Drama! What should have been an easy trip to try on a few dresses today quickly became a barney with some extremely rude and unhelpful shop owners. Resulting in us leaving and driving for an hour to some much nicer shops!
About a month ago, after finding out my dress didn’t fit, I started looking at Wedding dresses both in a shop in Plymouth with my Mum, and online. I discovered that I loved pretty much everything by the designer of my original dress (Alfred Angelo). I short listed five dresses, found a shop 40 minutes away that had them all in stock and tried to make an appointment to try them on but as they didn’t have any Saturday appointments for several weeks, the first mutually agreeable date ended up being this morning at 11am.
I roped in my heavily pregnant sister-in-law-to-be to come with me & we turned up in good time to Shop for Brides in Daventry this morning. Only to be greeted by an older woman who had absolutely no idea about the dresses I wanted to try on. After much hoo-hah with a catalogue and my short list (she didn’t have a clue about her stock) I was informed they only had one of the dresses left.
They’d made no attempt to record the dresses I wanted to try on, and certainly not thought to let me know they didn’t have them anymore. I was told that they sold off the peg and that was how it worked… they couldn’t possibly keep track of who wanted what dress, they had hundreds of other dresses and anyway it was my fault for leaving the appointment so long!
Sarah and I were furious, I couldn’t believe they hadn’t at least let me know before we both trekked 40 minutes too the appointment. Sarah quickly pointed out that it was a shoddy operation and that they hadn’t apologised or attempted to resolve the situation at all. Another old woman then appeared proclaiming to be the manager but with no desire to diffuse the argument she instead just shouted at us that she was making plenty of money thank you and even dared to call Sarah a “rude mare”! Anyway… we left!
We then tried a lovely shop we had driven past called Serendipity Brides where the staff happily accommodated me despite my not having an appointment. They were really helpful & I found some really gorgeous dresses. We then drove to the other side of the county to an Alfred Angelo stockist that I had quickly phoned and booked an appointment with.. They didn’t have all five dresses but they at least had the one I had already tried and loved.
After having a lot of fun trying on six different absolutely gorgeous Alfred Angelo dresses in Gowns & Garters, I finally settled that my original favourite, the dress I first tried on, is in fact the one! There’s something about it which just suits me & makes it look so much better than any other dress. It’s had both my Mum and Sarah in tears, so job done I guess! Disaster was averted and the dress is ordered 😀
