The Wedding Dress Saga- Part 1

Today begins part 1 of The Wedding Dress Saga. Why a saga, you ask? Oh...you will see.

Just a note before I begin- If you get nothing else out of this post, I hope to at least persuade you of 1 thing- do not buy your wedding dress from Walker's Eternity Bridal and Prom.

I will try to keep this as brief as possible, but I make no promises.

Basically, I ordered my wedding dress back in March. They told me that since it was being made in China, the earliest time they could ship it in would be 9 weeks. It was due to arrive last Tuesday. That was cutting it close as it is, because my bridal pictures were scheduled for 8 days after the dress was due to arrive, and I still probably needed alterations to be done. I called Tuesday to verify that it had arrived. No answer. I left a message. Called again Wednesday, no answer, left a message. I did this for 4 days. I went by the store, where the lights were out, door locked, with a sign posted on the door that the store would no longer be staffed during it's regular hours. This is a direct quote from the sign- "To better serve you more personally, we will be here by appointment only. Call today to make an appointment!"

...ok, explain again HOW exactly this BETTER serves me?!?!?

Well, I did call...AGAIN, and guess what? Their inbox was full. Bad sign. Very bad sign.

Well, I did what any bride suddenly without a wedding dress would do- I panicked. I called the Better Business Bureau, who didn't have any information on the company other than its address and store phone number. My grandma made my grandpa call all the James Walkers (name of the owner) in the phone book. Still, nothing.

Several days later, sitting at dinner, it finally occurred to Mitch and I to mention this dilemma in our prayers over the food. Not five seconds after we said "amen", we get a call from the dress company. No, my dress has not yet arrived. Yes, my dress is still in China. Yes we have been having communication problems with China...for two months now. No, we don't know exactly when your dress will be done....in fact, we're not even sure if it's even been started...

Wow. So explain to me again why you couldn't have notified me of this TWO MONTHS AGO when it actually became a PROBLEM!??! And just think of the 30 other girls that you've screwed over in the process!! Really, what were you THINKING??

Well luckily the guy had enough sense to offer me "an appointment" the next day, when I could come in and pick out a "Plan B" dress. I will admit that after this phone call, I lost some sleep over the whole thing. I was convinced I wouldn't find a dress in time that I actually liked...I didn't want to just have to settle on any old dress because I didn't have a choice.

Well miracles do happen. At my "appointment", I found a dress in stock that I had almost picked over the first one. It's a beautiful ivory lacy dress, and I like some things about it better than the one I ordered. It does need some very drastic alterations, and parts of it almost need to be rebuilt, and as luck would have it, the seamstress that they called in to deal with the catastrophe is very experienced...to say the least. She is French, and earlier in her career sewed for Chanel in Paris...yeah. Why she is in Provo, UT of all places...I have no idea, but am I ever grateful!! At least someone around this establishment is competent!! If anyone can have this dress rebuilt in two weeks for my bridals, it's her!!

Stay tuned to hear if my original dress even makes it here before the wedding. And if these idiots are going to make me pay for this second dress. And if they go out of business...(if they do...I won't feel bad).