VirginiaCleveland
04-23-2003, 07:44 AM
Ladies,
I had to share this with you. I live in NJ and BridalTown in Collegeville PA was only an hour drive up the turnpike from me. I went with a specific set amount in mind for everything. When I got there as soon as I said the amount I was willing to pay, it was like they may as well have been deaf. I was shown dressed 1/3rd over the price I wanted. I wanted to stay within the 700 range. I was shown 4 dresses, one of them was 650 the rest were all 900+. The higher end ones were beautiful, but not what I wanted to pay. I settled and I mean settled on a much lower costing dress because the aggressive tactics of the sales woman ticked me off so badly. What I should have done was left and to this day I don't know what stopped me. I had wanted a dress that reminded me a bit of Grace Kelly and my grandmother, you know, classic and a bit modest as well. I had actually found a dress for the unbelievable price tag of 99 dollars. You should have seen the saleswoman's face. Well she got me back because this was also one of the places that had tier pricing for alterations. They had two pricing schemes. Depending on what you had done, they'd charge you anywhere from 200 to more and it was even if you needed next to nothing done. Then, after they got done with the alterations, they still pushed more "packages" on you. For an extra 250 on top of it all, you could get a slip, shoes, stockings, and a garter. Yep. They also said that you qualified for a little 3 or 4 day vacation to anyone of about 5 locations and that if you took your bridesmaids back for the gowns as well, they would throw in free vouchers for gasoline. (Don't ask where the gas stations were that it applied to. I had never heard of them.) In order to get the trip though, you had to purchase a total of "three packages" from them. The gown, the alterations, the Extras. For a dress that was 99 dollars, by the time everything was done, I paid 500+. I was also made to feel cheap, humiliated and "grubbing" in the process. The woman actually looked at me and sniffed ," None of today's brides want to look like their grandmother if they can help it..."
The story does have a happy ending though because everytime I looked at this dress, no matter how much I liked it, I thought of that saleswoman and the comment she said to me. Needless to say, I felt very bad about having bought it. I contacted the owner of the shop through email and worked with the general manager, they not only gave me an entire refund but also let me keep some of the incidentals like stockings, garter, and slip when I explained I had such a poor expereience I just wanted to bring back the dress. While I reccomend the owners of the establishment, I caution you to be armed against the sales people in here. This is definetly a crank them out kind of place. The even happier ending is that I found the gown of my dreams online from my favorite manufacturer through thebridalshop. com for a mere $99 on sale!!!
Virginia
I had to share this with you. I live in NJ and BridalTown in Collegeville PA was only an hour drive up the turnpike from me. I went with a specific set amount in mind for everything. When I got there as soon as I said the amount I was willing to pay, it was like they may as well have been deaf. I was shown dressed 1/3rd over the price I wanted. I wanted to stay within the 700 range. I was shown 4 dresses, one of them was 650 the rest were all 900+. The higher end ones were beautiful, but not what I wanted to pay. I settled and I mean settled on a much lower costing dress because the aggressive tactics of the sales woman ticked me off so badly. What I should have done was left and to this day I don't know what stopped me. I had wanted a dress that reminded me a bit of Grace Kelly and my grandmother, you know, classic and a bit modest as well. I had actually found a dress for the unbelievable price tag of 99 dollars. You should have seen the saleswoman's face. Well she got me back because this was also one of the places that had tier pricing for alterations. They had two pricing schemes. Depending on what you had done, they'd charge you anywhere from 200 to more and it was even if you needed next to nothing done. Then, after they got done with the alterations, they still pushed more "packages" on you. For an extra 250 on top of it all, you could get a slip, shoes, stockings, and a garter. Yep. They also said that you qualified for a little 3 or 4 day vacation to anyone of about 5 locations and that if you took your bridesmaids back for the gowns as well, they would throw in free vouchers for gasoline. (Don't ask where the gas stations were that it applied to. I had never heard of them.) In order to get the trip though, you had to purchase a total of "three packages" from them. The gown, the alterations, the Extras. For a dress that was 99 dollars, by the time everything was done, I paid 500+. I was also made to feel cheap, humiliated and "grubbing" in the process. The woman actually looked at me and sniffed ," None of today's brides want to look like their grandmother if they can help it..."
The story does have a happy ending though because everytime I looked at this dress, no matter how much I liked it, I thought of that saleswoman and the comment she said to me. Needless to say, I felt very bad about having bought it. I contacted the owner of the shop through email and worked with the general manager, they not only gave me an entire refund but also let me keep some of the incidentals like stockings, garter, and slip when I explained I had such a poor expereience I just wanted to bring back the dress. While I reccomend the owners of the establishment, I caution you to be armed against the sales people in here. This is definetly a crank them out kind of place. The even happier ending is that I found the gown of my dreams online from my favorite manufacturer through thebridalshop. com for a mere $99 on sale!!!
Virginia