The Wedding Dresser — Local services in New York

I worked with Susan, Joan, and Joy at their Baltimore studio. However, as I understand some of the work on my dresses were completed in Brooklyn, I am cross-posting this review. I will add photos of my dresses after our 9/21/24 wedding.

I deeply love and respect small business owners, and understand the weight reviews have, so it pains me to leave this. I brought my dress to Susan and her team at their Baltimore location in mid-July 2024. My dress needed to be hemmed, taken in at the bodice, and straps shortened. I was quoted $1400. While expensive, I believe in Susan’s mission of paying her employees a living wage and believed that this price reflected the high quality of their alterations. I also brought Susan a gown to be shortened to tea length, let out, and sleeves removed for my rehearsal dinner. I was quoted $1000.

I picked up my wedding gown on Saturday, 9/14 after the prior 3 fittings in which I was expressing concerns with extra fabric in the side bust. In previous fittings Susan and her team attempted to add a dart to correct this problem, which caused the bust line to come to a point. I am grateful for their work to then remove the dart and try another approach to correct the issue extra side bust fabric issue.

When I picked up my wedding gown, the problem of the extra fabric at the side bust was not corrected. Furthermore the cups were added to the dress without appropriately stretching the fabric around the cup, causing a bunching effect of the fabric. I picked up my dress, having paid an extra $100 for an extra fitting (per Susan’s contract), and promptly brought my dress to another seamstress who, luckily, was kind enough to fit me in for a rush appointment less than a week before my wedding day. The bodice fit was easily corrected by this seamstress in one fitting.

My rehearsal dinner dress was provided to me for pickup with a lining layer left raw, which I will now finish at home on my own machine. The horse hair hem of my wedding dress is not snug to the bottom of my hem, as it originally was, and in some locations, the hem doesn’t appear straight. In one of my last fittings, Susan pointed out that the straps of my dress started to turn grey, which she claimed was from handling the dress a lot through alterations. She said I could get the dress cleaned if I wanted, but I declined. I understand how this was possible, but it seems that some measures should be taken to avoid discoloring wedding dresses while working on them.

Susan repeatedly commented on the difficulty of working with designer dresses, and misidentified my dress fabric as crepe (it is silk mikado). I found it troubling that someone with her level of experience made these comments.

I believe Susan was well-intentioned in her efforts to ease my anxiety throughout the process, and truly do appreciate the intention. Multiple times, she insinuated that I was experiencing “bridal psychosis”, meaning that I was picking apart my dress given the pressures of being a bride. I agree - being a bride is stressful, and can lead us to second-guess ourselves. However, this phrase is inappropriate and gaslighting. My dress had serious problems, which another seamstress agreed with and promptly acted on. Furthermore, making light of mental illness in this manner is insulting.

This experience left me more stressed than I have ever been in my life. I hardly slept or ate these last few weeks because in the two weeks before my wedding, I wasn’t sure if my dress could be saved. I had nearby bridal shops holding samples for me, as until finding a new seamstress, I thought I would have to buy a whole new dress again. Susan stated her mission was to “take the stress out of dressing for your wedding.” This is an admirable goal, which unfortunately was far from met in my case.

Multiple times through my months of working with Susan and her team, I was asked to write a review. I’m deeply sorry it has to be this one. I appreciate the opportunity to work with the team and genuinely wish them success on future...

Susan Ruddie, the owner of The Wedding Dresser, charges verryyyy high prices for reasons I cannot comprehend. I brought my dress to Susan and agreed to pay her $1600 for quite a few alterations that you can see in my attached receipt. I paid her half up front and left my dress with her. Work in the service industry was very slow and I could not afford to go through with the remaining alterations so I called Susan to ask her to please stop where she was. I told her I would pay for whatever had been done but that I would like to try to have my mother-in-law alter the rest of my dress instead to save money. She told me that was no problem and that the hem was finished and that she would reimburse me for whatever work her team had yet to complete. I trusted Susan and picked up my dress from her staff, who were always nice.

When I picked up my dress, the hem was not finished, only the inner layers of the dress had been hemmed and they'd been hemmed WRONG! The top layer was the shortest and they got longer from there (see attached). I called Susan, assuming it had to be a mistake, but she refused to issue me any refund, offer any reciprocity, or to even fix her mistake. She told me that hemming three layers of the dress took so many hours that $750 was accurate, even though her own receipt originally said $600 for the inner three layers. Even that felt unreasonable because ALL the alterations were supposed to cost 1600 and that was less than 1/3 of the total work, so that doesn't make any sense.

In any case, I paid with a credit card, and they are helping me file a claim against Susan, so I am simply writing this to help others.

Do yourself a favor: go see an old school tailor, with a less flashy shop, who charges a lower price. The seamstress working on my dress now, charged me 1/8 of the price: $230. YES, I AM SERIOUS. She was just as professional and twice as kind. Weddings are expensive enough. You don't need to feed into the gentrification of Brooklyn and pay $20 to park at industry city, either. Use that money for a pretty wedding cake instead.

Susan is claiming I am trying to shame her business but all she had to do was be professional, offer to fix the work, or literally offer anything(!) and actually complete the half I paid for, or refund me for this very unfortunate circumstance. If the business is so “stellar” they should be able to handle customer relations in a fair way. When someone is this unhappy (these things must happen sometimes) you should do what’s right. I gave her SEVERAL opportunities to fix the problem, and offered several solutions and she decided to ignore them, that’s why I opened a complaint with the BBB. Had she offered to make things right, she would not be in this situation.

Attached you will also find the bill from the seamstress who fixed my dress and completed ALL my alterations for see for yourself: $250. The dress was perfect when Valentina got through with it.

Susan has emailed me several times claiming this review is defamation & trying to threaten me to take it down. The definition of defamation is: In law, defamation is the communication of a false statement that harms another person's reputation. It involves making false and damaging assertions of fact to a third party, resulting in damage to the individual's good name, public standing, or business. The two forms of defamation are libel (written) and slander (oral).

You can see the proof yourself, so you know this is true, not false, and thus not defamation.

I ask you, Susan: Why do you not want your customers to be happy? Is this not part of doing business? I am floored by how this situation has dissolved into animosity over something that seems routine: someone is unhappy, you fix it in a way that feels fair to both parties. You compromise. Since Susan doesn't seem to include any customer service in her business, I do not suggest working with her. Mistakes happen, dissatisfaction happens, do we all not just want to be happy...

Long story short, the bridal shop I ordered my dress from in Korea sent me the wrong bride’s dress (I’m a size 2 and they sent me a size 10) and had to put in a rush order with the designer to create a brand new dress for me. Less than a month before my wedding, I still didn’t have my wedding dress in hand.

I was in full panic mode because I didn’t know 1) was my new dress going to arrive on time? 2) was my new dress going to fit me? 3) was my new dress going to require alterations? 4) would the alterations be completed in time?? There were so many unknowns.

But thanks to my wedding planner’s recommendation, I found the Wedding Dresser, and reached out to Susan. Her response was “Yes, it’s totally possible for us to alter the dress for you on a shortened timeline. We got you” and I already felt a huge sense of relief.

THANK GOD my new dress did arrive in time, 3 weeks before my wedding, and I was able to book an appt with the Wedding Dresser right away.

And in exactly 2 weeks from my first appointment, Susan and her team made my dress fit me PERFECTLY.

They worked their magic to make sure… I can actually lift my arms up and hug my husband! LOL (Previously, I couldn’t lift my arms up beyond a few inches) The length of the dress was perfect. (I didn’t bustle my dress but it required hemming in the front) I could breathe in my dress without it suffocating me (The new dress did fit me, but I didn’t think I could stay in it for hours because it was so tight. They removed the inner corset and did some other things to add some extra breathing room for me and it was a lifesaver!)

At every single appointment, I felt so well taken care of by everyone. Ashley, Gala, Tran, Filbert, and Susan were all so wonderful, and I appreciated how it felt like we were part of a team with one goal in mind: making me look & feel like the most beautiful bride ever.

We actively brainstormed things together (e.g. should I pin the front crease of my dress? should I not? should I wear my hair down? or up? should I bustle my dress? or not?)

I genuinely enjoyed spending time there because everyone is so wonderful.

And honestly, I could not be more grateful to The Wedding Dresser for helping me wear my dream wedding dress on my special day.

Thank you Susan...