This was August 21, 2020 but I just came across the receipt while cleaning and felt like I should put this to bed.
I don't have a lot of experience with dry cleaning and in this case, I needed my wedding gown cleaned/steamed. I brought my gown to them and asked for advice and a price quote and she said no problem, and the price, and then rushed through an acknowledgement piece something like "Since it's a formal item, we need you to sign a release in case any sequins or beads or anything come off during cleaning." My dress was pretty simple, but I was worried and asked if I should go through with this, and how likely it was that there would be significant damage. She essentially said it would be fine, and I believed her.
You can probably guess where this is going. Picked up the dress when it was ready, she took my payment and processed it first (rookie move on my part, I should have waited to inspect first) and then retrieved the gown, handed it back and said, "Here you go, there's a note on it about the strap" and then went to the back of the shop. The strap was pretty wrecked in several spots and I was just panicked.
An emergency repair from seamstress saved the day in the end (she delivered it to us at the rehearsal dinner amid some extremely heartfelt hugs and applause ), but the lessons were learned:
(1) This place did not know their craft/care about the end results enough to help me prevent this problem by actually looking at the dress and saying "This strap looks like it could come apart, I wouldn't risk it if it were mine."
(2) After the garment *was* significantly damaged, they didn't seem to care in the slightest. No looking at it together, no suggestions on how to fix, no discount and no apology for what was obviously going to be a problem (with a *wedding gown* of all items).
So, for the next person: Use caution in leaving your garments with them, and inspect them before you accept them and pay. Best of luck! read more