Complaint Review: Houseofbrides.com - Internet

I got married on the 30th June 2007. I only had a very small budget and a colleague at work suggested i order from house of brides.com, as they have very good deals on wedding dresses.

I found the dress in a store in London and then found it on the HOB website and ordered it in the size told to me by my dress shop who were very kind as i was only getting my accessories from them).

I ordered my dress at the beggining of December, after phoning America to the HOB store, who confirmed that ould be plenty of time and the dress should arrive around a month before the wedding - hich would give me time for any alterations.

I recieved e-mail confirmation of my order and reciept of the money. Then in January i was told by my paypal account (not HOB) that the money had been refunded - they had cancelled my order without contacting me. I panicked and wrote e-mails which weren't replied and then phoned them - they apologised re-ordered my dress ( supposedley) and told me not to worry the dress would get to me on time. With only 6 months to the wedding i thought i didn't now have thetime to order from anyone else so i put my trust in them to keep to their word.

By May i was starting to worry, i had heard nothing so i wrote an e-mail just to find out the status of my order, and to get reassurance all was well (which i think is not an unreasanable request). After 5 e-mails i finally got a reply that stated they could not confirm an estimated time of delivery. I continued to try to stay in contact via e-mail and costly phone calls to America -and no-one would help.

By the beggining of June i was pulling my hair out - then i recieved an e-mail to say they didn't have my weddingdress and would i be okay to have one they suggested which was a completley different design.

What transpired was that they hadn't in January or December or at any other point while i was in contact with them - actually put the order through to the designer (mori lee), so no wedding dress was being made!!!

Less than a month before my wedding i had nothing to wear HOB were elusive, numerous times putting the phone down, or saying the manager doesn't take phonecalls ( only e-mails which she doesn't reply to), or that the person who had been dealing with my order was now on lunch break - then when i called back after the lunch break she was on holiday!

They solely destroyed what should have been a fun and exciting time. I was stressed, upset and crying for most of the run up to our day - and on top i was left withoutanything to wear other than the veil i'd purchased the december before.

PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT USE HOUSE OF BRIDES, THEY CAN NOT BE TRUSTED WITH YOUR MONEY, OR YOUR MOST SPECIAL DAY AND WEDDING PLANNING EXPERIENCE.

Luckily my friend found thebridalshop.com, who saved the day and sent me a beautifull dress in time for the wedding. They were professional, communicated regularly, efficient and thoughtfull - i highly recomend them from my experience with them and they are even more affordable than HOB. Which is important in England as everything is so expensive here.

Anonymous

london

United Kingdom