Alta Moda Bridal — Attraction in Salt Lake City

Edited to add: they reached out to apologize to her, thanks! +1 star Beautiful Dresses - Poor Customer Service

My best friend, Stevie, and I visited Alta Moda during a sale event. While we anticipated a rushed experience due to the sale, we also expected a level of high-quality customer service commensurate with the reputation of this shop.

Unfortunately, our experience fell short of our expectations. The assistant manager, Emily, who assisted Stevie, appeared to lack confidence in her role. This became evident through her handling of dress selections and her limited consideration of Stevie's feedback, which is critical in this time-constrained setting. She repeatedly brought dresses that were nowhere close to what Stevie was interested in.

Emily's lack of confidence extended to her knowledge of possible alterations, she repeatedly had to check with other staff members. This contrasted starkly with the exemplary service provided by neighboring consultants, who went above and beyond to visualize alteration possibilities for their clients.

The neighboring consultants were bending over backwards, and grabbing all types of fabrics and additional accessories, to show the bride they were helping what alterations were possible, and what they would look like. We would have been thrilled with even a fraction of this level of support during Stevie's experience.

Despite the lackluster support, Stevie still decided on a dress. After congratulating Stevie, Emily abruptly left without providing any information about the next steps. We were left waiting, confused, and unattended for an extended period, with staff members appearing indifferent to our presence.

We sat in the try-on area for 40 minutes craning our heads and attempting to get the attention of any of the several available staff members. Virtually all other customers had left at this point and the remaining staff were just wandering the store and chatting with eachother. Not once did anyone ask if there was anything we were waiting for, or anything they could help us with.

About halfway through our wait, I had approached a staff member directly, and asked them if we could take 'I said Yes to the dress photos' while we were waiting. They explained that that's not something they do at this shop. (Which is a whole separate frustration, this is the only shop I've ever heard of that doesn't afford brides that experience). She also did not address the fact that we were waiting, or ask what we were waiting for.

After another 20 minutes of waiting, I approached the same sales associate and sheepishly asked what we were waiting for. I felt rude asking that question, because I didn't want to appear as though I was being impatient with their staff. But I expressed that we have been waiting for 40 minutes, and that we felt as though Emily had just abandoned us. I asked if Emily had just taken her lunch break and didn't share that with us, or if maybe there were troubles boxing/bagging up the dress?

The staff member responded by explaining that they had just been waiting on us this entire time. This was incredibly frustrating, because we were ready to leave ASAP and had any of the several staff members been courteous enough to engage with us for even 5 seconds, we could have been out of there, and out of their hair 40 minutes prior.

Instead they were ignoring us on purpose, assuming that we were wasting their time, when in fact we were just waiting to check out. This passive-aggressive behavior was completely uncalled for, and left us feeling hurt and frustrated.

Despite the challenges of a busy sale day, we believe that brides deserve courteous and supportive service throughout the dress-buying process. While the dresses at Alta Moda are undoubtedly beautiful, the below-average customer service significantly marred our overall experience.

I hope this staff can learn a bit about healthy and effective communication, so that they don't allow their passive aggressive behavior and attitudes to continue to hurt the feelings of the customers who are so excited...

Photo shows the copy/paste response to one star reviews, please do not respond to my review with this c/p.

I appreciate that the manager has reached out to try to resolve the distasteful experience that we had, however those messages to myself and to my daughter also had a copy/paste vein.

The warmth and personal interest that is extended to customers who have given 4-5 stars is obviously a cater that we did not experience at Alta Moda from Lexie and Collette. I am sincerely disappointed in our experience and will not accept a cliche apology.

To that end, my daughter left feeling dirty and disposed of; having been told that her dress style and interest was too specific and not attainable. She was told she may as well put her “street clothes” back on because they could not fit her with her style.

As a mother, my heart is broken to have sat there thinking that my daughter would come back out in another gown, another chance to possibly say “yes” to a dress; to have her walk out in her street clothing and have the stylist then try to sell her one of the 3 dresses she had liked. My daughter bravely said, “no thank you”. I was honestly confused. I could see that Collette was trying but also not listening to her style. I was watching the pressure that Lexie was putting on her employee. I could hear the two of them talking about my daughter and at one point went to check her and she was patiently hoping to discover the right dress for her special day. All of this other was going on without her knowledge, at the time, for which I was grateful. We are moving on and will find her dress; leaving this experience behind us.

