Buying your wedding dress

What to ask your bridal salon to make sure you don’t run the risk of your dream gown becoming your worst nightmare.

Buying your wedding dress

Sometimes there are moments in the industry where we shake our heads and wonder where things went so wrong. In 2016 retailer Primrose and Finch went in to liquidation. They left over 60 brides without gowns as they took a deposit but never placed the order with the designer.

Also in 2016 there was also a Fair Go story about Christobelle's who took deposits and payments without delivering the gowns.

When Bruce and I bought the business in 2002, there was no social media to look at for reviews. Little did we realize it had a poor reputation - our first hint that something was amiss was when a magazine suggested our first ads include the statement “under new ownership”!

After discovering some brides with less than flattering things to say, our promise to ourselves was to never not deliver on a gown.

First up, we culled our designers. We can’t promise delivery if we can’t be sure it will happen. So we now only work with designers that have proven longevity, on trend designs, and an intention of staying in the industry for the long haul.

Our original list of 27 designers quickly fell to only five. We carry these designers exclusively in New Zealand so both the bride and designer has one point of contact. The buck stops with us.

Then we hired staff who had the same gown delivery ethic as we do. No false promises. Their passion lies in finding the right dress that can be supplied on time.

We then purchased a specific bridal order system to track all the gown orders by bride and wedding date. We can track in partnership with the designers where the gowns are.

We put in place that every gown order gets submitted immediately the deposit is paid and we get back to the bride with an estimated arrival time within two weeks.

These actions and our low deposit order policy mean that we can take the stress out of the gown ordering process and ensure your gown will be one less worry.