My experience at Rosa Clara started out wonderfully back in June and unraveled almost completely in the week before my wedding in December.
My dress arrived from Spain in the first week of November, as promised, though I was not able to get a fitting appointment until November 18th. My alterations were pretty standard and were included in the cost of the dress, which by the time I left I had paid in full. However, "modifications" were not included, so I ended up paying an extra $150 to add some lining to the front of the bodice. I wasn't expecting to pay extra, but since it was an almost $3K dress I thought it worth an additional $150 to have it turn out perfectly.
I was supposed to have my final fitting a week before my wedding, on December 10th. The day prior, they texted to let me know that the dress would not be done and to push my appointment forward. I made a new appointment for Monday evening.
My appointment on Monday was at 6pm; I was not seen until 7:10, when they said that the dress was not ready but that I could try on what they had so far. The lining for which I had paid extra was not done at all, and the tailor seemed unaware that I had requested such a modification. When leaving, I was told there would be no way the dress would be ready the next day, but that we would try to arrange for Wednesday, or Thursday at the very latest.
Lo and behold, we had to make an appointment for Thursday, but I was assured that the dress would be "ready and perfect" when I arrived at 10am.
I arrived at the shop on Thursday right when it opened; I was the only person there. I waited an hour and fifteen minutes by myself before they even brought the dress in to me. Something felt off. When they had pinned it up, the bodice felt wonderfully snug, keeping the low V neckline relatively modest. The dress they returned to me the morning before my wedding felt oddly slack, the neckline seemed more revealing, and one side of the trim was buckling outward. They had indeed added the lining in the bodice, but they had for some reason left a portion uncovered right in the center where it was needed most. I had waited three extra days and an additional hour and a half to put on what had been a beautiful princess dress and now made me feel awkward and ugly.
They went to check the bustle of the dress and decided to do a three-point bustle instead of just picking up the train in one place. I was fine with this, as I had repeatedly told them that I needed the train to be picked up quite a bit to enable me to dance at the reception. However, they left much more of a train than I anticipated. The train was predictably stepped on while I was dancing, which tore out one of the bustle attachments.
After the initial try-on and bustle adjustment, they took the dress back for half an hour to sew it. When I tried it on again, I pressed the issue about the awkward bodice and hole in the lining, and they took the dress back again to fix it up, as well as reattach the bow on the back and fix some issue with the lace in the waist being too taut. This was around 1pm. They said these remaining alterations would be an additional 10-15 minutes. Those 15 minutes took two more hours. I finally left the shop at 3:30pm. The dress finally did look sufficient, and they seemed to have fixed all the issues -- "seemed" being the operative term.
An hour before my wedding, we found that they neglected to send the bow home with me. While searching for the bow between the layers of the skirt, I discovered that they had never sewn the lining when they picked up the hem. The whole front of the skirt was pinned up with big, thick safety pins.
Yes, the dress is beautiful. But it was not a $3000 dress in quality of tailoring or of service. If I had not paid in full back in November, I would have asked for a discount. There were some sweet girls at Rosa Clara whom I thank for their kindness. But to the brides-to-be out there: save yourself time, stress, awkwardness, and heartache and take your business elsewhere. read more