Patient Goals
My patient was getting married soon and wanted to finally take the next step to improve her smile. She wanted to improve on the size of her teeth, how much of her gums showed when she smiled, her narrow smile and the gap between her front teeth.
Smile Analysis
There were a few things I needed to address to give her a result that looked beautiful, natural, and would last:
- Small teeth: Her teeth were shorter than ideal for the size of her face and smile.
- Gummy smile: She showed just as much gum as tooth when she smiled wide.
- Narrow smile: Because her teeth are small, when she smiles, there is a large space between her teeth and the inside of her cheek, creating a shadow on the sides of her smile 🡪 a buccal corridor.
- Spacing: There was a large gap between her front teeth.
- Overbite: She had a deep bite, meaning her upper and lower front teeth overlapped heavily. This puts a lot of pressure on the front teeth and can cause veneers to chip if not corrected.
Treatment Plan
We decided on 12 veneers to fully address both function and esthetics:
- Aesthetic Reason: When she smiles big and laughs, she shows all the way to her molars. To properly fill out her smile and remove shadows, we needed to treat those back teeth too.
- Functional Reason: Because of her deep bite, I couldn’t just make her front teeth longer without creating a risk of breakage. By including the molars, I was able to slightly open her bite and create space so I could safely lengthen her front teeth.
Treatment Process
- Designed a mock-up to plan the bite, tooth length, and final smile design
- First long appointment:
- Conservatively prepped the teeth
- Performed a gum lift (crown lengthening) to raise the gumline and reduce gum display
- Fabricated and placed temporary veneers based on the mock-up
- She wore the temps for 3–4 days to test out aesthetics, bite, and speech
- Post-op visit: Adjusted the temporaries to exactly how she wanted them. Her final veneers were made to match these.
- Final appointment (2.5 weeks later): Cemented all 12 veneers in a single 4-hour appointment
Design Details
- By doing the gum lift, she now shoes a proportional amount of gum and teeth when she smiles
- I made the veneers thicker on the side so as to widen her smile and fill in any spaces between the cheek when she smiles- also known as reducing her buccal corridor.
- I kept her original tooth shape but scaled it up, so everything still looked like her
- Translucent edges were added to the veneers to keep them soft and natural-looking and blend with her lower teeth
- The final smile is balanced, full, and fits her face beautifully
Final Result
This is honestly one of my favorite cases. My patient was already such a kind, positive person who smiled all the time — so it was even more rewarding to see her extra happy with her new smile!
She had a naturally gummy smile, smaller teeth, and a large overbite. I opened her bite so I could make her teeth bigger without risking breakage, and did a gum lift (crown lengthening) to reduce the amount of gum she showed.
After 12 veneers, she ended up with a fuller, brighter, and more natural-looking smile that fits her face beautifully. She looked absolutely stunning on her wedding day — and I’m so thankful she let me be a part of it.
