Wedding dress rip off :(

Oh im so sorry, i bought my dress without thinking and paid a large deposit then since then saw online that was cheaper wish i had thought about it! I suppose you wouldnt have niggles about it if you had got a real bargain! I would ring the shop and see what they can offer you, they might be able to offer you veil or something? especially as you were being mislead about price, but then again they do have to put a large mark up to cover cost of nec stall!

How frustrating for you but you loved it at the end of the day so thats no bad thing!

Are you sure the websites you found it on for half the price were genuine? There are hundreds of copy dress websites out there. Which dress was it?

Was it a foreign website? Because their are lots of websites that offer dresses for much less and are basically cheap rip offs of designer dresses.

I hate the whole wedding dress shop sales pitch. I was married in 2005 (now divorced!) and i went into one particular shop and they said 'we've just had a dress in today, we want to see what it looks like being worn, would you mind trying it on?' Of course i fell in love with it but it was out of my budget. Six months later i decided to pop into the same shop for another look, they'de forgotten me by then and the woman said 'we've just had a dress in today, we want to see what it looks like being worn, would you mind trying it on?' so i agreed. Guess what? Yep it was exactly the same dress! Flippin' cheeky beggars!!

I'm not saying that they are the same of course, just that particular incident just put me off wedding dress shops!

You may not have been ripped off. As I say, you may be looking at copy websites. Do you mind saying how much you paid?

I can't find a picture of it, do you have one?

Ok, that website is selling samples. It will be genuine but they only have it in a size 16 and samples are always cheaper than new as it is the dress everyone has tried on when they visit the shop.

You can always get bargains if you manage to bag a sample but that's not always possible.

I found a post on another forum where a bride paid £750 for her 'Atlanta' so I don't think you've paid over the odds. What other websites did you see it on?

That website in particular does state that it is a sample sale so the dresses pictured will be cheaper than a brand new dress ordered in.

Normally you get alterations included in the price of a brand new dress but don't with a sample dress.

By the way the dress looks lovely. ?

Here you go: http://www.weddingideaschat.com/index.php?showtopic=171887

The other way to think about this is that a lot of brides pay full price for a dress they love if its the designer's current collection but believe me when the new collection comes out the current ones will be discontinued and therefore samples are sold at lower prices to clear space. So some poor soul has probably paid 1200 for the dress that you paid 599 for.

if you paid £599 for a romantics of Devon dress you weren't ripped off. You may have been misled by the shop about the original price (which isn't unrealistic for that brand as far as I'm aware). Some designers put an RRP on their wedding gowns, but this is only a recommended price so shops don't have to follow it so it may well have been that they sold it for £1200. What I will say is if the dress is an example the shop were obliged to be up front with you about this, it is misleading to sell a gown that has been tried on god knows how many times as brand new

I think that if you bought the dress there and then and took it away it will be a sample - dress sellers don't keep dresses in stock, they have samples which get triend on then dresses are ordered in for specific brides.

Mine is a sample (and was also about half the usual retail price) , the shop cleaned it and have stored it for me too. I have seen some smpled that have taken a real beating, but there is a shop near me where the lady has done deals with designers and gets loads of samples from different designers in a range of sizes - obviously she only has what she has, but they are all pristine.

Are the niggles you have about the dress the sorts of things that could be helped by a good seamstress? I love my dress but have a few ideas about how to make it even better!!