After shopping for wedding dresses at a few stores in California, I decided to look in Iowa while I was home visiting my family. I have to say that this experience was not nearly as positive as my experience at the 2 stores I visited in California. It started off very well: we showed up 10 minutes early for our appointment, but someone was ready to help us immediately and she began by asking details about my wedding and the type of dress and price point. She assured me they had lots of dresses in my price range (under $1000) and she said she would pull a few and also welcomed us to look through the racks ourselves, which was cool (other salons I've been to have not invited us to just browse like that). Style-wise, she did a great job picking dresses that matched my selection. Browsing through the racks, I did not find anything else that appealed to me that she hadn't already grabbed or mentioned.
However, budget-wise, I wasn't presented with a single dress under $1000 and she tried to get me to try on many that were significantly more expensive. I didn't appreciate this sales tactic, which seemed pushy. Although she encouraged me they could "work with me" to negotiate a price, it seemed pretty clear to me that they were hoping I'd try on a much more expensive dress, fall in love with it, and beg "mummy dearest" to buy it for me...but I don't work like that. I also felt like she was not very upfront about the fact that the dresses she was showing me were way out of budget. She told me she wanted me to try on one dress with spaghetti straps, which I decided to skip because that's not the style I'm looking for. I later glanced at the price tag and saw that one was over $1600, although there was no mention of that to me. She also encouraged me to try on a dress that she said was just perfect but "slightly" out of my budget. It was $1700+!! I wouldn't call "70% more than the budget", "slightly out of the budget". I found this distracting and I was surprised, because at the places I've been before this the consultants were much better at bringing me things that were in my budget or at least very close (I would consider $1100 or $1200 pretty close but certainly nothing over $1500 as close). I ended up trying on only two dresses, one of which was $1300 (again presented to us as within our budget...um, not really!) and one that was just over $1000. They were very similar styles and I liked them both, although the cheaper one probably slightly more so. Again, no dresses technically within my budget - just one that was very close and one that was fairly close.
I realize that I've contradicted myself somewhat - on the one hand I'm saying there were no dresses in my budget given to me, but I've also acknowledged that there were no dresses in my chosen style (lacy and not strapless) that I didn't see. So by that logic, there were no dresses in my chosen style within my budget. I understand that not every store has every dress ever made, but I would much rather they have been upfront about that fact and then offered me a couple dresses in my chosen style near my budget and a couple dresses in my budget that weren't quite the right style. Basically I felt they were trying to trick me, which I did not appreciate.
I was also very disappointed when I was trying on dresses that they did not allow me to take photographs of the dresses. I realize this is fairly common, although I hadn't experienced it yet. However, this is an absolute dealbreaker for me, and I will not buy a dress, especially the most important/most expensive dress I'm ever going to buy, without seeing photos of it. If there's anything I've learned from previous dress-shopping trips, its that you can love a dress on and then realize it doesn't photograph well or is more revealing or less flattering than you thought. I'm spending thousands of dollars to have someone take thousands of photos of me on my wedding day and I want a dress that photographs well. So if that is their policy, fine, I respect it, but I'm not going to buy from them.
She was also less open about providing brand/style number than other stores I've been to (to be fair, I didn't press for style number because I knew I could easily find it online knowing the brand). But it wasn't offered to me like it was at other places.
Bottom line: Although the staff was friendly and competent, I did not appreciate what I perceived as secrecy about price/brand/style number and the upselling tactics. I also feel very strongly about their no-photos policy, which I realize is not unique to them. I don't know that I would have come here had I known about the no-photos policy (one of many reasons I wish Yelp had more of a presence in the midwest!) Overall they had some nice dresses, although (like many stores) not a large inventory of lace dresses that aren't strapless, but the policies & sales tactics put me off. read more