Dreamers & Lovers Bridal Atelier — Attraction in Lomita

If I could give this place zero stars, I would. I had a truly awful experience here. I made my appointment weeks in advance and only brought my mom with me. We had only been to a small bridal boutiques so we weren't strangers to the small business feel. We arrived early and wandered into an awkward entrance - a warehouse in an industrial area with a roll up door. Definitely doesn't read "bridal" but whatever, we were there for dresses, not decor. Nobody greeted us but there was a man sitting on a couch inside with a laptop wearing a tracksuit so he was our only option to approach. I told him I was there for an appointment and told him my name. He acted really awkward and uncomfortable towards us, didn't speak English very well, and definitely wasn't friendly. Then he tells me that my appointment isn't at 3, it's at 4 and that there's a coffee shop nearby I can go to because they're with a client right now whose appointment is running long. I told him that my appointment is definitely at 3 and even checked my email confirmation and he said sorry it's only one client at a time. Dumbfounded and unfamiliar with the area, my mom and I waited in the parking lot outside for 40 minutes. Yanique walked the client she was with to her car and told us we could be seen now. She greeted us both and was friendly. She pulled the dresses I was interested in and left me alone in the dressing room to try them on. Every other place I had been to to try on dresses had an employee in the dressing room with me to help me in and out of the dresses, to zip/button me up, and pin them if need be so I was pretty surprised that she didn't do the same. I struggled to get in and out of nearly every dress which was very frustrating. I'm quite petite, but she pulled size zeros of everything and I repeatedly told her that they were too tight and that I couldn't zip them up and she literally forced the zipper up or safety pinned zippers shut instead of grabbing me a different size - which they definitely had because she told me so at one point. It was mortifying. And who uses safety pins on wedding dresses?! Talk about a safety issue. Every time I walked out of the dressing room, unzipped, clutching the dresses onto me as to not expose myself, Yanique was nowhere to be found. They have a back warehouse portion where it looks like they produce the dresses and I would constantly see Yanique back there talking to the couple men who work there, nowhere near my dressing room to zip me up. It felt like I wasn't the priority at all and I had to fend for myself. I had to pin myself into a dress at one point! I started tearing up in the dressing room and told my mom I wanted to leave because it just wasn't worth it but we drove an hour to the appointment and she reminded me that if "the one" is here that we shouldn't waste an appointment just because they had terrible customer service so we stuck it out til I tried on everything I had my eye on. I tried on probably 10 dresses and each time Yanique was off wandering somewhere else and I had to wait around for her. We didn't even use the full hour, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. My mom and I are not high maintenance at all so I don't want you guys to disregard this review because you think that we're some snobby girls who want the Kleinfeld treatment. I shop at Forever 21 for christ's sake, I know what bad customer service is. This was beyond words. I did not feel like a bride. Nothing about this visit made me feel like I was shopping for the most special day of my life. I ended up crying to my fiancé when I got home and he and my mom both urged me not to give my business to a place that treated me that way - which is a real loss on their part because I found a dress there that was my top contender - and to write a review about my horrific experience. I don't know if it was just an off day for them but there is no excuse for how inattentive they were to us....

Covid changed my wedding plans so this had become my back-up plan like many other brides out there. Before I had decided which dress I wanted, I had paid for 3 loaner dresses to try on before selecting my dress. They estimated the dresses to arrive on a Thursday so I asked my bridesmaids to come over on a Friday night so we could make an evening out of picking out my dress (the pandemic made it impossible to go into any stores to try on dresses so I thought this was a good back-up plan). Right before the dresses arrived I received an e-mail stating that I needed to return the dresses after 24 hours of receipt even though their website stated a 48 hour turn around time. After several back and forth emails and a couple phone calls, they honored the 48 hour turn around time despite being very busy and needing the dress back immediately to send it to someone else (I doubt they are cleaned even during Covid times because many of them seemed dirty). When the dresses arrived, many of them had rips and loose thread hanging everywhere. I understand these are sample dresses but you would expect them to be in much better condition. Because I had already paid to try on these dresses, I convinced myself that the poor condition of the sample dresses were only because of how much they had been tried on. So I ended up ordering a dress and their website stated 15-18 weeks turnaround time. I then receive an e-mail with more conflicting information than what is listed on their website. Again they are very busy and their turnaround time is now 18-22 weeks. Not once when I was emailing or calling prior to my purchase did they tell me that the information on the website is wrong. If the dress was actually shipped at 22 weeks it would have arrived after my wedding so I emailed Yanique and asked for a refund but she assured me that it would be done on time. I emailed them my measurements, never heard back. Three emails later and they finally said they received the measurements and that all is good. I received my wedding dress before the wedding, which is literally the only positive thing I have to say. The wedding dress arrived with two holes in one of the sleeves. When I emailed Yanique she said "Good thing is that because of the drape of the sleeves, it shouldn’t show in photos." I pay $2,000 for an answer like this. No offer to send it back for repair, no offer to even send a matching patch so I can then pay to have it repaired close to home. She tried claiming that they were caused by an iron even though I did not iron this and my tailor told me they were rips from wear and tear like the sample dresses had. She also tried telling me that the dress hadn't been worn before but I saw a photo of a petite model wearing the exact same style dress on instagram right around the same time that my wedding dress was sent out to me. What a coincidence. I should have trusted my instinct and gone elsewhere when the first issue came up with their horrible...

In 2020 I went with my sister to look at wedding dresses for her at Dreamers and Lovers in Venice and I was like oh my god… I WILL be getting my dress here one day. Fast forward 5 years, my now husband proposed and the first thing I did was schedule an appointment at Dreamers & Lovers in Torrance!

I was helped by the designer Yanique, which was such a beautiful experience! Yanique is not only an incredible designer, but a kind, gentle, warm soul. My entire experience here was everything I imagined & dreamed that wedding dress shopping would be! The appointment felt so relaxed and personal. Yanique was not pushy at all and truly wanted to make sure I felt comfortable and found something that felt like me. Her dresses are even more stunning in person than online and the different laces are so beautiful and intricate and many of them are stretchy, which after trying them on, became a deal breaker for me. The designs are just so incredibly beautiful, unique, bohemian, relaxed, and as a professional tailor myself, I can say that the quality of the dresses are excellent. Alterations are also included in the price which is incredibly rare and their tailors work MAGIC!

I almost didn’t try on the Meredith dress because I was dead set on not wanting off the shoulder, but Yanique encouraged me to try it on and to my surprise it was PERFECT! My chest felt lifted and supported, my waist was snatched, the vertical seams elongated made my 5ft figure, and the tassel trim and train were to die for. The dress was so incredibly comfortable and surprisingly light, regal yet relaxed, vintage yet fresh, boho yet bridal. Looking back at the photos from that day, I can immediately tell by the look on my face that Meredith was the dress for me.

About a month before my wedding, I came in to try on my dress but it was actually pretty loose throughout the body - my own fault as I was working out like crazy due to the stress of wedding planning lol - but I had full trust in Yanique & her team of tailors. A week later my dress was ready and I still can’t believe how quickly they were able to alter the dress and how PERFECTLY the dress fit my body.

Wedding dress shopping is such a unique and special experience and I am so appreciative that I was able to experience that with Yanique and her amazing team. I have genuinely never felt more beautiful than I felt in my Dreamers & Lovers dress on my...