The Dress Mess

Thursday, one of our clients called with every bride's nightmares. She went to her final fitting and, once the dress was the right size and fit, they noticed a defect in the dress. Or, I should say, she and her sister and the seamstress noticed. The owner of the salon seemingly "could not see" the issue when she came into the shop the next day. The Bride left the fitting frazzled, since no one seemed to offer up or see any possible ways to fix the issue of crooked beading. We went back to the salon with her to see the gown, meet with the owner (who we knew) and talk with the seamstress. We were amazed at how RUDE and tense the interaction was. To me, it was her dress, and she is a just a few days away from being a blushing bride. How could "rudeness" help the situation at all. In fact, it inspired me to write a post on how to best deal with Wedding Dress Messes.. 1. Stay Calm. Don't freak out, or raise your voice. Yes it was expensive and Yes, it needs to be perfect (and deserves to be), but freaking out inspires panic and panic doesn't inspire solutions. Make it clear that you are dissatisfied and that you want a resolution. 2. Identify the Problem Clearly. is a defect from the manufacturer? Is it an issue with the fittings? Did the dress become stained in the store's possession. It seems obvious, but sometimes I Ding the issue is the clearest way to make the solution obvious. in this case the issue was a slight defect, but because of the time crunch we had to find resolutions the seamstress could implement. 3. Clearly and calmly ID potential ways of resolving the conflict. Before you take (or leave) your gown at the shop in a huff, ID the solutions to the manager or owner. it may be that they fix the gown, replace the gown, send the gown to another tailor to fix and refund your fitting fee or simply refund some or all of your money and you find a solution on your own, but its important for you to tell them what YOU see as the options for fixing your own dress mess. Often bride's get flustered and stressed and leave wedding conflict with less than the best resolution because they need to "be done" with the conflict. get control of the situation by giving your shop owner options that work for you instead of the other way around. 95 percent of the time gowns arrive perfect and ready to go and even when they don't 99 percent of the time your gown salon will want to bend over backwards to fix it. If that doesn't seem to be your case, hopefully the tips above will work. Our bride just sent us a happy text saying that she picked up her gown and was happy we'd been able to work out a solution that made it work for her!