The Bridal Shop, Northampton

...if it isn’t clear at the time what that reason actually is. Never have I been more certain that this is true until I started looking for a wedding dress.

Some of you may have read my review on Just Pretty Bridal the US store I bought my wedding dress from, if so you’ll know just how pleased I was with them and how much I loved my dress, what you won’t know is all the problems I had before I ended up choosing to buy a dress from them.
...could book an appointment. From the moment I went in I immediately felt very comfortable, the shop which was made to feel very much like an upper class boutique instantly struck me as the kind of shop that would only sell extremely pricey dresses and nothing in my budget. The assistant asked if she could help me in a very snooty voice, she gave me a look up and down and to be honest she scared the life out of me, my first experience of a bridal shop ... more

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason even if it isn’t clear at the time what that reason actually is. Never have I been more certain that this is true until I started looking for a wedding dress.

Some of you may have read my review on Just Pretty Bridal the US store I bought my wedding dress from, if so you’ll know just how pleased I was with them and how much I loved my dress, what you won’t know is all the problems I had before I ended up choosing to buy a dress from them.

When we got engaged I didn’t want to rush out and start trying on dresses straight away instead opting for trying to lose some weight before I started looking, after all we had over around 16 months to plan so there was no rush. I waited about 6 months after we got engaged and then I decided I should start at least trying on dresses in case I couldn’t find anything I liked.

Having never been to a bridal shop before (funny that as I had never been married) I had no idea what you have to do when you want to go to try on dresses. I just happened to be in Milton Keynes town centre and a new bridal shop had opened so I decided to call in to see if I could book an appointment. From the moment I went in I immediately felt very comfortable, the shop which was made to feel very much like an upper class boutique instantly struck me as the kind of shop that would only sell extremely pricey dresses and nothing in my budget. The assistant asked if she could help me in a very snooty voice, she gave me a look up and down and to be honest she scared the life out of me, my first experience of a bridal shop was no a pleasant one.

When I initially started looking at dresses I kept getting drawn back to a designer called Maggie Sottero and so I eventually bit the bullet and found out which stores near me stocked her dresses, one of the nearest was in Luton so I rang up to ask them a few questions. One of my main concerns was whether they would have dresses available for me to try on. Being a size 16 – 18 I was worried about arriving and finding that they only had size 10’s and 12’s available for brides to be, however I was assured that they stocked a wide range of sizes and it wouldn’t be a problem. I asked if I could take people with me and they said I could take as many people as I liked so that was a plus point as I had specifically asked 3 friends to come with me. I booked an appointment for a Saturday but the earliest they could get me in was in about 3 weeks which was fine. I went away feeling happy and excited.

In the meantime my then fiancé and I visited a wedding fair which was being held at our actual venue and there was a stand for a store in Northampton called The Bridal Shop. They not only provided attire for the bride and her bridesmaids but also for the groom and the whole wedding party and after getting chatting to the two people at the stand who I think were the owners I ended up making and appointment to try on dresses for the same day as the other appointment but in the afternoon. At the same time my fiancé made an appointment to try on suits.

The day of the appointments came, my friends and I went to the first appointment and I had two dresses which were shortlisted as favourites but I didn’t want to make any kind of decision until we’d been to the second shop in Northampton so we drove back to home and picked up my fiancé and then drove to The Bridal Shop.

The Bridal Shop is based on two floors, menswear downstairs and women’s wear on the upper two floors. The area where you try on the dresses is quite small with a couple of chairs for your family/friends to wait, there are three very small changing rooms available. On the day that we went there was another bride trying on dresses with two members of her family, plus myself and three friends so it was rather cramped to say the least. I was told to have a look along the rails and pick out anything that took my fancy the range of dresses was good though nowhere near as varied as the first shop that we had gone to (and no Maggie Sottero). Eventually I found about five dresses that I decided I wanted to try on.

My assistant took me and the dresses into the tiny changing room and attempted to help me get into them. The cubicle was so small that the door kept spilling open so I was on show to the whole of the main shop (pants and all) which I wasn’t particularly happy about as I don’t think many people would be. The cubicle clearly wasn’t big enough for the task at hand and I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t made them bigger and just had two rather than three but what do I know about shop fitting?!

After trying four dresses there were none that really stood out to me so feeling as if we had a wasted journey I agreed to try the last one on. We put it on and as I came out and looked in the mirror I had that feeling, the one they say you will get when you know this is the dress for you. All my friends were telling me that this was the prettiest one, even nicer than the two we’d shortlisted from the first shop and when the assistant placed a beautiful veil on me and I burst into tears. I was told the dress was £599 which was within my budget but again I didn’t want to jump in without thinking about it first so I got dressed and went to meet my fiancé. We all decided to go for a drink in the pub, well its thirsty work trying on wedding dresses!

