Since my amazing seamstress sister lives far away and I did not inherit the sewing gene, I took Emma's dress to the dry cleaners to see about getting it altered.  After a nice discount, the dress cost just under $51.00.  Awesome!  Unfortunately, it's a little long on Emma.  It needed to be hemmed and the shoulder straps needed to be shortened.  

The dry cleaner told me -  in a form of English that was hard to understand - that she would charge $60.  I was certain that I must have misunderstood her.  So, I repeated...$60?  She nodded yes.  That's just insane.  

I came home and took out the stitching in the shoulders.  It took me about 20 minutes to get the stitching out.  I re-stitched one of the shoulder straps and it didn't look any different than it did before.  I was very excited with the outcome.  The second shoulder was just as easy.  Woo hoo!

Now, I just need to figure out how to hem it!