Mother of the Bride Gown

by dissapointed mom
(rock hill, sc, usa)

I ordered a mother of the bride gown from a local bridal shop.

The manager of the store measured me. I am a plus size but the dress she ordered, I could put 2 canteloupes in the top of it.

The dress was $350+, and now she wants $150 to alter it. The top has to be completely reconstructed.

Now I hate the dress.

I figured I could order a dress from a National Retail chain that will positively take returns if the dress does not fit.

However today, I went and asked the lady at the local store if she could send the dress back since it was going to require so many alterations and she says the bridal company she ordered the mother of the bride dress from will not take merchandise back.

This is a brand new, unaltered dress with the tags still on it.

Is she telling me the truth?

Answer by Diane:

Hello,

Thanks for writing to us today with your question concerning your Mother of the Bride Gown.

I am sorry that you are having such a time with finding the perfect dress for your daughter's special day.

It's certainly quite a stressful situation, and you certainly wouldn't need any more stress in your life right now.

As for the bridal shop, they all have different policies as to what their return and exchange policies are and they should have made them clear to you.

They are correct in that sometimes the dress manufacturer will not take the dress back, however, in this instance they could have offered you, in good faith, to take the return minus a restocking fee if it was their mistake in ordering the size that they did.

That would have been a nice thing to do.

Sometimes when ordering a size of dress though, you really do have to order the size of dress to fit the largest part of you.

You didn't mention that the dress fit too large anywhere else except in the bust. If this is the case, then the shop did order the correct size and, unfortunately, the only way to properly fit the dress is through Wedding Dress Alteration.

Before you go looking for a new dress, if there is a chance that you still "love" the dress, take to another seamstress outside of the bridal shop and see how much she would charge to make the alterations.

You might be surprised at the difference in cost.

I'm hoping that you can work something out and have only best wishes for both you and your daughter on her wedding day!

Diane