Horrible!!! Do not give this man a dime of your money. Unprofessional, irresponsible, disorganized, dishonest and untalented. I hired Guillermo to design my wedding dress after several failed attempts at trying to find the specific dress I was visualizing. I was in the market for a short, lace, fitted wedding dress. I couldn't find any bridal ateliers or designers who carried this look and so I decided to hire a dress designer to make it for me. I did some research online and for some godforsaken reason, New York Magazine and another reputable source both recommended Guillermo. In my initial meeting with him he was all smiles and over the top promises. When I stated my budget of $2,500, he claimed he starts at $4,500. I reluctantly agreed to his price of $4,800 under the condition that I pay for half in cash to avoid a portion of the taxes. *Remember this for later.
After that first meeting, it was a crash and burn experience. I have a traditional 9-5 desk job but Guillermo operates in a fantasy world where his clients should drop everything they're doing to accommodate his rigid schedule. He only works Tuesday-Thursday from 9am-6pm. He refused to be flexible with days and times and I had to move my very busy and demanding work schedule around several times for him. All in, I had about 10 appointments with him and here's why: There were two separate occasions where he completely forgot about our appointments and instead of squeezing me in, he made me reschedule. The woman he hired to handle administrative tasks is totally disorganized and was rude/unapologetic on a consistent basis. Not once did she reconfirm an appointment with me. I always had to reach out and often times she didn't respond to my emails so I had to call her at the office to make sure we were still on. After forgetting about one appointment, you'd think they'd be more aware the next go around...nope. It happened again. The second time I received a rushed apology. How nice of them. On top of forgetting appointments, they were always running ~15 minutes behind causing me to go over my 1 hour allotted lunch break. *Beware: they won't let you take a picture of the dress that you're paying them to make which is very frustrating.
When it came time for me to pay the second installment, they didn't tell me ahead of time. Instead they sprung it on me while I was in their office because who doesn't walk around NYC with over $2,000 in cash on them? I clearly didn't have enough and to make matters worse I forgot about our agreement as I was overwhelmed with wedding, work and personal things. When we first agreed to the 50% in cash, I expected them to have that noted somewhere. Silly me. I absentmindedly handed them my card and they swiped it. Later on when I I noticed I was overcharged by $200, I brought it to their attention. His admin looked at me smugly and replied, "it's too late, it's already been invoiced and there's nothing we can do." So much for friendly customer service. This was after I emailed him and he responded, "let's talk about this next week and figure out how to fix it for you."
Half way through the cycle when I attempted to lift my arms, he causally mentioned that I wouldn't be able to raise my arms at all due to the design of the dress. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? What bride doesn't want to raise up her arms or be twirled around on her wedding day? I was livid. He knew what the design would be and how it would be made from day one of our initial consultation. Fast forward to a week before my wedding/final fitting, I met them in their office for my second to last fitting. There was a very noticeable and very ugly fold of extra fabric down the front of the dress. I pointed this out and he promised he would fix it. When I showed up for my final fitting, it wasn't fixed. He completely forgot about it. I brought my friend with me as a witness in case anything went awry and it sure did! She told him he HAD to fix it before the end of the day. He claimed it would be done by 5pm. I rushed back to his office at 5pm....no difference. I was flying out the following morning for our wedding and rightfully so, I started totally freaking out. He then proceeded to lie and claimed it was "the light that was causing the illusion of a ripple in the dress". I literally wanted to punch him after he said that. I told him he had the evening to fix it. Finally, at 8:30pm, one of his workers dropped it at my apartment. I tried it on and not only was the ripple still there (though less noticeable) but it was now a size too big because he had to "take it out a bit" in order to smooth the ripple. Needless to say...I was beside myself.
To top it all off, half way through my wedding reception, the dress ripped down the side!! Guillermo is a real piece of work. He is a subpar dress maker and a terrible "business man". I'm taking him to small claims court in June and I fully intend to get every last cent back from him! read more
