Wedding Dress Nightmare

MarcJacobs

Hi all, I've read through the sticky so as per the advice I will be short and sweet.

Wedding was 24/07/2016

Story
1. Ordered tailored wedding dress in January (paid 50% - £850)
2. Dress arrived approximately 4 months later.
3. Dress was horrifically made and didn't fit correctly ANYWHERE
4. Three fittings later the shop could not get it to fit (IT IS NOW JULY 1st!!)
5. I had enough and asked the shop if I can take the dress to a dressmaker in London (paid final 50% - £850).
6. The dress maker said she can help and can make adjustments for £250.
7. I rang the shop I bought the dress from and said "it is £250, do you agree to pay?" They agreed.
8. Dressmaker found out that the dress had fundamental issues that can't be fixed properly unless it is made again. She had made great adjustments that were MUCH better than the shop.
9. Husbands aunt collected the money from the store.
9. I lost LOADS of weight and had my wedding but still couldn't lift my arms up throughout the day as dress was too tight.

My Rights
The dress was clearly not of satisfactory quality and was not fit for purpose. Consumer rights act is great here.

What have I done?
Wrote a letter of complaint and want to claim £1800 for damages (had to cancel work shifts to take the dress to london), for travel expenses and for the emotional distress - as I'm sure you can imagine it was the worst stress of my life....but no more emotions as the sticky clearly says no emotions.

PROBLEM
They replied to my complaint and said that my husbands aunt signed a document that states that this (the £250) settles all complaints with the dress.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!:mad::mad::mad::mad:

I had NO idea she signed anything, when I told them she would pick up the money they simply said, yes that's fine she can just walk in and take the money. They did NOT tell me that whoever picks up the money would have to sign ANYTHING! Had I known that there was such a document I would NEVER have agreed to pick up the money!!!!

The only reason I didn't pick up the money myself was because I never wanted to see that disgraceful place again, nor did I ever want to see the staff there ever again.

How can they do this? They have clearly been VERY cheeky and have gone behind my back to get someone who knew NOTHING about the dress situation to sign this document. Surely they cannot do this!!!! It is totally disgraceful please help! :(:(:(

[Deleted User]

It sounds as if a deal was agreed with the shop that they have adhered to.

wealdroam

MarcJacobs wrote: »

Hi all, I've read through the sticky so as per the advice I will be short and sweet.

Wedding was 24/07/2016

Story
1. Ordered tailored wedding dress in January (paid 50% - £850)
2. Dress arrived approximately 4 months later.
3. Dress was horrifically made and didn't fit correctly ANYWHERE
4. Three fittings later the shop could not get it to fit (IT IS NOW JULY 1st!!)
5. I had enough and asked the shop if I can take the dress to a dressmaker in London (paid final 50% - £850).
6. The dress maker said she can help and can make adjustments for £250.
7. I rang the shop I bought the dress from and said "it is £250, do you agree to pay?" They agreed.
8. Dressmaker found out that the dress had fundamental issues that can't be fixed properly unless it is made again. She had made great adjustments that were MUCH better than the shop.
9. Husbands aunt collected the money from the store.
9. I lost LOADS of weight and had my wedding but still couldn't lift my arms up throughout the day as dress was too tight.

My Rights
The dress was clearly not of satisfactory quality and was not fit for purpose. Consumer rights act is great here.

What have I done?
Wrote a letter of complaint and want to claim £1800 for damages (had to cancel work shifts to take the dress to london), for travel expenses and for the emotional distress - as I'm sure you can imagine it was the worst stress of my life....but no more emotions as the sticky clearly says no emotions.

PROBLEM
They replied to my complaint and said that my husbands aunt signed a document that states that this (the £250) settles all complaints with the dress.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!:mad::mad::mad::mad:

I had NO idea she signed anything, when I told them she would pick up the money they simply said, yes that's fine she can just walk in and take the money. They did NOT tell me that whoever picks up the money would have to sign ANYTHING! Had I known that there was such a document I would NEVER have agreed to pick up the money!!!!

The only reason I didn't pick up the money myself was because I never wanted to see that disgraceful place again, nor did I ever want to see the staff there ever again.

How can they do this? They have clearly been VERY cheeky and have gone behind my back to get someone who knew NOTHING about the dress situation to sign this document. Surely they cannot do this!!!! It is totally disgraceful please help! :(:(:(

I fear you have no claim.

Simply because your agent, your husband's aunt, apparently has agreed that the money she collected was in full and final settlement of the claim.

Did your husband's aunt sign such a document?

pinkshoes

Why didn't you reject the dress when they stated it would not fit?

It seems to me that the agreed solution was that you would take it to the London dress maker and they would pay, so anything else is a gesture of good will.

