Recently while planning my wedding, I found a website, www.houseofbrides.com, that boasted the "World's Largest Bridal Mall" and extremely good prices on bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses. The site has a link for all of the designer gowns, gives prices, and guarantees safe and accurate shipping.
It gives the addresses and phone numbers for all five of their stores. Thinking I had struck gold, I made an appointment for the Schaumburg store six weeks in advance. I drove five hours on April 9th to go to this "World's largest bridal store." First of all, within twenty minutes of being there, I witnessed two brides leave - one nearly in tears and the other bawling. The dresses were all in deplorable condition, not only the samples, but the ones you could buy off the rack. The sales lady, her name was Renatta, handed me a FILTHY bra and slip and told me to go ahead and start trying on dresses. What was the point in making an appointment if I received no help?
I refused to put on the bra, as I had my own, and for the next hour I tried on gown after gown that was at least three times as expensive as what was guaranteed on the internet. I know because I found one of the dresses I loved, a Maggie Sotero, listed for $1349, and their Internet site listed it for around $600. When I questioned the jump in price, I was literally told I was STUPID by the sales clerk, and was informed that House of Brides not only did not have access to their own website, but never used it or knew what was on it, and could not guarantee me anything I ordered online would even be received. I had also printed off pictures of the five bridesmaid dresses I had planned to order from the website. The sales clerk took one look at them and said, "I've never seen them before. We don't sell those." I told her they came from their own website and she again chose to insult me.
We left House of Brides and will never return - please use this as a warning when shopping for one of the most important days of your life. If you don't want to be insulted, ignored, or try on filty dresses, stay away from House of Brides and their website. Never in my life have I been treated as rudely as I was that day. And trust me, that sales lady certainly got a piece of my mind when I left. It was such a waste of five hours of driving.
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