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View Full Version : Do NOT use this bridal salon!!!!



renalovesmike
07-30-2003, 03:15 PM
Just For A Day bridal salon in Metairie, Louisiana!!! Do NOT use them!!! My long story of how they ruined my wedding day follows:


I started doing business with them around October last year and in November ordered my dress. They were always very nice and friendly so I was pretty happy with the service. I had Dawn, the owner, order the crinoline to go under my dress and the first time I tried it on with my dress I felt it was too short. I told the seamstress that I felt it was more T-length instead of a full, long crinoline like I needed but she told me it would be fine, I just didn't have my dress altered yet and it would fit fine once my dress was hemmed. That being said, I did not bring it up again because I had been assured by the seamstress that it would be fine once my dress was altered. Monday almost 2 weeks before the wedding I was in the salon and the owner, Dawn, was trying to help me with getting a bustle for my dress. I told her what I wanted and she said she didn't think it would look good (that they could do it, but it would not look good), so she suggested a different type of bustle that would just have a strap going across the back and you pull the dress over the strap and let it hang down. I told her that wasn't what I wanted, but she assured me that would look the best with my dress, so I relented and said ok. The Monday before my wedding I went in to see my dress and the bustle and had to wait an hour and a half for the seamstress to arrive with my dress. Dawn was not there but when the seamstress arrived I told her I did not like the bustle and wanted to go ahead and do the bustle I had originally wanted, but that the owner had talked me out of. I showed the seamstress 2 pictures of the bustle I wanted and she said she'd never actually done one before, but knew how to do it, and it wouldn't be any problem at all to do. She pinned up the back of my dress to show me how it would look once bustled and it was gorgeous! Myself and the 2 girls working in there loved the look of the bustle and so I told her to go ahead and do it. Please note that the bustle I wanted was the one where it is gathered in different spots all around at the top of the dress...I had 2 pictures from bustlechick's bio that I showed to the seamstress...this is not some crazy bustle I just made up, it is an actual bustle that is made all the time.

So now it was Friday, the day before my wedding, and I go in to get my dress. When I get there not one person in the bridal salon knows how to work the bustle that the seamstress had made into my dress and the seamstress wasn't there. The only seamstress that WAS there only spoke Spanish and everyone there only spoke English, so we couldn't communicate with her at all plus she wasn't even the seamstress who had been working on my dress. After several hours of trying to get the bustle to work and it wasn't, one of the girls working there commented that it didn't look like the bustle had been completed...it didn't appear to have enough hook and eyes in it to hold the skirt all the way up. It ends up that is exactly what happened. The bustle had not been completed, so it was pulled up just a tiny bit, but a good portion of my train was still dragging on the ground. I also had told them 3 times the last week that my skirt was too tight and they were supposed to move the hook on my skirt so it would be looser around my waist. However, they didn't do that, so the skirt was too tight at the waist and thus had to be worn above my natural waist for it to fit onto my body and it was VERY tight! I also complained about the length of the crinoline because now that my dress was supposedly complete, it was WAY, WAY too short and looked horrible. I have at least 4-6 other people who were in there with me and saw it who can testify to how bad it looked and the crinoline obviously was not long enough. The Spanish speaking seamstress was able to communicate through points and gestures enough to realize that my crinoline was too short and she felt she could add on to the top of it and make it long enough, so she measured me and said that she would have to add on 10 inches to make the crinoline long enough!!! The girls working didn't know what to say or do, so they said they were going to call Dawn, the owner, and have her come over and meet us there. We made plans to meet back in an hour (at 5:30 p.m. the night before my wedding) at the bridal salon and the owner would be there and hopefully by then they would have figured out what to do with my bustle.

We returned at 5:30 to find that Dawn was not coming in to meet us becasue she was at some tire store getting tires for her car. At this point the seamstress brings out my crinoline with the 10 inches of fabric sewn onto the top of it to make it long enough, but it is now too small (won't fit around my butt) and also now all the poof of the crinoline is only at the very bottom from my knees down! So from my hips to my knees it's straight and then knees down it's huge poofy. You can imagine what that would look like under a dress that is supposed to be a huge poofy ballskirt type dress....it looked horrible!!! At that point the dress was not even wearable. I was still pretty calm because I didn't want to get too upset, I just wanted to get things fixed so I had a decent looking dress to wear in less than 24 hours for my wedding. The seamstress then takes the 10 inches of fabric off the top of my crinoline and takes another crinoline that is much smaller and less full than mine and begins to cut it up thinking we can somehow sew them together to make a crinoline that will be both long enough and full enough at the top around my hips to work. I'd like to say that neither the girls working their or their seamstress even figured this out, but my mom's friend who sews for fun was in there with us and she was the one who had to tell them to do that! She is also the only one who finally figured out the bustle wasn't working because it was incomplete and we'd have to figure something else out. Now I was unhappy because I don't have a bustle on my dress, the crinoline is way too short and they can't seem to get it right, and the owner isn't even there to try and fix things and her employees are really trying but can't figure out what to do. So I asked one of the girls to call Dawn so I could speak with her.

