BUYER BEWARE

Did you have a horrible experience with a bridal shop, photographer, venue, etc? Post your horror story here and prevent other brides from making the same mistake!

Please keep your post anonymous, but please post the city and state of the business. Website links are helpful as well.

Sally's Roses & More II

I hired Sallys roses and More II to provide my wedding day flowers. The owners seemed very friendly and knew exactly what I wanted. Their prices were also very reasonable. But on the day of the wedding, not only were they 2 hours late, but they didn't provide over half of the stuff that was paid for. When confronted about it, one of the owners said that I (the bride) would just have to deal with it. So after we came home from our honeymoon (4 days later) my husband and I went to the shop to speak with them & request a refund. The owners were very nasty to us, making derogatory comments & even got in our faces at one point. To top that off, they are going on websites and replying to my complaints about them and directly insulting me- saying that I am a bridezilla and basically lying about what happened. It is really sad that there are companies out there that are able to get away with these kind of things!

Masterpiece Weddings

My wedding was 9/30/05. As of 1/9/06 I STILL have not received my photos. I haven't even seen the proofs yet. My husband has been on the phone with them weekly for the past month. They keep giving us lame excuses "My computer crashed", "We have 85% of them done", "The lab is taking too long", etc. It has been 16 weeks now and our contract said 8-10, possibly 10-12 weeks for "popular wedding months". I can not even begin to explain how LIVID I am by this. Every single contact we have had with them is because WE initiated the call to THEM. They have not once called me to update us on the progress. To date, we have received 2 photos: our 100 wallets for our thank you notes, and the bridal party 5x7s. It should be noted that I did NOT pick these pictures, the photographer did. Also note: the package we got was $3500- not chump change in my book!

Nelly's Fashions

In the summer of 2005, a bridesmaid and I went to Nelly's Fashion in Aventura (Loehman's Plaza) to schedule an appointment to try wedding dresses for my 2007 wedding. On that day, the store owner was very welcoming and friendly, as she was the day of my appointment - until, that is, she learned that my wedding date was a good while off. After that, she seemed annoyed at our very presense. She only allowed me to try on one gown, stating that she was booked solid for dress trials and fittings that day and, in fact, another bride-to-be would be there any second. Her manner was not warm or receptive; she was very cold and did not hide the fact that she felt we were wasting her time. In the end, we had spent about 15-20 minutes in her shop, and there were very few people in the entire plaza (it was a weekday afternoon), let alone anywhere near her shop. We stayed in the plaza looking for other wedding-related items and couldn't help but notice the lack of clients she was supposedly seeing that day. While I am sure that Nelly's Fashion is a pleasant enough place to try on gowns when your wedding is upon you or if you know exactly what you want and intend to purchase immediately, I would not recommend visiting this location otherwise.

Flower-Flour

My cake place that I have been raving about has turned out to be a big disappointment. We went to meet with the cake lady yesterday and I was all set to order. I was so in love with the almond marzipan cake. I had all intentions of ordering. I brought my parents and my brother and his girlfriend along. We planned out the cake and then my brother felt left out and asked if the lady (owner, Mimi) could explain to him what she and my mom had just planned out. And then he started asking all kinds of questions, then we all got up and started looking at her samples and she got this terrified look on her face and said "I can't handle any more questions today, please leave and call me when you are ready to order." Then we tried to ask her her cancelation policy and she said "I only give consultations for 30 minutes, and you guys have been here for an hour and I will have to start charging you." We said, but we are ready to order the cake. And she still kept pushing us out the door. I have never worked with somebody so rude, especially when a $1000 cake was involved. She lost my business and I do not recommend her to anybody. I was apalled.

Her store is called Flower-Flour, in San Jose, CA. They frequent San Jose wedding faires where they hook people with what they know is an incredible cake. They tell people it is $4/piece. When you get there it is a whole other act and suddenly the price is $6/piece and the $4/piece is plain white cake with buttercream frosting. Yuck.

