I bought my dress on January 21, 2000. I found out that David's Bridal was having a sale that was ending that week, so I hurried over there so I wouldn't miss out. After trying on at least a dozen dresses, I ended up with two that I really liked. I tried on the first one, and discovered that I had liked the skirt part so much when I first tried it on that I hadn't taken a very close look at the top, which I really didn't like as much. So I tried on the other one, and it immediately just made me feel happy. So I knew that it was the dress to get. Sure, I could have spent days and days trying on hundreds of dresses, and I could have found an even more perfect one, but I'm happy with what I got.

Then my horror story began. As stated above, I had ordered my dress on January 21. They said it would take 6-8 weeks and that it usually arrived in 6 weeks. At well past eight weeks I called the store and they told me it would be in any day. Well, I called again a week later because I still hadn't heard from them. The first time I was told to "hang on a second" and fifteen minutes later I got tired of being on hold so I hung up, did some stuff around my apartment and then called them back. Again, told to "hold on a sec" but fortunately this time it was just a couple of minutes. Then someone else got on the phone and I told her I needed to check on the status of my dress and gave her my name. Then a third person got on the phone. She said that she needed to tell me what's been going on the last few weeks with my dress. I thought that would be a very good idea.

My dress was a tank sheath. With the ceremony in July in Houston I wanted something nice and cool. Well, apparently the style number they had written down was correct but the description was wrong. The description was something like - off the shoulder, long-sleeved, bodice, and full tulle skirt. Okay, can we describe anything even more opposite of my dress?!? So they'd been going back and forth with the buyer. David's Bridal had been saying that since it was described as that long-sleeved thing that must be what I want and the number is wrong. The other place didn't agree. DB said that the district manager had been working on this and trying to get things straightened out. I just had one question for them. Why in the name of all that is holy didn't they just simply call me, ask me to describe my dress and then have it all cleared up. Would have just taken a couple of minutes and they could have done this two or three weeks before! No, of course not. They wanted to cover their butts and not let me know that anything like that had been going on. And to top it all off...the girl that I was talking to was giggling the whole time! I don't know why she found it so amusing. I certainly didn't! So she said that they had to reorder it and would put a number one ASAP priority on it. I asked her how long that would take. She said a few weeks. I asked for a date. She said the computer told her May 8. Their number one ASAP priority takes well over a month?!?

What did they have to do? Handmake the dress? I didn't think so. That meant I'd be getting my dress with only two months before the wedding. It's not like I had to have it altered or anything or take my bridal portraits. *sarcasm* (Thank the gods it was just the hem that I had to have shortened.) Could you imagine what would have happened if I'd been called that my dress was in and went to pick it up and found some other completely opposite dress waiting for me?

Of course it didn't end there. The May 8 date came and went with me on the phone to them constantly. I tried to get phone numbers of people higher up to call, but they wouldn't give them to me. To make a long story short, J had to call them and he finally got things moving. Of course, he had problems, too. He did manage to get the regional manager's phone number. He called three times and left messages and she never called back. Finally, he called the customer service line and told that person what was going on and apparently she could tell he was quite pissed off. Five minutes after he got off the phone with customer service, the regional manager called him. They overnighted my dress and I picked it up that weekend. (Now why couldn't they have overnighted it before?) Of course this was less than four weeks before the wedding. I never did have time to get bridal portraits taken (the photographer and I went outside during the wedding reception and took a few picture - you can see some of them below).

I have spoken to several people who have also had problems with David's Bridal. So it looks like it's very hit or miss, so if you ever plan to use them you might just want to be careful and keep track of your order.