I get on the phone with Dawn and she immediately begins to tell me that it is MY fault for everything. Starting off with the crinoline she said that I never complained about the length. I told her I complained to their seamstress Maria but was assured it would fit fine once my dress was altered so I dropped it until I finally was in my dress with the hem correct and could tell it was way too short. At that point Dawn then CHANGED her story from I never complained to now saying that it was too short because I needed a long or extra length crinoline. I told her that I am only 5'2" and why would I need an extra long crinoline? What about girls who are "normal" height, which would be taller than I am? She said that they only sell 2 crinolines in a full size and it's regular length (which is what she says she ordered me) and long length. I told her that even if that WAS true and I at only 5'2" would need a long length, how on earth was I supposed to know that? SHE was the one who placed the order, and I had no clue (why would someone as short as me need a long length?), so SHE when placing the order should've ordered the long length. She evidently had no response because she said it was MY fault and then moved on to talking about the bustle. I told her the problem and she said it was not her fault because I "concocted some outrageous bustle with the seamstress and it is not a bustle we do". She then went on to say that I had evidently "made up" my own type of bustle that they had never even heard of before and it's MY fault that it did not work. I reminded her of our conversation on the previous Monday when she said they could do that type of bustle but it just wouldn't look good in her oppinion. She denied saying that and once again said it was a bustle they didn't do. I told her that I showed the seamstress and her 2 employees the bustle pics and the seamstress said that doing that type of bustle would be no problem at all and she could do it. If they couldn't do that bustle then the seamstress should not have told me she could do it. Now the bustle was only half done and my dress was not wearable. At that point she began to SCREAM at me over the phone how it was MY fault and NOT HERS, so I simply hung up the phone because she was clearly emotional and she was yelling at me and was not trying to fix the situation.

She immediately called back and when the girl at the salon picked up the phone she spoke for a minute and then came and told me that she was sorry, this wasn't coming from her, it was coming from Dawn, and Dawn said they had to "pack up the dresses and kick us out or they would be fired". She did not want to do that to me, but would loose her job if she didn't kick me out with an incomplete dress and crinoline. They did that and I was crying so hard I couldn't even see but my mother, sisters, and friends with us all packed up our things into trash bags (they didn't even give us garment bags!) and put them in the back of our cars and drove to the hotel.

That evening, my bm's mother came over with a needle and thread and hand sewed two pieces of different crinolines together to make one pieced together one that would be long enough and also would work so my dress would look descent. However, we still didn't know what to do with the bustle. It ended up that I happened to still have the strap from the first bustle that was put into my dress. It did not look near as good (everyone agreed on that), but it was the only thing to do at that point. I was not able to get my nails done, so it was the night before my wedding and I had ugly nails and feet becuase I missed my nail appointment at the nail salon in Esplanade Mall. Thanks to my bm's mother I had a wearable dress, but the bustle fell down every time I danced, so after each dance at the reception (or even from walking around a lot) we had to go back and re-bustle the dress because the strap thing wasn't holding it up. It also did not look very good, but at least my dress was not dragging on the ground. If it hadn't been for my bm's mother then I wouldn't have had a wearable dress for my wedding day. The the morning of my wedding I had to get my nails done, so that made me late getting to the church to take pictures because I wasn't able to get my nails done the night before because I was at the bridal salon with an unfinished dress.

First of all, my dress should've been completed LONG before the night before my wedding, but secondly to give me a crinoline that was clearly 10 inches too short and then a dress with a half done bustle, is insane. Then instead of trying to fix the situation, they kicked us out knowing full well it was the night before my wedding and I did not have a wearable dress at that point and it was their fault. I paid for those services in full before they were done and they were not completed because I didn't have the completed bustle that I had asked for, the skirt of my dress was too tight becuase it hadn't been fixed, and the crinoline was way too short. My issue is that they didn't even care enough to fix it, knowing full well what they were doing they kicked us out and refused to help.

If you other brides want to continue to give them business then that is your choice, this is just a true account of my experience with them for my wedding and like already posted, I have multiple witnesses that were there that can testify to all of this happening. I could not have imagined something that bad or traumatic could have happened to me the night before my wedding and was upset and in tears and couldn't eat the entire night and even the next morning. Everyone said it was ok but agreed my dress was not nearly as pretty as it should have been, especially with the bustle. It was the most horrible thing that could ever happen to any bride and unfortunately I had to go through it, it is my wish that no other bride (especially you knotties who are so dear to me) will ever have this happen to you. Thanks for listening.

dna100403
08-10-2003, 10:14 PM
OMG I am appalled to here this I almost ordered all of my wedding parties dresses from there but instead I went with Pearl's Place I am so sorry that they ruined your dress and also your day. I will make sure that I tell all my friends about this so that they don't get sucked in to that place.


Alisha :-)

renalovesmike
08-11-2003, 08:39 AM
Since I posted about them on here and several other places on the internet, it is amazing how many other brides are coming out of the woodwork to say that they had similar experiences with Just For A Day and the owner, Dawn. One bride says they still owe her $600 from her wedding several years ago. They took her money and never gave her a dress. It is amazing they are still in business!