Bride Be Lovely, Manchester Review

Overall Rating

Good selection of bridesmaid dresses.

I found it unappealing from the outside and I think it could do with refurbishing.

Staff on the shop floor at Bride Be Lovely were very helpful at initial visit.

We went into Bride be Lovely looking for bridesmaids dresses in April for an August wedding. After trying on loads of different styles/colours, the bridesmaids found something that everyone was happy with. We paid extra for express delivery to make sure the they arrived on time and left feeling quite positive. In early July we had a call to say the dresses were in stock and made an appointment to get the bridesmaids there for a fitting later in the month.
On the day of the fitting they brought the dresses out and they were wrong - right colour, right style but the bodices were encrusted with beading instead of plain. (Apparently the mistake was due to a ticketing error). I was understandably upset as I knew just removing the beads would damage the satin fabric. The staff on the shop floor just didn't seem to know what to do. They appeared not to accept that they had made a mistake and seemed to be more worried about the effect of our distress on their other customers. We had to prove their mistake by showing her the stock dress that both bridesmaids had originally tried on in April. We left the shop with a promise that they would get in touch with head office to try and resolve the situation and call me the next day. Next day (Saturday) - received no phone call, Monday - no call. I called and they said they hadn't heard from head office. They did say that the beads had been picked off the dresses and that you could hardly tell where they had been apart from one or two pulled threads on the bodice - and no-one would notice on the day because they'd all be looking at the bride. Would that do? Not an option! Called later in the week to say that they had managed to reorder the dresses but that they wouldn't be in until three days before the wedding. We felt that this was too close to the day to allow for alterations etc. and decided to cut our losses and took a full refund. The credit card refund slip was sent to my home address without a covering letter or apology. Mistakes happen but I do feel that our complaint could have been handled much more diplomatically and everyone would have felt a lot happier.
My advice - making bridesmaids dresses is not as difficult as you think.