Say YES to the wrong dress?

henna and heels : Braja Mandala Wedding Photography

As most girls are, we have dreamt of the perfect wedding since we learned what a wedding was. And what’s the most important thing about the wedding? The Bride of course! And her dress. The wedding is always about the bride. How she looks, what she’s wearing, who she’s marrying. So when a girl gets married, she wants it to be the perfect wedding. Wedding’s only happen once. (Depending on your personality, sometimes twice) And they’re very expensive. Sometimes the wedding dress itself costs as much as anything else at the wedding.

Before planning a wedding, I had no idea what was needed to be done. Who knew how expensive every little thing was?!

I went to a Bridal Expo in the beginning of the year. By that time, I had an idea on who and what I was looking for.

Photographer, videographer (surprisingly they’re not always working together).
Florist, not the same as stage decor.
DJ, but what kind of music does he know?
Performers, do you really wanna pay hundreds of dollars for other people to dance at your wedding?
Venue, can it hold 400 people?
Bridesmaids, don’t even get me started on that.
Color scheme, red is too loud, white is too plain.
Favors for the guests, honestly, just let them take a centerpiece especially with 400+ guests.
Transportation, does the groom come in an expensive car or a horse?
Makeup artist, I have a very very interesting story on that I’ll get to on a different post.
Shoes and jewelry to match the dress.
And of course the dress itself.

Basically, there’s so many aspects of a wedding, and every girl wants it to be perfect in every way possible.

And the most important one is the DRESS.

Now let me tell you. I’ve dreamt of the perfect wedding dress since I can remember. Every girl watching princess movies, and love movies, and they see a type of wedding dress, they mentally store that design or color or type in their minds for future use. Then they bring it into reality. Girls literally pay thousands of dollars to make sure they have the perfect wedding dress, the perfect color to match the scheme, the perfect style to match their body. Everything about that wedding dress, needs to be perfect for the girl.

So what if you spend thousands of dollars, and then be told just a month before the wedding that your dress is still not ready?

Dreams crushed.

My (now) husband thought it was no big deal, its just a wedding dress, find a replacement. And the store that was supposed to supply me the dress suggested the same.

TO FIND A REPLACEMENT FOR MY PERFECT WEDDING DRESS.

Mind you it has been over two months since the wedding and I still cannot find the words to explain how frustrated I still am to not get the dress of my dreams. It could’ve been my shoes or the jewelry, fine. But my wedding dress????

Here’s how it really happened:

STORY TIME:

An indian bridal store (cannot be named) in New Jersey, customized wedding dresses. They were all sweet talk telling me they’ll work with my budget, and give me whatever dress I want and however I want, blah blah blah. The colors, the design, the style, the fabric, and even match the grooms outfit with my dress, so basically the whole nine. Not all stores do this because they have limited resources to work with. I excitedly agreed to come back with my fiancé to place the order.

This was back in April of 2018 when I took my fiancé all the way to Jersey (about an hour and a half drive) and placed the order, took measurements, and showed her exactly what I wanted from the color, the design, the style, the stonework, the extra dupatta (veil, scarf, whatever you wanna call it), to match his sherwani (which was also customized). Everything was going perfect. They even wanted the full amount, not the deposit. They seemed trustworthy and assured us the dress and his outfit will be made and be available for pick up by the end of June, which still gives me a month for alterations, so we agreed.

We even go back a few times after we ordered just to see it again. I couldn’t wait to get my dress.

June comes along, I contact them a few times on when my dress will be ready. They told me by the end of the month. Mid-June, his outfit is ready for pick up. I ask them about mine, they reply, ‘It should be here by the end of the month.” (Which is just 2 more weeks.)

The last week of June, they again tell me “It will be here by the end of the week.”

End of the week, “It will be here next week.”

Also note, I’ve been texting and calling the woman who was handling my situation plenty of times to no avail. She was on vacation, or busy with customers, or the boss wasn’t in. So many excuses. I use to leave voicemails and text messages and she would not respond back.

First week of July (countdown to the wedding, 27 days), we go there in person since we never get any responses back.

We meet with the owner, “Just one more week. I promise you it will be here by Friday the 13th, and I’ll give it to you in writing. But you can get a replacement if you’d like!” Though we pushed him to give it to us in writing. And no I don’t want a replacement for my wedding dress. The owner of the store was telling us so many things to assure us we’d get my dress. His excuse was the factory messed up the dress and now they have to remake the train. He tells us he was going to get it rushed, he’ll tell his brother personally to pack the dress in his own luggage and bring it here, he’ll deliver it all the way to New York himself if he has to. SO. MANY. LIES.

The next week, Wednesday, July 11. “Yes, it will be here on Friday. But why don’t you look at other dresses just in case?!” In case of what???

My fiancé still convinces me to try out a couple of dresses as a backup. I try them on, but they weren’t the ONE.

That morning on Friday the 13th (2 weeks before the wedding), “Your dress if here, you can pick it up today after 8 pm.”

5 pm: I leave work, go to my fiance’s house and we then drive to Jersey. An hour and a half later, the woman calls me as we’re parking asking if we were going to make it because she wanted to close the store early and leave.

I walk in after hanging up and then there it was. Two dresses, for me to choose from, and neither are my wedding dress. I look at the dresses and look at my fiancé. What the eff is going on?

So, she tells me she knew these weren’t my dress, BUT these were similar and I can choose any one of them.

EXCUSE ME?

How dare they tell me MY dress is here then tell me they know it wasn’t my dress? Its similar?

NO.

Nothing should be SIMILAR. This is where I wanted to punch someone in the face and cry at the same time. How can someone just do this? Ruin a bride’s dream?

My fiancé convinced the owner to give me two dresses so I can have an outfit change. We paid a little extra (a few hundreds) for the second dress. Still not the same as not having the wedding dress I wanted.

And honestly, I hated it. I hated everything about the first dress which was supposed to be a replacement for my dream wedding dress. I hated how I looked. The color didn’t match our color scheme. I didn’t match him. To know I wasn’t able to wear the wedding dress of my dreams to literally my only wedding shattered me.

Its been over two months, and I still hate that dress. I wish I could burn it. It wasn’t worth thousands of dollars. That money could have been put towards other expenses for the wedding. It was my bad luck I had to settle and say yes to something I didn’t want to wear but had no option. A week before the wedding, and the bride couldn’t even get her dress.

Bottom line, if you are a bride to be, or even just thinking, planning, dreaming of your wedding dress, do NOT settle. That’s the worst thing a bride ever has to do. Settle for a dress she doesn’t even like all because a business was not able to keep their word.

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    This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2018 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Me, Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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