The dress saga continues - I get married in 10 days (squee!) and still don't have my dress. I ordered it (and paid 50%) in October, and was told 12-16 weeks (so it should have been in the shop by end of Feb at the latest). It arrived in the shop mid-March and wasn't right - it had been made in the wrong length, didn't have built in petticoats, the detachable petticoat was also the wrong length, and it had a zip when I had requested it be made into lace-up. It turned out these issues were the shop's fault, not the designer - the shop had been really unclear with the order, and had forgotten about the lace-up back completely.
Despite this, I was pushed slightly into paying the other 50%, and then they admitted fault and said they would sort all except the laced back (which they denied us agreeing to).
THEN they called and said instead of their seamstress altering it, they'd re-order a brand new dress in a bigger size (as they had also advised me to order a size 16 telling me the sizes were pretty true to high street, then said I should have ordered a size bigger than my usual size), with all the corrections. I was in the shop with them filling out the details and measurements, and stood next to the woman as she spoke to the designer and got a quote of £25 to put in a laced back instead of zipped. So I paid the £25 cash there and then, and got EVERYTHING written down and signed.
At this point, there were 14 weeks to go to the wedding. I said I wanted the dress in my hands at least a month before the wedding, so on the phone the Shop Lady asked Designer to have it ready in 10 weeks and they agreeds this was very doable. This went down on the order form too.
When it didn't arrive, Shop Lady started chasing them, and they discovered that Designer had put down AUGUST as the due date and hadn't even got it in production!! They started immediately, and I was told it would be in by last week so had made an appointment for last Thursday for first fitting. Then she called and said it wouldn't be in, but they were going to ship it out next day courier on Monday so it would arrive yesterday, so we booked an appointment for tomorrow (Thursday). I did have a large tantrum and pointed out that if I didn't have a dress in my hand by Friday 13th (8 days pre-wedding) I would want my money back so I could spend my last free weekend pre-wedding, looking for a new dress! They assured me this wouldn't be an issue.
So, tonight I get home from work to an answerphone message saying the dress isn't in because of a "problem with the van" and so could I call to "make an appointment for first thing Saturday morning". Hmmm, that's not FRIDAY, is it?!!
So, in theory, the dress is now ready and packaged up and TRYING to get itself to the shop. I have lost faith and feel I'm constantly being fobbed off with excuses. I've asked for a reduced price and some money refunded for all the stress and have been told no chance. I feel really cheated of the whole dress experience - I have no photos of it, I've never even tried it on (it was designed by / for me so never tried on a sample, just several dresses from the same designer), and because I'm anxious about it, it's really spoiling the run up to the wedding.
I've chosen a back-up dress (a Vivien of Holloway one) that I could order on next day delivery, and my current thinking is if the dress is NOT in the shop by lunchtime on Friday, I will order the VoH dress to arrive on Saturday (so my local seamstress has a week to alter it) but then if the 'perfect' dress arrives in the final week, I'll have 2 dresses and will have wasted a whole load of money. I imagine I'd get my money back for the perfect dress if it NEVER arrived in time for the wedding, but if it arrived a few days before I don't know what rights I have?
I'm so cross about the whole thing. There haven't been tears yet, but it's only a matter of time...!!