Jaqueline Bridal

I went to Jaqueline Bridal after seeing that they offered the Alfred Angelo line. I walked in and was told after we were taking some "for fun" shots, not even in a gown, that they did not allow pictures. After I went into one of the dressing rooms there was actually a sign on the wall that said that if you wanted to take pictures it was $55 per gown!

After trying on several dresses that were far overpriced for what they were, I was told that they would not give me the style numbers, it wasn't their policy.

The customer service was decent, the girl that helped me actually WAS very nice, but from a policy standpoint it was not something I was satisified with, and by not allowing photos or giving style numbers, pushed me closer to ordering a gown from the internet.

Caesar's Formals

I went to Caesar's looking for a wedding dress. One of the salespeople came up to me almost immediately and asked me in what kind of dress I was interested. I explained it to her and then she showed me the dresses. None of them were what I specified. She also showed me dresses that were 4 sizes too big. I explained to her that I had just been to another bridal shop trying on dresses and I wore a size 10 there. She told me she was a size 10 and I must be a 14 or 16. She kept arguing with me that I was a much larger size but never offered to measure me. I told her that there was nothing I was interested in and left. I wrote a letter of complaint and never received a response.

Clarion Hotel

I would like to warn all the future brides about the experience my brother had at his wedding and the course of action taken by the hotel where his reception was held.

My brother had several cards that were placed in the gift mailbox stolen from this mailbox after the reception had completed and the guests were gone. This robbery had taken place during the cleanup process. The cards were found in a public restroom of the hotel. They were torn open and emptied out of all cash. I am not specifically implicating any of the staff but we are 99 percent sure that it was not anyone from the reception being that we are all family! The Clarion's night manager's response to my brother on their wedding night (that was now ruined because of the theft) was, "What do you want me to do about it? It's not my problem." The night manager also told my brother to "calm down or (you) can get the F*** out of (my) hotel." The general manager was never contacted and the night manger continued to blame our family as the thieves (he would not investigate the incident). We also would like to let you know about what the staff was observed doing at the cleanup. They were seen eating and drinking the remaining food and drink from the guests- not just leftovers but the food that guests had been eating. I think this is disgusting. Is this is the type of staff that you want at your reception? If I were anyone on the course of being married, I would pass up the Clarion Hotel in Aberdeen, Maryland. Protect yourself and guests!

The Rose Source

So my wedding is Saturday. Today I got HALF the roses I was supposed to and after an hour and a half of crying and screaming - they finally figured out that 400 roses are in Miami stuck because of weather. Why half my order was able to make it and the other (it was all one order) was stuck in FL is beyond me. They promise they will get here tomorrow morning.

They also sent the wrong colors of rose petals. The rose petals from RoseSource come as roses and you shed them yourself. I ordered two parts hot pink and one part ivory. I got dark ivory and two parts light pink. I called to complain and their response was (I'm not kidding either): "You bought your rose petals when they were on special. Because of this, it isn't worth it to us to replace them for you. So although your order does say hot pink and ivory and we did it wrong, we're not going to send replacements. Sorry - it cost us too much."

My fiancé is furious and is calling them on the way home from his rafting trip (he found out about the situation and called me as soon as he got in cell phone range because one of his guys with him got a message from his wife who was with me and worried bc I was upset.)

At least my ivory roses for my bouquet were delivered (the hot pink ones were the ones in FL). We are going to use the hot pink ones (if they show up) for rose petals and for venue decor and to fill in the centerpieces, and for the bridesmaid bouquets (since that is why I ordered so many hot pink - that is what I wanted), and if they don't show - we're going to go to Costco and find something similar and buy some for all the bridesmaid bouquets, etc.

I'm just using whatever random petals fell off my roses for rose petals now.

This day has been horrible and even though we've made lemonade out of lemons - I have a splitting headache and I'm trying to pack on top of my headache for my honeymoon.

Girls - don't use RoseSource.com and feel free to cut & paste this post anywhere you can. I just want to marry my fiancé at this point and I don't really care, but I'm mad that RoseSource.com cares more about money than they do about their customers. It's amazing that some companies are still in business.