What should've been an exciting time turned out to be the worst retail/customer service experience I've ever had. I'd like to preface this by saying that I do not enjoy writing negative reviews, but I feel it's important to share. It started with my mother and I walking in and no one greeting us, but I went up to a woman and asked if she could help me with wedding bands. She proceeded to tell us to just look around ourselves and she disappeared, leaving us. Another associate then came up to us asking us if we had been helped, to which our response was "we don't know?" But this man, Hacik, seemed more helpful, so we began chatting. He looked at my engagement ring and off of that suggested doing something custom since they didn't have what I was looking for. He drafted a crude drawing of an idea he had off the top of his head which sparked interest in me, so he set up a custom consultation with their jewelry designer. My mother and I return for my consultation, and once again are not greeted. Then the designer, Erin, comes and shakes my hand and starts to sit down, completely ignoring my mother standing next to me. All of this without a smile or pleasantry. I introduce my mom, brush it off and sit down. Erin quickly makes it clear that either Hacik didn't send her what we discussed OR he did and she didn't look at it or bring it with her for context because she knew nothing of what I was looking for. So I described exactly what I told Hacik: my engagement ring is so perfect to me on its own, I want a band that can stand alone. She looks at my ring, doesn't say congratulations or anything, and just says "oh ok" and begins to ask about my ring, to which I didn't know most of the answers because my fiancé custom designed it. She says there should be an engraving on the inside, but I know there's not. She insists and asks if she can see for herself and of course there isn't one (why didn't she believe me?) and she hands my ring back and says "...that's strange." The passive aggressive comments and tone were making me feel uncomfortable. She asks me if I've seen anything that I like as a reference, to which I told her I had only seen one ring that made me excited because most bands are pretty basic with not much design to them and show her a picture. She doesn't seem satisfied and asks me if there's anything else I have to show and I say no, that's why I'm here for a consultation: I haven't seen anything that I truly love, and my engagement ring being custom has made my standard pretty high. Cue the patronizing: she says to me "just because something is custom doesn't mean it's one of a kind" and tells me that the ring I showed her for reference AND my own ring "might be unique and special to you, but I've seen a thousand things just like it in the last week." To which I respond "that makes sense because you work in jewelry and I don't." I couldn't believe someone in her position would say something like that to a client. She was irritated with my lack of a fully realized idea to which I said "I'm not a jewelry designer- that's why I came to you", and she kept saying things like "I'm hearing a lot of what you don't like but I don't know what you DO like" while not giving me any new ideas to play off of. It felt like she put me on the spot to come up with a whole design myself while also shutting down everything I said. Then she drew things that were the exact opposite of what I told her. So once again when I was nixing those ideas, she got visibly frustrated with me even though she simply didn't take in what I described, which makes sense because she talked over me a lot. She asked if what Hacik drew was an idea I liked and I explained that's why I was there in the first place: his drawing was so interesting I wanted to delve further! At this point I felt so dejected by her pretentious remarks I was on the verge of tears. The she left to try to find Hacik's drawing. I turned to my mother and we agreed we weren't getting anywhere and what should've been a fun time turned out to be the opposite. So we decided it was best to leave. I tried to find Erin but she was in the back so I told an associate we were working with Erin but it wasn't a good match so we were leaving. He looked at me blankly and said "oh. ok."...no apologies, no asking if he could do anything to help in any way. Just let us leave without a concern. So after having this terrible experience I emailed Hacik to let him know I'd be going in another direction and told him how disappointing my meeting was with Erin, which was unfortunate because he and his ideas were great. I've received no response nor acknowledgment, no apology, nothing. I'm flabbergasted and appalled at the negative, uncreative, pedantic and dismissive behavior from Erin. For someone with the job title of jewelry designer, which entails working closely with clients, Erin Schmelzel was completely uninspired and rude, marring whatever reputation CD Peacock once held to me. read more