What date did you take it to London? How long did they take to state that it was not made properly?

bris

You have already wore it to the wedding, any slim rights you might have had are now gone. The time to reject it was before the wedding not after. This and the fact you already agreed a settlement leave you no rights.


Apart from that your £1800 seems highly excessive, you would also need to justify that and not just make up a figure even if you did have a slim chance.

Bogalot

Are you close to London, if not could you not have found a dressmaker closer?

I'm in agreement with the others, you should have either rejected the dress or not agreed to the £250 settlement. However even if you get past this obstacle, your claim is likely to fail (or be substantially reduced) as you did not mitigate your losses. In time and inconvenience you are claiming the reparation cost more than the dress.

MarcJacobs

It sounds as if a deal was agreed with the shop that they have adhered to.

A deal was made with the shop for the dressmaker to try and fix the problem. She did a great job, much better than the shop, but the dress still BARELY fit. It was completely uncomfortable despite the dressmakers adjustments but she at least made it wearable.

Why didn't you reject the dress when they stated it would not fit?

Nobody state it didn't fit.......it just didn't fit properly when I tried it on. Both myself and the shop could clearly see that.

I didn't reject the dress because my wedding was the next week and otherwise I would have no wedding dress! I was left with no choice

What date did you take it to London? How long did they take to state that it was not made properly?

I took it to London on the 4th of July (20 days before my wedding) and the shop themselves didn't say it wasn't made properly. When the dressmaker saw the dress she was shocked as to how poorly it was made and I made the shop aware of exactly how and why it wasn't made properly. The shop then agreed for the dressmaker to try and correct the goods. That is implicit acceptance that it was not of satisfactory quality or fit for purpose, is it not?

I fear you have no claim.

Simply because your agent, your husband's aunt, apparently has agreed that the money she collected was in full and final settlement of the claim.

Did your husband's aunt sign such a document?

How is there no claim?
Yes she did sign such a document, HOWEVER, I was not made aware of it. The shop did not inform me of it and I absolutely would NOT have agreed for it to be signed had I known this. They have gone behind my back and exploited the ignorance of my husbands aunt to cover themselves. Surely this is malpractice unless I, the consumer, am made aware of this document. They had every opportunity to let me know of such a document as I called them specifically to ask if my aunt could just walk in and collect the money without any hassle, for which they said yes she can just come in and pick it up.

k3lvc

MarcJacobs wrote: »

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Yes they probably are - as others have stated your options all but ended on the day of the wedding when you wore it and Aunty Mabel had signed for it


Maybe time to consider suing her for emotional distress etc


p.s. given you've only just got married there are probably far worse days to come (I speak from experience :rotfl:)

MarcJacobs

Are you close to London, if not could you not have found a dressmaker closer?

Yes I am close to London, approximately 40 minutes away.

I'm in agreement with the others, you should have either rejected the dress or not agreed to the £250 settlement. However even if you get past this obstacle, your claim is likely to fail (or be substantially reduced) as you did not mitigate your losses. In time and inconvenience you are claiming the reparation cost more than the dress.

Apart from that your £1800 seems highly excessive, you would also need to justify that and not just make up a figure even if you did have a slim chance

.

All losses were mitigated at the time. I made every effort to reschedule my work shifts and have correspondence proof of this. There were no spare work shifts and I therefore had to cancel my shifts to see the dress maker. A total of 4 work days at my day rate of £425 is £1700, but minus £25 per day travel that I didn't make to work is £1600. At 45p per mile it cost me £99.25 in travel to get to and from the dressmaker. That totals £1699.25 and I rounded that to £1800 to cover the emotional distress and inconvenience. It is purely coincidental that this exceeds the dress price.

You have already wore it to the wedding, any slim rights you might have had are now gone. The time to reject it was before the wedding not after.

With such little time til my wedding, what choice did I have but to wear it? I had no choice. I was very lucky that the dressmaker managed to adjust it for me to fit into it, but even then I still couldn't lift my arms.

This and the fact you already agreed a settlement leave you no rights.

I would absolutely agree had the dressmaker managed to get the dress to fit properly, however, due to the fundamental problems with the making of the dress there was no way for it to be altered to correctly fit - only enough for me to get into it.

Bogalot

You had the choice to buy an off the peg dress instead, surely better than a "tailored" one that you can't move your arms in.

MarcJacobs

Bogalot wrote: »

You had the choice to buy an off the peg dress instead, surely better than a "tailored" one that you can't move your arms in.

I couldn't do that unfortunately. I am a very modest individual and the reason I went to have one made is because you simply cannot find a dress anymore that has sleeves, no exposed back or chest and a bum area that isn't extremely tight. Believe me if I could have just gotten one off the peg I would have done that. Not even hair extensions can cover up sufficiently.