During our interview for them picking dresses for my daughter to try they pressed for a $$$ amount, to which my daughter had expressed she did not want to state. Our interest was to try all options as this is my only daughter and her only wedding. This has been our dream to dress shop. I asked if my daughter could try one of the dresses and was curtly told that it was $12,000 and not in my budget. We pulled another dress off the rack for her to try and I was scolded for touching the dresses.

This all was unlike any experience we have had at any other dress shops, and quite frankly it was unlike any shopping experience I have ever had, and not in a good way. I felt like real life Pretty Woman, and being snubbed out of an experience to find the dress of my daughter’s dreams.

When I go to a restaurant I enjoy picking out my food, to my taste and my personal craving. When I shop for clothing I like to touch and feel the clothing, seeing the options available to me and feeling welcome to find what fits my taste and style. At Alta Moda they choose for you after 5 minutes and a few adjectives to describe what you are looking for.

The stylist that day was wearing lace from head to toe, my daughter specifically asked for soft elegant and classy satin feeling wedding gowns, in opposition she was brought lace and crinoline. As we narrowed down her “style” with specifics, she was consistently given opposite options. I could sense her frustration but willingness to try until she finally began to express herself not wanting to try on dresses that she would not choose.

I wish I could go back and in hindsight speak up in those moments that led to our disappointment. I would have asked why the manager Lexie was so curt and snappy. I would have helped Collette to better style my daughter with a wedding gown she could have said yes to. But mostly I would have stepped into my daughter’s dressing room and asked her what she needed to have the best dress experience. And I would have had her try on that $12,000 dress.

Please do not respond; what you can do is support your stylists and future brides to find their “yes” dress with patience, compassion, and a listening...

I know Altamoda is great for a lot of people, but I feel like I need to write about my experience for those who want honest feedback on this boutique.

First of all it's important to know that I had a relatively fast engagement and that complicates things naturally.

When I came to Altamoda they promised a perfectly tailored dress measured specifically to me. It was supposed to be the best experience ever and my dress was supposed to be sent to me about 3 weeks before my wedding. Perfect timing!

Unfortunately no matter how much I wish this was true, those promises were not kept by Altamoda. My dress I got my dress 2 weeks before my wedding and when I got it was 6 sizes too big for me. Mind you I range from sizes 4-6. This dress came in, in size 12. I was hopeful to get it altered and to make it work because it truly is a beautiful dress, but after taking it to The only tailor that could work with my time line. She said that my dress needed to be completely torn apart and reconstructed to fit me. At this point I was hopeless. What was I supposed to do? Buy another dress? And forget about this $5,000 purchase I just made??? I was beyond furious. After reaching out to Altamoda bridal staff, they told me there was nothing they could do and that I needed to figure it out, they informed me that the dress had no issues, I felt very manipulated amd gaslit. They then said they were not willing to refund me the money. And they would not even help with the cost of tailoring, which cost me another $2,500. And the dress still did not fit me perfectly. It was very sad. On my wedding day I was bawling and trying to compose myself 15 mins before getting sealed to my husband. I was so embarrassed that my dress looked to botched on me. And I was ashamed to show him this dress that was supposed to be so perfect and pretty. Obviously the day went on and I had so much fun with my new husband and our family and I totally forgot about the dress. I eventually came to terms with the fact that it wasn't perfect and that was okay. Until I got our wedding photos...

We have been married for almost 6 months now. And when I look at our wedding pictures I get so sad, and mad all over again. That was the one day where I wanted to feel beautiful, and stunning and perfect. And when I look at those pictures I just remember feeling ashamed and out of luck, and very self conscious hoping no one would notice the gaping hole between my breasts and the cups of the dress, or the puckered boning in the corset. Or the ripples in the sides of my skirt. And thinking to my self what a waste trying to get so thin before our wedding, because no one could see me or how hard I had worked under that dress. And just telling myself everything is going to be okay as long as I don't look down at my dress.

So this was my experience. I understand that it's not common and I don't believe that Altamoda would want to make girls feel so terrible on their wedding day but that was my experience with them. And I can honestly say that I would never recommend them to anyone else. I wish I could do 0 stars but I can't so I guess they get a 1 which I don't feel like...