| rev:text
| - I knew when I chose Davids Bridal for my bridal party's dresses that I was not going to receive incredible customer service or, for that matter, quality. I picked them because a) they're cheap and b) they're everywhere, and I and my bridesmaids are all students or recent graduates and scattered across three states.
When my pre-husband, local bridesmaid, and I arrived at DB on a Saturday in late February (we'd seen an ad about a sale), the place was pretty crowded, and the women at the table in front seemed astounded that I hadn't made an appointment. I explained to them that I was really just interested in looking at one particular wedding gown I'd seen on the website (I had the style number and a picture printed out), and a couple of bridesmaid dresses, since I was actually leaning towards finding a bridesmaid dress for myself as well.
I was informed, after a lot of form-filling out that never actually seemed to get used for anything except selling my phone number to every wedding vendor in southern Wisconsin, that I would just have to wait until they could "squeeze [me] in," and that while I could browse the bridesmaid and formalwear sections, I was not allowed to go into the bridal gown racks because "we're very busy today."
After about 15-20 minutes of looking at bridesmaid dresses--we found the two I'd short-listed from the website in the first 5--my bridesmaid got fed up and dragged me into the wedding gown racks, where we flagged down one of the "consultants" and got the bridal gown I was considering. Then we let ourselves into an unused fitting area, and within 20 minutes we had determined that one of the bridesmaid dresses was the clear winner. (Just as well--it was about 1/3 the cost of the bridal gown, and it looked fantastic, whereas the the bridal gown just looked... unfortunate.)
We took the dress up to the front to order it in the color I wanted. As the pleasant girl at the register was ringing us up, she suffered some confusion about how to enter the commission since I'd informed her that we'd helped ourselves. One of the "consultants," sweeping by behind her, snapped in an extremely snide tone that she should just put her own name, IT'S FINE.
It was pretty clear to us that a major reason they hadn't had any time for us was that we'd been honest about not really wanting a bridal gown. Whatever--I really preferred not having someone hovering over me trying to convince me I needed a damn veil or something.
It was annoying, however, when the dress came in ~4 weeks later, they called me, and then couldn't find it for 20 minutes when I came in to pick it up. Turns out they'd reversed my names in the computer system. I realize that my first name is unusual, but my surname ends in "-man"; it shouldn't take a detective to figure out that "-man" is generally not a given name kind of ending. Also, as noted, they sold my name and number to pretty much every wedding vendor in Wisconsin (without any kind of permission, obviously), despite the fact that they have in their records the fact that the wedding is taking place in Nevada. I couldn't use these vendors even if I wanted to.
The dress itself is nice, and my bridesmaids were able to get the same dress in a different color at this location and locations in Missouri and Massachusetts, so I basically got what I expected out of using them. I took it elsewhere for alterations, since they're notorious for overcharging for them.
Also, when I came back in to buy a longline bra last month, the store was not at ALL crowded and they still kept me waiting for a "consultant" for about 15 minutes--this time, since I couldn't find where they kept the underwear in order to help myself, I had to resort to standing in the middle of the salesfloor glaring at the ceiling in order to get some attention. I'm almost 30; I assure you that I know how to try on a bra, even a bridal one, but apparently DB doesn't trust me.
And in fact once I managed to get my connection to the stockroom, it was a fairly short process. The bra cost $80, which is slightly more than half the cost of the dress, but it's well made and that's pretty standard.
tl;dr: The dresses are cheap and you'll probably find something you like, but even if you're already not expecting high-quality service, you should probably lower your expectations even further.
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