adding a modesty panel, moving a zip, adding cups, taking in a waist.

Possible but bigger: shortening a bodice, reshaping a neckline, adding sleeves, taking a structured bodice in more than about two sizes.

Genuinely hard or not worth it: letting a dress out more than a little, because that depends entirely on how much seam allowance the maker left and often there is almost none. Also anything that means rebuilding a beaded or appliquéd panel, because the beading has to come off and go back on by hand.

So the rule is: buy for your widest measurement and have the rest taken in. Do not buy small and hope. Hoping is the expensive option.

Petite Is Even Less Served

Plus size at least gets talked about. Petite mostly gets ignored, and the problem is not just hem length: a dress drafted for a 5'8" frame has the waist seam, the bust darts and the bodice length all in the wrong place on a 5'1" frame. Shortening the hem fixes one of those four things.

Which is why we keep 000 to 2 on the floor rather than treating it as a special order, and why a petite fitting is usually a conversation about the bodice rather than the skirt.

How to Make a Fitting Work For You

Bring the shoes. The hem is cut to the shoe, and a hem cut for flats is wrong for heels.
Bring the right undergarments. This matters more at both ends of the range, not less. A strapless dress fitted over the wrong bra fits nothing.
Try things you think will not suit you. This is the single most useful thing to do in a shop and it is free. People arrive convinced of a silhouette and leave in a different one about half the time.
Say your size out loud without apologizing for it. It is a measurement. We need it the way a shoe shop needs a shoe size.
Sit down in it. Then stand up. Then reach up. A dress that only works standing still is not a dress you can wear to a dance.
Bring one person, not six. Six people produce a compromise nobody likes.

One Thing We Will Not Do

Charge you more for a larger size. The price is the price of the style. We mention it only because people ask, which tells you it happens elsewhere.

Come and Try Things On

The Elizabeth's Boutique storefront at 724 Cedar Avenue, Scranton, Pennsylvania — 724 Cedar Avenue, Scranton. Free parking in our own lot behind the building.

We are at 724 Cedar Avenue in Scranton, with free parking in our own lot behind the building. Walk in Monday, Tuesday or Thursday 12:30 to 6, or Saturday 11 to 4. Alterations are done in house, and layaway is free with no interest and no fee.

Browse by occasion first if you like: prom, homecoming and semi-formal, quinceañera, damas, Sweet 16, bridal, bridesmaids and mother of the bride. Or call (570) 969-6168 and ask what is on the rack in your size before you drive over.