David's Bridal and alterations

So I haven't posted in awhile..

Here what has been going on..

I took my dress yesterday to get an estimate on alterations. I took it to a place in Stockton and found out that it will be really hard to hem since it doesn't have a waist seam that they can just take it up from... but because the chiffon is one piece, they actually have the remove the lace, then hem it and then reattach the lace. Great. Plus adding a bustle... plus attaching some sleeves.

The place in stockton thinks it will be about $175... plus I'd have to buy the sleeves at David's Bridal for $40 and he didn't seem too sure about what a bustle was, which makes me a little uneasy. So it would be $215.

Davids Bridal wants $120 for the hem, $50 for the bustle and $40 for the sleeves plus $40 to attach the sleeves... that is $250.. great.

My cousin found out because of all the layers to her dress, to hem it, it would be $60.

Before we went to the alterations appointment, we went to lunch at Chili's. yummy. We also went to Target where I got a baby gift for a girl at work. I got her a bath set with two hooded towels and two wash cloths.

Priscilla met us at the Tailor shop and we dropped my cousin off. Went and met up with Jennifer at her house, who followed us to Modesto. We all went to David's Bridal... where Priscilla easily found her dress size. She tried the right size on the first time... This is her modeling the dress.. kindof. I forgot to take a picture of her in it.


Yay. I tried on my dress and picked out some cap sleeves to add to my dress. I also looked at a pretty headband.. or two...
or

I kind of like them both. I don't know which one I like more.

Hole Free Dress

Yay, I have my dress! They sent me a brand new dress. Everything was packaged and I had to take it all apart to even get it on. Everything was all nice. There were no HOLES!

I tried it on, just because. Aaron's dad went with me to pick it up. His truck is wider than my car so we wouldnt have to fold it...etc.

AND

they had my cousin's bridesmaid dress ready to go too. They replaced the zipper.

here is a picture of me and my dress today. Ignore my face.. lol. I am a little apprehensive that I'll find something wrong with the dress.



I told them I wanted to purchase a dress bag.. and the manager said she was giving it to me for free because of all the troubles. Yay. I know its not much, but its $10 I saved.

and no. Tasha did not show up.. at all. no call. Nothing.

Flaky Bridesmaid

So everyone remembers my flaky bridesmaid that kept not showing up. Not Maya, but my friend Tasha. Anyways. So I told her that if she comes today when I go pick up my dress,(*hopefully hopefully its not damaged or unacceptable.. God I hope its okay and I can bring it home.. please please please), that she can buy a bridesmaid dress and be in the wedding.

She knows when she has to be here. We (Dave- Aaron's Father is driving) are leaving at 10. Since Dave is driving, we aren't waiting. I know he wouldnt mind waiting, but I dont want him to walk around my super messy house. Eeeek.

I love my cats that destroy everything. This morning it was the toilet paper in the bathroom, yesterday they knocked a plant down and it broke in a thousand pieces.

Anyways... so I hope that she shows up.

I asked Dave to drive because he has a bigger car and we won't have to fold the dress.

Anyways... so I told her to be here at 9:30 (well I text messaged that to her last night around midnight).. but I told her when I talked to her on Monday that she had to be here by 10 at the latest. So we'll go by that one. She has 15 minutes to get here.

I just tried calling and it keeps going straight to voicemail. So either her phone is off or its dead. Either way I'm leaving her if she doesnt get here. I've been waiting to order an extra bouquet or tell anyone until she buys a dress... but I dont think I'm going to let her be in the wedding again after today if she doesnt go today.

My dress is in

My wedding dress came in ... again. So I need to go down sometime to pick it up and make sure its not full of holes like the last one.

David's Bridal Pictures

My ex-dress with the hole that is being returned and Rachel's actual dress. She is my maid of honor.





Better picture of the bridesmaid dresses:

I really like the blue color I picked out. I just wish my dress wasn't all messed up. Good thing they are fixing it.

