7.09.2008

Like Wedding Dresses Don't Already Cost Enough???

I saw this article, via Blue Orchid Design's Blog (one of my favorites that will soon be featured under Blog Bliss) and I wanted to throw something at these people!!

This is from an article in The New Zealand Herald last month:

"Just when you thought weddings couldn't get any more expensive, bridal stores are charging women for the privilege of trying on dresses.

Designers and bridal shop owners say charging for a fitting has become the norm and claim brides are more than happy to pay a "try-on" fee.

Some charge $20 for each dress a bride slips on and others set a flat fee of $60 an hour to stop school girls and "brides without grooms" wasting shop-owners' time.

Some stores include try-ons as part of a $300 consultation fee but most refund the costs if the bride buys the dress.

Bridalwear staff surveyed by the Herald on Sunday said the fee paid for dry cleaning, fixing damage and covering the time staff spent helping women into dresses.

The fee deterred women who weren't serious and ensured sample garments remained pristine."

"More than happy"???? I don't think so!!
I realize that dress shop owners want to deter the "school girls" or anyone just goofing around, but punishing the rest of us aint it! I know that Bridal shops today are vying with the issue of loosing customers to buying dresses online, but again, this is not the way to handle it! Some people go into a store to try a dress on so they can order the right size online - that's sad and not considerate of the people who do that. Don't punish the rest of us though! If I walk in and you treat me like I am going to do that or steal the design or anything to that effect, I am going somewhere else! I am not paying GOOD MONEY to be treated like that. There is one store in Pensacola that cuts of the tags and will not let you take pictures or tell you who makes the dress. My sister-in-law found the dress that she wanted online, found out that this store was the closest dealer of that company and when she went in to try it on and buy it - they would not let her take a picture to send to her mother (who lived in Maryland!!). I understand that the no picture policy is because some of the dresses are "in house" designs, but this one obviously wasn't. She was so turned off by the whole thing that she ended up driving an hour out of town and paying $200 more for the dress just to deal with a different store. Shop owners should think about the message they are sending.

hahaha - I just added it up in my head. If I had paid for trying on all the dresses I did, I would have paid more for searching than I did for the dress.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw this...can't imagine it will catch on. What if we had to pay to try on clothes at Macy's. I'd be poor :)

jessica lynn said...

wow, that is crazy!!
thanks again for all of your kind comments on my blog

Anonymous said...

This is an absolutely ridiculous practice! Had the shop where my fiancee purchased her dress charged a fee, we'd be shopping elsewhere. I was quite ticked off when we weren't allowed to take pictures though. After trying on only 5 dresses, it was hard to remember how each one looked. I would have liked to have been able to have some pictures to remmember how each dress looked. But we bought there anyways.