Yesterday I was in new Westminster with a friend and my fiancé, visiting the food truck festival…read more We walked by Lisa's Bridal Salon, which prompted me to exclaim how much I hate that place.
In 2002, I made the biggest mistake of my life: I got married. (I have since gotten a divorce.) I was young and stupid, and it being my first wedding, I was doing all the traditional wedding things, such as wedding dress shopping.
My bridesmaids and I went to New West to start my wedding dress search. We walked into Lisa's Bridal Salon, which was empty, and were met with disgust and distain, and told with a snotty attitude that we needed an appointment. (Uh, what's wrong with walking in TO make an appointment?!) We told the rude woman that we were looking for wedding dresses, and the second she heard the word "wedding", she treated us like royalty. We booked an appointment and came back an hour or so later.
When we arrived, the store was still empty except for a couple of teenagers (who were in no way being obnoxious) finishing up with their prom dress purchases. When they left, the woman made a rude comment about them (I no longer remember what, but I recall the incident). Clearly she had no respect for customers, unless they were purchasing wedding dresses, which was the reason why we were treated so shabbily when we initially walked in -- she assumed we were teenagers wanting to purchase a $300 prom dress instead of a $3000 wedding dress.
Anyway, not only were the dresses quite expensive, but they were ugly. There wasn't one dress that appealed to me, and when I told the woman what I was looking for/what style I liked, she pressured me to try on dresses I had no interest in (back then, as a kid barely out of high school with no self-esteem, I wasn't very assertive). She also barged in on me as I was changing, and forced an ugly dress on me, scratching my arms with all the gaudy beading adorning the dress.
So, to summarize, I hate Lisa's because:
1. The employees there were fucking rude, treating their customers like shit unless they were buying a wedding dress.
2. The sales woman I dealt with was pushy and wouldn't listen to my preferences, and didn't respect people's boundaries.
3. The dresses were ugly and very expensive.
I didn't buy a dress there, obviously, and instead, I bought a dress from a nearby store, for $400, from a person who didn't treat me like garbage or judge me and make assumptions based on my appearance.
Even though this incident happened 16 years ago, I still remember, and I certainly will NOT buy a wedding dress from there for my upcoming wedding in November.
[Yelp collections: Rude!]