Luxe & Lace Bridal Studio - by Bellevue Bridal — Attraction in Bellevue

I bought my gown from Bellevue Bridal/Luxe + Lace and used their in-house seamstress only because she was presented as part of their team. No one ever told me she’d left the business. Instead, less than two weeks before my wedding I got a text from the seamstress, not the shop, telling me to meet her at a motel in Kirkland for my fitting. I live in Ballard, and being told to go to a motel room was unsafe and wildly unprofessional.

When I contacted Bellevue Bridal, they said they were “confused” by the arrangement and agreed it was “strange,” but they offered no safe alternative or ownership of the situation. I tried calling and emailing to coordinate other arrangements. The email on their website bounces and calling their number sends you to text only which they were already ignoring.

I posted a negative review out of sheer panic after noticing others were actually getting a response. The owner called me a few hours later and we spoke for ~35 minutes. She promised to demand the seamstress meet me at the shop and said the shop would cover pressing. I deleted my review in good faith to let them fix it.

What happened next was a carousel of broken promises and silence:

Tuesday–Wednesday (10-11 days before my wedding): Owner promised an update “Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.” I heard nothing until 11 pm Wednesday, saying she still hadn’t reached the seamstress.

Thursday (9 days before my wedding): The seamstress texted to “confirm” Friday 4 pm in Kirkland. I said the shop had told me we’d meet at the shop; she offered Sunday at 2 pm at the shop and said she’d confirm. She later texted that Sunday 2 pm at the shop was set.

Friday (8 days before my wedding): The shop texted me asking if I’d scheduled Sunday, then said they didn’t actually have a room at 2 pm and might be able to “try” to find one, but never confirmed anything. My follow-up asking whether I needed to go to my original appointment later that day was ignored.

Saturday (7 days before my wedding): I group-texted both the shop and the seamstress asking for a confirmed time/place “within the next couple of hours.” Only the seamstress responded. We moved the fitting to my house on Sunday 1 pm. She arrived 1 hour 15 minutes late.

Sunday (6 days before my wedding): The dress still needs additional alterations and arrived wrinkled. The seamstress said pressing would be another $70, despite the shop telling me they would cover it. I now have to drive to Kirkland to pick it up.

Since then: I asked the shop to handle pressing as promised. No response to multiple messages but they've had no problem posting multiple times on social media in the same time frame.

Today I am five days from my wedding without a finished, pressed gown, being told to pay extra for a basic service that should have been included (and was promised by the owner). The communication from both parties has been disorganized and contradictory, at times reading like an argument with a teenager rather than a professional bridal studio.

Where Bellevue Bridal/Luxe + Lace failed me:

-Did not notify me their seamstress left, despite my dress being in her possession. -Directed me, by omission and indecision, into an unsafe motel-room fitting scenario. -Made promises (meet at the shop, shop will cover pressing) and failed to follow through. -Sent conflicting, last-minute messages and then went silent when decisions were needed. -Left me five days out with no dress, still needing alterations and pressing, while trying to charge $70 more for it.

Brides: Go elsewhere for your dress. I imagine their response to this review will shift blame to the seamstress and/or contradict details I've provided. But that misses the point. The issue is that Bellevue Bridal continues to be unreliable, non-communicative and has shown zero accountability now less than one week away from my wedding, still...

TL; DR: I had a terrible experience with Bellevue Bridal. Do yourself a favor and don't shop here.

Why my experience was so bad:

Firstly, they are one of the only--if not THE only--bridal shop in the area that REQUIRES payment for an appointment. Samila Bridal doesn't. I Do Bridal doesn't. Romashka, Blue Sky Bridal, Brides for a Cause, For the Luv of Bridal, Something Blue Bridal, New Beginnings Bridal, The Wedding Bell--all of them have free appointment options. Additionally, every single other shop I visited offered a better, more uplifting shopping experience.

Bellevue Bridal's pricing information on their Pinterest (where they list their dress inventory) is exceptionally misleading. That would have bothered me less if they hadn't also budget shamed me once I got there. It is not difficult to add more information to a pin. This small courtesy would have saved me from having to hear my consultant sniff, "that's a COUTURE gown, so it's out of your price range" again and again.

