The dress saga: Part 2

I had pretty much set my heart on purchasing a dress from RK Bridal because all the dresses I really liked were under thousand bucks, which meant there would be money in my dress budget for alterations. It's a fantastic feeling to know you're coming in under budget on something!

However, I did feel that maybe I hadn't tried on enough dresses or checked out enough places. So I went back online to look for bridal shops that sell dresses for under an thousand dollars. Wedding Atelier came up and it actually got some decent reviews on Yelp.com. So I made an appointment to take a look.

Unfortunately, Wedding Atelier was not really a pleasant experience. Although the place is very airy and clean, the prices were not low. The cheaper dresses were too informal-looking and the lady helping me was very snotty. The first thing they asked was my budget, and I quoted a higher budget than I actually wanted to spend because I immediately got the feeling that they don't treat you very nice if you don't have some money. I didn't quote anything too high, but definitely higher than I wanted to spend. The consultant did not pull out dresses for me at all, basically telling me to look at the price tags and dresses myself and pull them out. Considering this is supposed to be a full-service boutique, I was NOT happy about this attitude. Even the discount shop found dresses for me to try on that I didn't pull out.

Anyways, I tried on a bunch of dresses and really liked one of them. By the way, they had chinese dresses too, but I didn't really like any of them. The dress I liked came under my quoted budget and was more than I originally wanted to spend. It was only that "cheap" because it was on sale. I took a picture of myself in the dress when I was alone and sent it to my bridesmaids. Almost unanimously, they liked this dress better than the previous pictures I sent. Granted, the previous ones were on models, but this dress also appealed in terms of style.

I went home that day thinking I'll just find a knock-off online or find the designer and dress at a discount shop for cheaper. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the dress anywhere! I couldn't even find the designer! I started thinking the boutique lied about the designer when they said it was a sub-brand of Pronovias because I couldn't find that dress in ANY site related to Pronovias! I even posted a picture of the dress I took in the boutique on weddingbee.com message boards to see if any of those awesomely helpful girls could identify it, but no luck there either.

That night, I dreamed of that dress. Generally, when I'm unsure of whether or not I want to buy something, my rule is: If it won't haunt you, don't get it. Well, it's haunting me! So the next day, I called Wedding Atelier and made an appointment to go back and purchase the dress. They sounded very happy over the phone.

I left work early to get there and I try the dress on one more time. As I'm standing in front of the mirror, I made the final decision to buy the dress. The consultant that first helped me gave me a big smile and then said, "Oh my, I'm sorry but the price you want it at is for the sample dress, not a brand new one that would be ordered in your size." So now she's trying to push the sample dress on me and I'm shocked by the sudden turn of events! The cost of a new dress is WAY out of my budget and I told her that she knew what my budget was and I just can't afford it. So, seeing that I'm not budging on that, she went to talk with the manager and was able to say she can order me a new dress for couple hundred dollars more than the sample. At this point, I'm fuming at feeling like I've been played. Seeing how unhappy I was, she said if I got the sample dress, she can waive the storage fee until my first fitting next year and they'll only charge $575 for any and all alterations I needed done. At this point, I think we both know I didn't want to let the dress go. At this point, I was also really upset but couldn't show it.

So I decided to just buy the sample dress and take it home. I was gonna take the dress and never go back there again. So they drew up a contract that states that I paid for the dress in full and will take it home with me. As they're drawing up the contract, the manager comes out and despite what the consultant said about the $575 fee covers all alterations and not to worry about extra fees, the manager says, "We'll put down $575 as the quoted price on your contract, but should you take the dress back to us for alterations next year, the price may or may not be higher by 25 to 75 dollars." WTF?!?! Always, they seem to be pulling a fast one on my money at the last minute! Truly, they are experts at fleecing people!

So I now have the sample dress lying on a couch in the apartment. It has a slight tear in the lace on the back near the zipper, but it's a small tear and probably repairable. The dress is fairly clean, even on the bottom where the skirt drags on the floor, so I'll probably not risk ruining it by getting it cleaned before I wear it.

Overall, I hated the dress shopping experience and I hated the bridal shops and the people who work there. There are so many bridal shop horror stories that you can't discount them all. Now, I have one of my own to tell. I just hate being lied to or misled, but for Wedding Atelier to do it as a force of habit or ritual just seems really slimy to me. And yes, I do believe they do this often because you don't get to be this skilled at fleecing people if you haven't had lots of practice.

So while I got the dress I wanted, the nasty experience has kept me from loving it. I'm filled with worry because I don't know how it's going to look after the alterations are done. Not only does it need to be hemmed, but the sides will need to be taken in at least 2 dress sizes. Also, it's a complicated dress with many layers in the skirt and beautiful lace on the top. The alterations are going to cost a lot and I'm afraid that in the end, for all that I've spent on this dress, I won't love it or the seamstress is going to suck and I'll look terrible at my own wedding!

What wedding horrors have yet to unfold before me?