Where NOT to buy your wedding dress!!!

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Excuse the rant below but I have to get this off my chest and hopefully prevent any other couples from falling into the same trap that we did. To all those brides-to-be that are looking for a shop to buy their wedding/bridesmaid dresses – I strongly recommend you avoid this one:



ROMANTIC FASHION DESIGN GALLERY

65 Margaret Street

London

W1W 8SP



I have never in my life encountered such rude and intolerable staff – and that especially includes the store owner!! They were so horrible they actually had my wife in tears! Added to that that they have what appears to be a nice little scam going with dress alterations and it makes me wonder how they’re still in business!!



Here’s the story….



My wife and I live in London and got married two months ago in Gibraltar. She had 3 bridesmaids – one from Scotland, one from Gibraltar and one from Norway so decided that to save time and effort, she would buy her wedding dress and all the bridesmaids outfits from the same shop in London. As everyone lived in different countries, we of course asked the question if we could provide the shop with sizes/measurements etc ourselves but they said no, they have to take the measurements themselves in order to custom-make the dresses. Well, that meant getting all the girls together in London for the weekend but hey, there’s plenty of other things to do in London once the shopping’s out the way so they made a weekend of it.



So one weekend, we manage to get everyone over for a day out in town, including Mums and Grandmother. All the girls go see the wedding dress and get measured up for the bridesmaid outfits. A couple of people turn up a few minutes late so when they walk in they are barked at “sit down” but other than that it all goes swimmingly until the store owner asks “who is the thinnest bridesmaid”. This one was used as the “tailor’s dummy”. They then say that they will be charging extra for one of the dresses as one of the girls “requires more fabric”. She’s a UK size 18. Bad enough that she says this in front of all the other customers in the shop but she of course didn’t mention anything about a reduction in price for the girl that’s only a UK size 8!!



Well anyway, these things happen so the girls all let it slide and they go off for lunch and a few drinks. It’s a wedding bash so it’s all good!!



Moving on a few weeks now, my wife is called in for her second fitting for her wedding dress. She gets there right on time only to have the store owner embarrass her in front of all the other customers in the shop grilling her as to why she wasn’t wearing the exact underwear she’d be wearing on her wedding day and why she hadn’t brought her wedding shoes with her. When my wife told her simply that she wasn’t asked to do so, the owner scoffed at her and said that it was obvious they were required and that she should know that. Well, I’m sorry, we’ve never been married before – perhaps you should have mentioned it!!! The first I heard of this was when my wife met me soon after in absolute tears. She couldn’t believe how she’d been treated! By this point, if I’d been there I would have told the silly cow where she could insert all four dresses and demanded our money back! However, it was a little late to be re-ordering a dress from somewhere else and my wife is much more tolerant than I (which is fortunate otherwise she probably wouldn’t have married me!). So despite a rather teary afternoon (and a bit of swearing from yours truly), she returned there a week later with all the proper accoutrements and was fitted again.



Naturally the dress required a few minor adjustments, but nothing major. A stitch here, a lift there – what you’d expect. However, when it came to paying for it, the lady at the desk asked if a price had been agreed with the owner beforehand. My wife said no and she replied “ok, that will be £120 then”. I almost fell off my chair!!!



It turns out that the shop charges between £50 and £200 for any alterations they have to do after they’ve made the dresses. The same would have gone for the bridesmaids dresses except we drew the line and said we’d get them done elsewhere.



Which is where I come to my final grievance with the shop in question. After numerous reminders and phone calls made to them, we were finally informed two weeks before the wedding that they had the bridesmaids dresses ready for re-fitting and alterations. We informed them that we didn’t have time to do it through them and would take them with us to Gibraltar and get them altered there – we had a week or so over there before the wedding to sort out the final arrangements. So the week before the wedding, we all meet up in Gibraltar, bridesmaids and all and the girls try on all their dresses again. To my absolute disbelief, we find out that the dresses, far from being 'approximate fits' were in fact ordered in standard sizes all far bigger than required. The size 18 came in as a 24 and the size 8 came in a 14!!!! When we phoned the shop to complain and ask why the hell they measured everyone in the first place if all they were going to do was order TENTS, they told us that it’s standard practise - they measure to work out the largest measurement of each person and then order standard size dresses to fit that part. They then alter the rest or the dress down to fit the other parts. When I said that sounds ok in principle for all in one dresses but these outfits were all separates (top and skirt) so we expected them to order appropriate sizes for the measurements on top and bottom - they couldn’t give me an answer to that other than they were expecting to alter them after anyway so better to order big!



It was at that point that everything fell into place - on top of the £2000 they’d already had for the four dresses, they stood to make nearly half that again on alterations!!



Well.....if you’ve made it this far, I thank you for your patience and hope you’ll understand why I’m so annoyed with this company and question how they are still in business. As I write though, I think I’ve found the answer. You see, once you’ve ordered the dress, by the time it arrives, it’s unlikely you’ll have time to re-order if you’re not happy with the results....or the service. And they know you'll pay what they tell you to because it's your wedding they're messing with!!! Add to that the fact that it’s not the sort of place you’d shop at on a regular basis – hopefully just once in your lifetime – I now we see why it’s still doing very well indeed!!



Well, I hope that this all goes some way to preventing other brides-to-be from having to go through the trauma my wife went through for the sake of a pretty bit of fabric and a very large bill!!



A. Knight - London



PS - just so you all know, the wedding went wonderfully and we are extremely happy - we're just still trying to pay off the bill!!

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that is disgraceful. the shop should be ashamed!!!

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Now that's really horrible. Did you just say they're still in business? Unbelievable!




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It amazes me how shops can operate in this way. And most of all scary that they get away with it. Glad to read that the wedding went well.

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i think that's horrid and really unacceptable. but what can you do? they have it all worked out!

if i were you, i'd write on all the wedding forum sites and review sites so as many people as possible can read about them. you just can't let them get away with it. it's not on

bad reviews travels faster than good ones. and people remember these comments. don't think you'd be doing it in vain. i for one am behind you and will never use them.

it's sounds quite callous what i say, but it's important for consumers to look out for one another coz there are so many rip offs and lack of customer service around. it needs to change. and if people are unaware or just put up with it, it will just get worse

good luck. sounds as though it was all sorted out though in the end, i hope it was a lovely wedding and day
xx