After speaking to my fiancé he told me that he was very impressed with the selection of suits and they had offered to hire him his outfit free if we hired all the men’s outfits from them, this seemed like a pretty good deal. I wasn’t sure what to do about the dress I had tried on, I loved it, my fiancé said it was up to me but he was considering putting a deposit down on the suits. I eventually decided to go back and put a £100 deposit on the dress as I was certain at this point I wanted it, I’d decided on my dress and that was it over and done with until I had to go to be measured at my first fitting.

Unfortunately about 6 weeks later we looked at our budget and it was starting to get slightly out of hand so me being the penny pincher I am started looking at ways we could cut back. I am proud to say at no point was I a bridezilla and I told my fiancé that if I needed to I would get a cheaper dress so we could use the left over money to making sure that all our friends and family could attend as that was more important to me and I knew that if you look in the right places you can get discounted wedding dresses which are still of excellent quality. He was unsure but by this time my mind was in overdrive I decided that I wanted to try the dress on again just to check in my head that I was willing to pay £600 for it, this was where the problems started.

We happened to be visiting the shop so my fiancés best man could be measured for his suit so I decided to go with them with the intent of trying the dress on again. When we got there and I explained I wanted to try the dress on again I was asked why. Being an honest person I could see no reason to lie so I started to explain that we were having some budget worries and I wanted to try the dress on again so I could check that this really was THE one and that I really could justify spending that amount of money on it. The assistant which was the same lady that had been so lovely and helpful to me when we went for the first appointment suddenly turned quite nasty, she asked me what I intended on doing if I didn’t have that dress. I said that I would look at possibly getting a sale dress or maybe a second hand one as it was more important to me that we could have all the people we wanted there to be able to share our day than it was to spend £600 on a dress I’d wear only once. She then completely snapped and asked what would be my budget for a second hand dress, I said I had a seen a dress on Ebay which I previously tried on (it was one of the two shortlisted Maggie Sottero dresses from the first shop) in my size for sale for £199. She started rifling through the shops sale rails and took out a dress and said “well we have this one for £300” I didn’t like it at all but very politely told her I wasn’t keen on it. She then grabbed a second dress which I can only describe as hideous and said “well how about this one this is £299”. Remaining polite but at the same time starting to get quite annoyed

She asked me where we were getting married and I told her we were getting married at Whittlebury Park. She then told me that (and these were her exact words) “I should cancel our venue immediately on the way home from the shop, get married in a registry office and have our reception at the working men’s club” now no offence to anyone who decides that they want to do those things but that wasn’t what we wanted to do so I told her that under no circumstances would we be cancelling our venue. She then turned to me and said “well I don’t see what the point is of getting married in a big fancy place like that and looking like sh*t in a second hand dress, because you will do”. This was the straw that broke the camels back as far as I was concerned, how dare she speak to me like that.

I very sensibly decided to leave the shop before I lost my temper as inside I was absolutely fuming at what she had said to me, even though I hadn’t actually even managed to re-try the dress on again! When we got home and my fiancé and I were on our own I explained what had happened as he was oblivious because he was downstairs at the time and had assumed I’d just tried the dress on as planned. The more I thought about it the more I thought she had been totally out of order and came to the conclusion that I no longer wanted to get my dress from them – after all if I am spending £600 on one item of clothing I expect to receive great service.

I wrote a letter of complaint to the manager/owner of the shop as I felt that I should let them know how I had been treated, six weeks later I received a response (if you can call it that) saying that they had never received a complaint before and that she couldn’t believe the assistant had spoken to me in that manner!!!! I immediately wrote back and told her that I had no reason to lie and that due to all the things that had happened I would not be getting my dress for them as I felt I couldn’t rely on them to provide a satisfactory level of customer service. I requested my £100 deposit back, not that I ever thought I’d actually get it but about two weeks later I received a reply informing that they would allow me to use the £100 on something else from the shop (accessories, veil etc). As much I didn’t want to spend anything in the shop I also didn’t want to lose my £100 deposit so in the end I used it to purchase a tiara as it was all I could find that needed or wanted. It was a great deal more than I had intended on paying for a tiara as I would’ve just purchased one off Ebay but at least I didn’t lose my money.
In the end we did still use The Bridal Shop for the menswear and they were fine on that side, I can’t fault their service in that area as my husband, father/father in law and the groomsmen all looked fantastic on the day. I don’t know maybe I just happened to encounter that particular sales assistant on a day when she was in a bad mood but I still feel that her comments were unnecessary and rude. I have worked in shops and I know that no matter what kind of mood you are in you NEVER take it out on the customer.

I feel that I should warn any brides to be about the service I received in this store. Obviously I understand there are probably plenty of people who have bought their dresses from them and have been more than happy but since I have mentioned this on a few wedding message boards I have had a couple of people tell me they received bad service from The Bridal Shop too. I also found out that they actually used to be called Pronuptia but changed their name after lots of complaints, which rings alarm bells to me.

Obviously alls well that ends well as in the end I found a different dress one which made me look much better than the dress I was going to purchase from The Bridal Shop. I thought long and hard over whether to write this review but I wouldn’t want anyone to encounter problems and felt I should highlight the service I had been given at this store.

Thanks for reading my review.

Shazza xx

 

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