Inspecting the dresses

My cousin Donna and my maid of honor Rachel went with me today to "inspect" the dresses... We met Rachel at Starbucks in manteca. When we got down there we wanted to try the dresses on and make sure they fit etc. I also wanted to check them over..etc.
Rachel and Kerry's dress was fine. Donna's dress had a zipper problem and mine had a big hole. Yay. Plus some beading was falling off. woo hoo.
So they are ordering me a new dress. They didn't have an attitude because I just spoke with the manager the whole time, but they kept harassing us to sign the papers saying we got them. I told them I'd sign them when we were ready to leave... geez.
When I pointed out the problems with the dress, they said that if I came in 2 weeks before the wedding, they would do a bead check..etc. I said they needed to do it now because beading was falling off and there was a hole. There was also several spots where the fabric was stretched at the seams.

I don't see why they want to wait til 2 weeks before the wedding, when there is nothing they can do about it then.

Who comes up with these dumb policies?

so now my dress is scheduled to come in around beginning of July... that means it will be here in a couple of weeks. Or at least thats how its always been.

*headdesk*

Inspect the dresses

I got a message today from David's Bridal from one of the consultants.

She was rather rude.

She said that our new dresses are in and we should come "inspect" them to make sure they are up to our "high standards".

I'm sorry but I thought that was a little off and unwarranted.

So I told Rachel about it and she got upset and said that she would drive up and we would go "inspect" the dresses together. She said they better not be mean or rude. Its not our fault the dresses were damaged when they came in.

I also talked my cousin Donna into going because after all it was her dress that was the worst. I wanted them to try them on to make sure they were okay.

So we decided to go in a few days.

Problems with David's Bridal

SUNDAY
I went to David's Bridal on Sunday with Aaron to pick up the bridesmaid dresses for my wedding. They had called Kerry on tuesday and told her she had to pick up her dress in 3 to 5 days. Which is really unreasonable for people to do when they live out of town.

So we get there and when they bring the dresses out they ask that I sign a piece of paper to state I received the dress. I told them I didnt want to sign before I see the dresses and make sure they are what we ordered.

So my fiance and I start looking over the dresses for damages..etc. I had recently read a post about someone having a pen mark on their dress and I just wanted to make sure everything looked okay before I signed for and took the dresses. After all its not my dress, its someone else's and i didn't want to say it was okay.. when it obviously wasnt.

Dress # 1 - size 10.

Looks okay. The zipper is starting to bulge at the bottom. Threads are starting to come out and the zipper is catching on the threads.

Dress # 2 - size 20

Looks okay. Same problem with the zipper. It looks bulgy at the bottom. Told that both dresses are okay and its just the way the zipper is tacked and would be easy to fix.

Dress #3 - size 14.

Really bad obvious threads pulling, making a big line across the bottom by the bottom of the zipper. The zipper is bulging at the bottom. Was told that they would have alterations look at it. I was walked back to alterations, saw the manager show the alteration worker, what I was complaining about, saw her write the problem in a book and we left the room and went back out front.

I was assured that all 3 dresses would be fixed and ready to go by Wednesday.

THURSDAY
I show up on Thursday with my cousin who is the owner of dress #3 that was the worst. I thought it was best to bring her incase they tried to do a "patch job' to make it look pretty like just iron the shit out of it. I wanted her to try it on and make sure it was really fixed.

We arrive and they can't find the dresses... because they are looking in receiving. I told them that they were in alterations because they were being fixed. They bring them out in a white bag and hand me the papers to sign for them. Of course I won't because I find it weird they are brought out in a different colored bag. When I tried to pick them up before they were in a clear bag.

So I start looking at them and they are ALL THE SAME. Nothing has been changed. When I try to tell them that they havent been fixed, they say that they werent supposed to be fixed, that they were only told to steam them. So I said that they needed to be fixed. She said there was no paperwork stating that they needed to be fixed, so they werent fixed. Like it was MY FAULT that there was no paperwork.

So they take the one that looks the best, take it in the back, press the hell out of it and it comes back looking okay but it still looks like its bumpy at the bottom. So I said that I thought that it was just a quick temporary fix and that I didnt want to sign for something that needed work to be done to make it look okay. She said No..no. Its fixed. It will stay like that. So i told her that ironing wasn't fixing it. I mean if you iron your pants, does that mean they will never wrinkle again? Seriously. Come on!!

