“Well, we’re going to have to hem quite a lot. Let’s put your shoes on and see if that helps? …Not really…”
-Seamstress
Could someone please explain how the alterations for a wedding dress cost half as much as the dress itself? Does this seem right? I don’t care if they have to take three yards off the bottom so I can walk (slight exaggeration), it still seems horrendously exorbitant! On the upside, it’s still a gorgeous dress, and I saved it from near ruin. When I went in to get it altered the seamstresses were working on the same dress for another girl…and they had turned it into some sort of Jane-Austen-wanna-be-meets-prom-dress-gone-horribly wrong mistake. I am not spending money on something like this only to have it turned into some monstrosity. Gah, what an escape!
Small Dog Syndrome 
Sadly, the reason your alterations cost 1/2 as much as the dress is probably because the dress was made by four year olds getting paid 3 cents an hour while working in horrific conditions. Your seamstress in an adult working in a pleasant shop that has to be nice enough for you to actually enter.
Alternately, your alterations cost 1/2 as much as your dress because you were thrifty and purchased a used dress from someone. They paid the astronomic $3,000 wedding dress cost. They wore it once, had it professionally cleaned and then sold it for a fraction of the price.
Wedding costs suck. I wish I had eloped.