David's Bridal The Good, The Bad and the Disappointed-Wedding Wednesday

Once the wedding date was set and the planning had begun, Summer and I were excited to start dress shopping. Knowing that Summer had a budget of $300 for her dress and veil, since she is paying for this herself, we had to start hunting early. We found a few dresses that Summer liked on the David’s Bridal website so we made an appointment to travel to Tampa with her Maid of Honor on May 10, 2014.

David’s Bridal-The Good

We signed in for our appointment and we were told to look around and they would call us soon. We only waited about 10 minutes before Summer’s name was called and we met our consultant Christine M. She asked us our dress budget and when we told her $200 she seemed a bit put out but took us right to the 50% off rack. She explained that everything on this rack was 50% off the ticketed price. She asked if Summer had any preferences and we pulled out my phone to show her the dresses we were interested in. She took a very quick look at 1 picture grabbed a dress from the size 6 section of the rack and said, “You’re lucky, this is your dress.” I spoke up and said that Summer was probably a size 4 and not a six and she told me to trust her. We followed her back to our dressing room and Summer and Jessica, the Maid of Honor went in to get her dressed while Christine went over to check on her other customer. Summer came out in the dress which was too big and nothing close to any of the dresses we were interested in. I told her to go take it off and I would go look for dresses in her size.

I ran into Christine at the rack and I filled her in on a bit of Summer’s story and why our budget was so slow. Her attitude softened a bit as we picked out a few size 4 dresses for Summer to try on. She fell in love with a dress I had picked which had a price tag of $399.99 on it. When Christine came back to help us I asked her what the dress at 50% off would cost and she said, “$200, right in your budget!” We were happy but tried on a few more dresses, including the dresses Christine pulled, which were all out of our budget!

Summer decided she wanted to try on the $200 dress again so she did, this time with a proper bridal bra. She also tried on 2 different veils and made her decision as to what length veil she wanted. Once everything was decided on we went to checkout. As Summer was paying for her purchases I was asking Christine if we needed to make another appointment to try on bridesmaid dresses or if we could try on the one we had in mind while we were there, and there was still time left in our appointment. She said to meet her at the dressing room when Summer was done checking out so we did.

Jessica tried on the dress and we all fell in love with it. Christine made a note of the style and color in our file and we promised to come back with the bridal party soon to order the dresses.

David’s Bridal-The Bad

The next day Summer was going to be visiting with her mother for Mother’s Day and, of course she wanted to bring her dress. I cautioned her to be very careful (her dress is a tad long and needs to be hemmed). I also asked her if I could make a copy of the receipt for my files so that it didn’t get lost. I copied the receipt and tossed it on my desk. Later that day when I was cleaning off my desk to prepare for the new week I looked over the receipt in detail and noticed that Summer was charged $299.50 for the dress! I immediately reached out to David’s Bridal on Twitter and I was given an email address to contact. After several emails back and forth with the Corporate Area Customer Service Manager I was told that the 50% of is from the original dress price, not the markdown price. There is only 1 price tag on the dress and it is the one pictured above-there was no way for us to know that this was a markdown price. Also, the consultant told us it would be $200.

I gave up with email and I called the store. The customer service person, Sandra told me I should have know that it was a markdown because it ended in .99! I informed her 1. I have never bought a wedding dress in my life, I rented mine, so how should I know this and 2. It was their consultant, Christine M. who had told us the price would be $200. She contacted the store manager, who was aware of my concerns because of my dealings with the Corporate Area Customer Service Manager. After a few phone calls back and forth I was told that there was nothing that could be done at the store level, because I had talked with corporate first! So, David’s Bridal owes Summer $99.50+tax and she will never get it back.

David’s Bridal-The Disappointed

On top of being overcharged, we now needed to find new bridesmaid dresses. There was no way we could spend more money at a business that had already stolen from us. We have ordered dresses elsewhere, but we are not happy with them at all and we are in the process of returning them and that will be another blog post.

When I posted my David’s Bridal frustrations on Facebook I received several stories from others who have had nothing but trouble with them as well. I am amazed that a business with such bad customer service can stay in business. I am writing this post in hopes that other brides-to-be will see this and they will look elsewhere for their bridal attire. Whether you are spending $200 or $20,000 on a wedding dress you should be charged what you are quoted. The fact that no one at David’s Bridal will accept responsibility or do anything to make up for their error is very disappointing.

Have you used David’s Bridal? How was your experience? Please leave me a comment and let me know.

UPDATE

Today, 6-20-14, I spoke on the phone with the Corporate Area Customer Service Manager and she said that her superior had read my post and did some digging into how the wrong ticket could have gotten on the dress. They have basically admitted their error and have agreed to refund the $100 to Summer’s debit card. We will be calling the store tomorrow, when Summer is here with her card, to get the refund taken care of. We appreciate them taking action to make this right.