Then the manager on duty says that they can get me a new dress but only for the one that looks the worst. The others are "okay" in her standards since they can be pressed so the flaws are only mininimally shows. What?

Then she goes on to say that since they are an "off the rack" dealer that the dresses are never new, that they might all have that same flaw ..etc. So I said well if I saw the dress before I bought it, I wouldnt have bought it like that. That the ones we tried on AT the store was not like that, I even pulled some off the rack and showed them that it wasn't like that. They said that there was no guarantee that they dress wouldnt come back looking like that... and it might take 6 to 8 weeks to get the dresses back.

So I said that I had 6 months to wait for a decent one.

Her reasoning was just dumb. Seriously. So what if they are an off the rack dealer. That doesn't mean I would go into macy's and buy a defective dress just because the dresses are off the rack. Either they can order me a new one (most retailers can call around to the local stores and see if they can find one in your size, or you can look online) or most places will give people discounts on defective merchandise. I know I've worked retail at two different stores.

It different when you buy your dress ahead of time and they send you defective merchandise.

Anyways, so after the manager on duty said there was nothing she could do. She basically kept trying to get us to take the dresses with us.. saying that they were all going to be like that etc. We left without the dresses and the promise that the real manager could help us tomorrow.

Bridesmaid dresses .. check ... flower girl dress...check

Kerry drove down and went to breakfast with Aaron and I at UJs. She had gotten to stockton a little early, so she just met us there for breakfast. It wasn't planned or anything. After breakfast, we went back to my house and hung out for a little while because Rachel was running late. She called me when she barely had just gotten on 580.

When Rachel finally got into Tracy she called us and we headed down to meet her in Manteca. We met her at the nicest Starbucks that I have ever seen. It had really big couches and everything. I hope my store when it opens is that nice.

After our starbucks detour, Rachel went with us in Kerry's car to Modesto to David's Bridal. It didn't really take that long because we already knew what we wanted. It just took us awhile to find the right size. Rachel was excited because the first dress she thought she would need was way too big. Its just that David's Bridal is maybe one to two sizes off. A lot of the other brands are maybe two to four sizes off. So it took her 4 dresses to decide on a size. Kerry only took two dresses to decide on a size that fit her best.

We are princesses:

The other color that I considered:




With the shawls and flowers:




Rachel is a princess:


Me and Kerry


Rachel and Kerry


Back to the dressing room again...



Me and Rachel:




Plus Aaron and I found this dress on clearance and bought it for our flower girl:

It ties in the back.


The dress has silver sparkles all over it:

The dress is stretchy so it has a little room to grow if she does get bigger and the straps should be shortened but other than that it looks good.

Yay! I bought my dress

I finally!! found and bought a wedding dress!
YAY!

The good news is it was on sale for $100 off. So that made my sister happy. So it fit into our budget nicely.

David's Bridal Wedding Dresses

So I thought before I buy the other dress, I'd go check out the new dresses at Davids Bridal... again, because their spring line just came out....

and... I think I found two I like...

David's Bridal dress...






They can put cap sleeves on it too:


Galina Dress












So what do you think?
The galina dress was 5 sizes too small, but they were able to clip it on me. They said that if I ordered the galina dress in my size and i didn't like it, I could order the second dress. It makes really want to just do that, since I really like both of them. I think the Galina dress is pretty and its more unique, but I'm not sure how flattering it will be on me because the dress was waay small. I think if I could get the dress in my size, and then switch them out, I'll be okay... What do you think?

They both are super light and really comfy. I really liked the corset back on the second dress and the sweetheart neckline and draping was flattering...

Dress shopping

My friend Julie needed to go to Modesto to check up on her wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses. So I offered to go with her, and she said well lets just make a day of it and we can go look for some stuff for you..

So we went to David's Bridal and a couple of other shops..

I kind of like this one for bridesmaids actually

Another dress.. Cap sleeves, organza overlay with some beading and a satin trim:

Lace dress with a sash that can possibly be removed


oh and a pretty tiara


and some more pictures of the dress from the other day:
length of train:



oh and this is why I'm having trouble finding navy bridesmaid dresses.. the navy is just so super dark it blends in with black: