The Dress Bridal — Local services in Springfield

Beware!! My daughter ordered a gown to be custom made and it arrived wrong. She ordered it when she was told to order it to make sure there was time for alterations before her wedding. The gown arrived wrong. It had a thigh high slit and she had ordered a gown with no slit. My daughter had to point this out as they had not even performed a quality check when the gown arrived. The alterations consultant looked the gown on the floor which my daughter had tried on. The floor gown did not have a slit. Unfortunately, the way the slit was cut did not allow it to be fixed. The consultant texted the owner to alert her to the issue as soon as it was discovered. The owner did not attempt to contact me or my daughter, instead only texting with the consultant who is not her employee. We went through the alterations needed (hem, seam adjustments, bustle, removing lace in the area of the slit and detachable cap sleeves) these totaled $520 (with a rush fee added even though we ordered it when we were told to do so). As I was paying for the alterations, the owner texted the consultant and said she would pay $100 towards the alterations since the gown was wrong. This was not nearly enough but I was not going to discuss that with the consultant. I left a voicemail for the owner the next day and received a text asking what I needed. I left her another voicemail letting her know I wanted a phone call. Two days later, I called her and left another message that she returned. During the phone call she said she would pay for the entire cost of the alterations and some of the gown. She said "I can't eat the cost of everything but will do what I need to do to make this right because I don't want any bad blood between us". I had her on speaker phone and have a witness to the conversation. I told her that would be great, was agreeable with me and thanked her. She said she was going to talk to the consultant about the cost of alterations and would get back to me the next day. She promised a text and phone call. Two days later, I received a text saying she would be paying a total of $300 ($200'additional) because "the gown fitting isn't mandatory" and that "a hem and bustle are optional". I asked her why what she said on the phone had changed and she said "I'm only paying $300". She did not address the difference in her spoken word and not honoring her word. I did not respond as I wanted to make sure we would actually get the gown with correct alterations. A person NOT the bride left a one star review stating the facts of what had happened. I immediately started receiving threatening texts from the owner. She stated she had turned everything over to her business attorney and that I was facing at least a $1,000 fine. She responded to the review and called this person "AKA and used my daughter's first and last name." She then told me she would not be paying anything else. She retaliated against me for the review of someone else and falsely accused my daughter of creating a fake profile to post the review. I am shocked at the way we were treated and the response to a factual review. However, after I looked at multiple one star reviews, I found this is a typical response from her. She stated in a text that "legally she didn't have to do anything about the dress coming in wrong and was trying to be nice but since we posted a bad review (which wasn't true at the time) she would be doing nothing else". I responded that she actually had a legal obligation to provide the gown that was ordered and we could have refused it and demanded a full refund. She did not respond. I also told her that the person that left the original review was not the bride and she didn't care. What does concern me is that brides know the truth and are able to make an informed decision about who they are choosing to do business with for the biggest day...

So I am not the type to leave a negative review but my experience at The Dress was less than great. First of all, we weren’t aware there was a booking fee until hours prior to my appointment. When I had my mom call to pay, the person on the phone came off pretty rude. My mom was told that walk-in’s were absolutely not welcome (even though it literally says they are on the front door). During my appointment, the owner was training someone and although I know they need to learn somehow, I felt like I was intruding and interrupting the whole time—it was not at all a personable experience. (The trainee however was very kind, I will say). I felt very rushed like we were watching the clock, I didn’t even get to try on one of the dresses I had pulled, and although I love my dress, I felt kind of pushed into picking it. One thing that I did appreciate was how thorough they were in really showing me how each dress would fit if it were true to size. (At the other Bridal shop I went to it seemed like my consultant didn’t even want to touch me!) The biggest thing that bothered me was that I was told multiple times that my dress was $799, but then after I said yes to the dress and we were being rang up, the dress was suddenly not $799, but in fact over $1000 (before fees and tax! She had just made a mistake, I guess). I really just wish the owner would have honored the price that she quoted to me or at least met me halfway. (But being the non-confrontational person I am, I just went with it and paid for the dress). Then when it came time to pick up the dress, I wanted to make sure that the $25 booking fee was deducted like I was told it would be, and was told they were throwing me a dress bag instead that probably costs dollars or even cents to make and really should be included considering how much you pay for the dress. 🥴 I was also under the impression that they had an “amazing alterations person”, but now are no longer offering them. I was also told that they’d be able to hold the dress for a few weeks, but then when it arrived I suddenly had 2 weeks to pick it up or I’d be charged an addition $100 storage fee, but upon calling to schedule to pick it up, no one answered or called us back for a week. 🥴 Overall, the bridal shop itself was beautiful, the dresses were beautiful, and I’m happy with my dress, but that was not at all the experience I was hoping for and I feel a little cheated out of my dress buying...

So my experience at The Dress was good. However, there were a few things that I wish were different and that I wish I would’ve known before going. This boutique was recommended to me and only good things were said. I made my appointment and when I arrived, the boutique was beautiful and there was enough space for my group (about 8 people). I thought I would get the help of a consultant and they would help us find what we needed, as well as help me stay within my budget. However, when I got there, I was given purple wrist bands and was told to pick whichever dress I wanted and then I’d try them on. No big deal, just not what I expected. The next issue I had was that my budget was between $600-750, which I thought was reasonable but apparently not. There were maybe 3 dresses within my budget and the rest were way over. I had no idea they would be so out of my budget and I wish it were advertised or listed somewhere so I would have planned around it or have gone somewhere else where there were more dresses in my budget. That was another problem, the lack of options. The Dress Boutique is not very big and I don’t know why I thought there would be more options. There were not very many and they were mostly similar styles, which wasn’t a problem for me because I liked the styles. However, I expected a little more options, but that could also have been because of my budget. Regardless of all of these issues, I did find my dress. I asked for it to be ordered in a size smaller- a size 16- because I’ve been losing weight and I don’t want to have to deal with too many alterations closer to the date because it would take about 5-6 months to get to me (my wedding is 6 months away). But upon reviewing my receipt, they did not and I haven’t been able to call them to correct this because they’ve been closed. I plan to do that ASAP. Our consultant was very sweet, but seemed a little stressed by the end of our appointment which I understand because it did finish a little late. The other consultant also seemed stress because there was another family about, which is why I didn’t catch the size change immediately at the boutique. Overall, I had a decent experience, but again, not what I expected. I would suggest this to other brides if they had a pretty big budget, ($1,000-1,300), and also if they liked beading and lace, not if they wanted something a little more...