Bella Bridal Gallery — Attraction in West Bloomfield Township

While I found a gorgeous dress that fit my budget in record time... we couldn't help but feel shocked and betrayed by their scheme to try to get us to pay almost 50% more for the dress. Not to mention the veil.

The staff were nice and helpful through the process of trying on dresses, but the whole time they kept slipping in comments that I shouldn't be surprised if the size they measured at the end wasn't what I was expecting. Once I chose my dress, they measured me and told me I definitely needed a size 10. I have to admit this was surprising even with all their work over a couple hours convincing me I would need a larger size. At 5'2" and 115 pounds, I used size 0-2 street clothes and a size 2 choir dress (not street clothes).

They made me sign that I was getting the size I wanted and that I couldn't change my mind after it arrived. This was odd, given that I was taking their recommendation and had no idea what size to order and no way of checking it out before it arrived and definitely not before I signed. Really, they should honor their own word and recommendations, not preemptively shift the blame to the customer...

We asked them what alterations would be needed, and they said they couldn't possibly know until I tried on the dress and that it was very specific to the dress itself and they had no standards to go off of.

When I came in to try on the dress, I was of course swimming in it. You could probably have fit two of me in it. Without exaggeration, you could hold the fabric around 6 inches from my body while it was zipped on me. They came out with a printed list of all the alterations they planned to do that they had prepared before I arrived. The alterations would cost $900. According to them, only their seamstress was skilled enough to work with this dress and no one else could do it.

I found a local seamstress who offered to do the work for $600, but that was still out of budget. I looked around and ironically found a place called Bella Alterations (NO connection to the bridal shop), and Angela there said she could do it for $350. She said that was her pricier range, because it was going to be a significant amount of work given that they had clearly ordered a ridiculous size for me. She said I needed a size 0, not 10. She did an incredible job, and you couldn't even tell the dress had been altered, but she was just flabbergasted that the bridal shop had tried to gouge us on the price like that by intentionally ordering the wrong size and trying to increase the price of the dress by $900 in extremely overpriced alterations.

I'm really glad I got my veil from Etsy, and not the incredibly overpriced option they offered at the bridal shop. (Sellers on Etsy can send you a fabric sample for color matching. Very helpful.)

Overall, we were just shocked and hurt by the experience and never really got over it, even a couple of years later. I'm hoping writing this down helps a bit. I was just glad it ended up working out in the end, but I really couldn't understand how they could look at me straight-faced and act like this was perfectly normal...

First of all, I’ve only written maybe two reviews in my life and it’s because my experiences were so bad. Here’s number three.

I’ll start off on a positive note, the girl I originally met with at my first appointment was kind and helpful.

However, at my second appointment when I found my dress that’s where the trouble began. They immediately gave me an ultimatum, either I buy the dress right then at a discounted price, or the price goes up as soon as I leave the store. So as an anxious and frugal girl, I obviously committed to the dress at the discounted price.

Now let’s fast forward a pandemic and two years later. I was at my first fitting appointment to try on my actual dress that I had bought in my size at the time (which was purchased in full two years prior I should mention). I tried on the dress and it zipped up all the way, however, it was uncomfortably tight. I had made a comment that I was nervous about that happening so they knew I was anxious about it.

When I came out the seamstress started talking to me about adjustments. She said I needed to “stop exercising if I wanted the dress to fit” because I would continue to get bigger. I told her I wasn’t going to do that. She was not empathic at all in her response. Obviously, that’s when I started to get emotional. No woman wants to hear that their wedding dress won’t fit if they keep getting bigger. Why would anyone say this to a bride, EVER. Especially a seamstress in the wedding industry.

She then proceeded to tell me that my alterations would cost almost as much as the dress (1k), and if I didn’t decide at that exact moment then I would have to go elsewhere and they wouldn’t do my alterations anymore.

Now let’s go over what went wrong here. 1) Shames the bride for her weight 2) Overcharges for alterations at a vulnerable moment 3) Walks away (while I frantically text my fiancé about what to do for 15 minutes and everyone awkwardly stares at me.)

So I ended up leaving the store in tears and crying in the parking lot for a half hour because I felt like garbage.

Luckily there’s a happy ending. I decided against going with Bella Bridal for my alterations and I was able to find someone else who can do it for a FRACTION of the price. They also can do it closer to my wedding so that I don’t have to stress about my body weight for the next few months. Exercise is the only thing keeping me alive through this pandemic so I feel SO thankful that this is an option.

If you’ve read all of this, I hope you respect yourself enough to go with a different bridal boutique store. Sure, most of the staff was ok but I would never wish my experience...

I am an out of state bride that came to look for a wedding dress in Michigan with my mom, mother in law, and best friend. I made 3 appointments in two days knowing that I would only have this one weekend with everyone together to find THE dress. Bella’s was my second appointment. This store is small but has a lot of charm and nice dresses. Heather was my sales consultant and she was lovely. She made me feel completely comfortable and brought me the perfect dresses to try on after listening to my vision. We were the only appointment at the time which was great because we also had the owner I believe, and another sales consultant that helped select and give feedback. There was a dress I absolutely loved but knew I still had one more appointment later in the day that I wanted to go to as I was not 100% on the dress. I asked if they could take my measurements since I was flying back home to Florida the next day when they were closed. It was a flat no. Absolutely not, to take your measurements we have to have a contract signed. It did not even matter that I lived so far away. I did not realize a couple quick measurements could cause so much concern. I am an analyst by nature and occupation and I think everything through, at least twice. I never make quick decisions especially when the dress of my lifetime is involved. I felt like this is where everything fell short for me. I started feeling pressure from the probable owner to buy the dress, why look elsewhere if this is the one, is it because of the $50 no-show for the other appointment, and on and on. Her tone quickly changed with me. The other consultants stayed nice and I felt could sense I wasn’t appreciating the pressure, so they did their best at trying to take a step back. However, I started to become offended after I politely explained although I was definitely deciding by the end of the day on a dress, I was not going to say “Yes” on a whim. It is just not my personality to do that. This was also the only place we were not allowed to take pictures of any of the dresses. So later on at the next shop when I tried to compare, I only had an online picture of a model wearing the dress. This among the intense pressure and offensiveness given to me to buy a dress confirmed my decision to order the next dress I loved. Overall, although everyone was pleasant for most of the visit, I would like to recommend to not make someone feel pressure to buy. This is a very important decision and such a special moment not only for the bride, but also for the parents and this situation definitely took away from that once in a...