Faulty wedding dress, poor service

mignon_2

Hello,

I wondered if any of you had any experience advice on this matter. I recently got married and bought my wedding gown from a high end couture Bridal wear designer ( I do not want to say who at this point as they keep tracking me!!). Unfortunately from day 1 things started to go wrong: I had appointments cancelled on me (I had to travel from one end of the country to the other for this particular designers boutique). When I did get appointments, and started to try on my "finished" dress there were constant problems:
1. Alterations weren't done for when they said they would be (they had been forgotton)
2.when they were done they were so poorly done that even someone clueless about dresses would see they weren't up to scratch ie, hand stitches clumsily showing through to the fabric of the dress
3. a large hole in the side of the dress
4 stains on the dress on two occasions
5.after one rather large alteration was done the dress was too small for me, when I complained (afetr almost fainting) I was told I had put on weight. I really hadn't. This led me to lost so much weight that I was underweight for my wedding, from the day of trying on the sample to my wedding day I was over a stone lighter
6. any complaints made were met with denial and blame passed onto me
7. the staff were so rude that they made my mother cry (in fact, after one fitting, I left my bridesmaid and hid in a department store tiolet and cried for half an hour!)
8. the staff lied to us.
9. The ultimate insult: when I unpacked my wedding dress on the day it was falling apart!! It was hand stitched together, and so badly that without even being tried on it was coming to pieces. Luckily I used to work in fashion myself and am capable enough with a needle, but I was angry, and forty minutes late to my wedding, which I didn't want to be!

I have since consulted CAB and Trading standards, I have written several letters, the responses have ignored the issues and passed the blame onto myself. I have formally filed to sue under the goods & services act 1982 for loss of enjoyment.

I am reasonably well informed so far but I was wondering if anyone had any advice/feedback on this issue?

CAB_National_Representative

mignon wrote: »

Hello,

I wondered if any of you had any experience advice on this matter. I recently got married and bought my wedding gown from a high end couture Bridal wear designer ( I do not want to say who at this point as they keep tracking me!!). Unfortunately from day 1 things started to go wrong: I had appointments cancelled on me (I had to travel from one end of the country to the other for this particular designers boutique). When I did get appointments, and started to try on my "finished" dress there were constant problems:
1. Alterations weren't done for when they said they would be (they had been forgotton)
2.when they were done they were so poorly done that even someone clueless about dresses would see they weren't up to scratch ie, hand stitches clumsily showing through to the fabric of the dress
3. a large hole in the side of the dress
4 stains on the dress on two occasions
5.after one rather large alteration was done the dress was too small for me, when I complained (afetr almost fainting) I was told I had put on weight. I really hadn't. This led me to lost so much weight that I was underweight for my wedding, from the day of trying on the sample to my wedding day I was over a stone lighter
6. any complaints made were met with denial and blame passed onto me
7. the staff were so rude that they made my mother cry (in fact, after one fitting, I left my bridesmaid and hid in a department store tiolet and cried for half an hour!)
8. the staff lied to us.
9. The ultimate insult: when I unpacked my wedding dress on the day it was falling apart!! It was hand stitched together, and so badly that without even being tried on it was coming to pieces. Luckily I used to work in fashion myself and am capable enough with a needle, but I was angry, and forty minutes late to my wedding, which I didn't want to be!

I have since consulted CAB and Trading standards, I have written several letters, the responses have ignored the issues and passed the blame onto myself. I have formally filed to sue under the goods & services act 1982 for loss of enjoyment.

I am reasonably well informed so far but I was wondering if anyone had any advice/feedback on this issue?

Hi Mignon - as you've already consulted CAB and Trading Standards, we would recommend asking them if there's anything further that you can do. You don't mention whether one of them suggested that you sued under that Act, so maybe you have done this on their advice? If you didn't, it might be worth asking if there's anything further to be done.

mignon_2

Hello, thank you for your message. AM I in the wrong section? I couldn't find anywhere else relevant.

Yes, it was CAB that suggested it. They have been amazingly helpful since day 1. I was wondering if anyone else had any experience of this kind of thing.

Thank you.

CAB_National_Representative

mignon wrote: »

Hello, thank you for your message. AM I in the wrong section? I couldn't find anywhere else relevant.

Yes, it was CAB that suggested it. They have been amazingly helpful since day 1. I was wondering if anyone else had any experience of this kind of thing.

Thank you.

Hi Mignon - maybe if you posted this on the Consumer Rights board, others with similar experiences might spot it more easily than here. Also, I don't know whether it would be worth doing a Google search on the company, or even asking Trading Standards if they've had dealings with them before.