My consultant also put almost no effort into making me feel beautiful in the gowns/trying to fit them to my body shape. I think she decided that I didn't belong there, since they have a sister plus-size store, and I really got the vibe that she thought it would be a waste to try. This was especially disheartening, as I had actually called the store twice to avoid this very scenario. I'm right on the cusp, so I was assured both times that it would be okay if I came to Bellevue Bridal. The consultant at the plus-size sister store (she was AMAZING) also actually recommended that I check out Bellevue Bridal.

I shopped at ten different stores, and at all of them BUT THIS ONE the consultants carefully helped me with the placing of the bodice, carefully clipped at my waist, shortened sleeves, etc., so that I could imagine what the dress might look like. My consultant barely looked at me as she hurriedly pinned the dresses. They all looked terrible, but that wasn't really what bothered me--it was the way that she made me feel like I wasn't worth the effort because I wasn't the right type of person to be at their store. How do I know this was a size-related issue? When my mom grabbed a dress in my size--(yes, I've checked, and it has the same measurements as the dress I ended up buying)--she just lazily, loosely clipped it up. It was a mermaid and my hips were swimming. You'd think she'd notice that. When she could go grab dresses for me to try, she got a dress and, for the first and only time, took her time and attempted to clip it in correctly. It was three sizes (six numbers) larger than my actual size.

After shopping at Bellevue Bridal, I felt like a disgusting poser, which is ridiculous. Wedding dress shopping is supposed to be fun and empowering, and instead I felt embarrassed and ashamed. The experienced stamped out my confidence and put me off dress shopping for weeks.

I wrote a private review to the store first about a month ago. They have not attempted to contact me. I know the owner is going to come on here and say that these things are somehow my fault. Please see through that.

Look, this is a wedding dress shop. They are going to have beautiful dresses. But they also are NOWHERE NEAR as good as the other stores in the area. Do yourself a favor--save your money and go somewhere else. Somewhere where they care about making YOU look good and feel good, not just about making...

I was going to leave a one-star review due to the incredibly poor communication, but a positive pick-up experience last week bumped it up to two stars.

The store's communication over the last several weeks has been UNACCEPTABLE. They relocated from Bellevue to Seattle without telling any of their brides, including those with pending shipments. In July, I discovered they were moving through their Instagram account - why wasn't I told about this directly by the store? To make matters worse, their phones and emails were down after the move. I DM’ed their Instagram account in early August to check the shipping status of my dress and got no response after a couple of days. After no response from their IG account and no alternative way to contact them, I had no choice but to drive to the new location in order to check the status of my dress.

When I got to the new location, the floor was disorganized—boxes were everywhere, and the front desk was covered with sticky notes. When I asked about my dress, the woman at the front desk (who I believe was the owner) said she had a sticky note with my name on it somewhere. She told me their alterations specialist was no longer taking reservations. They were scrambling to find alteration services for their brides, including me, which was especially frustrating since I chose Bellevue Bridal specifically for their in-house specialist. The owner admitted she had planned to send an email about the move but chose not to because of the "craziness" of the transition. In my opinion, this choice severely damaged their reputation by not prioritizing upfront communication to their most important customer - the bride. The owner provided me a sticky note with two referrals for alterations and an alternative number to contact her for a tracking number. Unfortunately, when I tried to text/call the number the next day to get tracking details, it was the wrong number.

Open communication and earlier transparency about the move would have helped reduced my anxiety around the dress delivery. The fact that there was no alternative ways to contact the store, such as an owner’s cell number, a working phone number or a transitional email, is truly unbelievable, unprofessional and poor customer service.

Fortunately, my pick-up appointment was a pleasant exception. Kee, who I recognized from older Google reviews and photos, was very friendly and professional. I was in and out within 15 minutes.

The repeated communication failures caused significant stress for me, especially over these last couple of weeks. I consider myself lucky to have gotten my dress on Saturday and started alterations this Monday, six weeks before my early October wedding. However, I truly empathize with brides getting married in the next few weeks who are going through a similar, but likely even more frustrating experience.

If you are a bride-to-be planning your wedding in the coming months, do not come here. I sincerely hope the owner reflects on my feedback and prioritizes clear, proactive communication to their brides...