We purchased our daughter's wedding dress from P & P at a bridal show in January 2008. Alterations and cleaning were supposedly included in the sale price. The first fitting was done on August 10; the second/final fitting was scheduled for September 2, three days before the wedding; Betty, the owner, would not make the appointment any sooner than this. Upon arriving on September 2, no alterations/hemming/cleaning had been completed. Betty worked for the next two hours, but was never able to make the necessary alterations. Our daughter was very distraught; Betty's customer service attitude was very unprofessional and non-supportive.
To add insult to injury, the wedding dress was filthy. Long black streaks were found up and down on the dress. The bottom of the unhemmed dress was noticeably dirty. Our daughter's feet, just from walking back and forth from the dressing room to the fitting mirror, darkened from the dirt and dust. When Betty was confronted with this issue, she could only reply, ""Well that's not MY fault...it's all the construction outside."" Evidently taking precautions to keep her inventory clean was not a high priority.
On September 3 we scrambled frantically to find a tailor who would be able to make professional alterations in the two days we had left before the wedding. Luckily we stumbled upon Alterations Express in the Crossroads area of Bellevue; the tailor did amazing work on the dress...very impressive. Clampitts Cleaners on Mercer Island took the dress less than 24 hours before the wedding, cleaning and pressing it...another totally professional and customer service based shop. We spent well over $200 to get the dress ready for the wedding.
Early last week I sent Betty a certified letter, expressing our displeasure with the experience at her dress shop. As of this posting, she has yet to accept the delivery of this letter. We are asking to be reimbursed for only the cleaning costs...a more than generous compromise, we believe.
I wish we had done a more thorough investigation of this business before purchasing the dress. There are numerous negative web postings of this establishment. When an owner admits that she has been taken to small claims court more than once (although she does say that she has never ""lost"" one of these small claims law suits), that should be quite a red flag. I'm just sorry we didn't read the postings first. Please don't make the same mistakes that we made...patronize some other dress shop.
Update: January 11, 2010
Ms. Dietz refused to accept delivery of my letter and it was returned to me today unopened.
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