I think I mentioned in the weekend plans post that I was going to try on a bridesmaid dress for my friend's wedding. Well, I did and it was a terrible experience.
A little background: My friend lives in California and 2 of the 4 bridesmaids live there as well. My friend had gone BM dress shopping with the 2 that live in CA and one loved the above dress, the other didn't care. She wanted all of us to have an equal say in whether this was the dress, so she told both of us that don't live in CA to try the dress on at Nordstrom and tell her what we thought.
I looked online and saw that the mall 15 min away from me carried the dress...good thing I called, because they really didn't and the lady was snotty on the phone (this is foreshadowing for the whole experience). So, I called the store that was 30 min away, and they had it. They also insisted that I needed an appointment, which was fine.
I get to Nordstrom, and the lady hands me a dress in a sample size that was at least 3 sizes too big on me. I figured no problem, they'll clip it so that I can see how it's supposed to fit. I told the lady that I was done changing and asked if she could zip it for me. Next thing I know, 2 sales associates come charging into the room. One zips up the dress, I joke that "I guess the zipper doesn't matter, if I let go this will fall right down". The other sales associate pointed me to the mirror, let me look at myself for 3 seconds. She then tied the "convertible straps" into a quick 1 shoulder design...I said oh, I wouldn't wear it like that. Next thing I know, she was starting to unzip the dress and telling me that they were going to measure me now. I was so flustered at this point, I stopped her from unzipping me, stopped hanging on to the dress, and the dress fell to the floor...I said, I told you it was huge **hint hint, please clip it so that I can see how this is supposed to look**. All of a sudden, I was standing there 1/2 naked with 2 women hastily shoving a measuring tape around me. They left with the dress and told me to get dressed.
I get dressed, and find the lady. She tells me to order a size that I knew was going to be too big (I later compared my measurements to the online size chart, and her recommendation was way off). Then, she spent the rest of the time trying to get me to open up a credit card...she spent more time on that than anything else, even though my answer was always NO!
I left the store...I was in there for at most 15 minutes. I'm not sure why an appointment was so necessary for that.
I talked to my friend yesterday. It sounds like the other bridesmaid didn't like the dress either, so she sent out a poll about what we want to do. I voted to go with a different dress, one that could be bought at a small, local dress shop. Hopefully, that's how the others will vote too. I'd much rather support a local business than the snotty big box store. Plus, even though the Jenny Yoo dress was huge on me and about a foot too long, I think the extra panels at the bottom that cam be used to make the straps added too much bulk at the bottom. That was too much volume at the bottom for this petite girl, as I prefer strapless and wouldn't use the panels to make straps.
Sorry for the long rant...I was just so annoyed at the terrible customer service at Nordstrom.
Re: Bridesmaid Dress Shopping Rant