Complaint Review: MaryLinn's Couture Bridal - Pasadena California

This store was suggested to me by a friend as it had a huge selection of wedding dresses and I thought Id try it out because its owned by the same owner as Panache in Beverly Hills. The store was extremely busy and even though we had an appointment I ended up waiting about 20 minutes for a room and had to find a spot to keep all the dresses I wanted to try on. No sales associate was around to help and even though many sales associates at the counter watching me carry these heavy gowns around, no one offered to help.

Once we got a room and was assigned an associate everyone became very helpful. The girl that was assigned to us seemed new and very unsure of what she was doing. After an hour another associate came to help us, her name was Sessy. She was amazing, she somehow understood what my mother was asking in Chinese even though Sessy didnt understand the language at all. She would obviously answer my mom in English but at the same time show her so my mom understood. This cut down a lot on the translation process for me and all her answers were satisfactory for my mom.

Eventually we found the dress that everyone was happy with and then they sent Monia into my dressing room to tell me that if I purchase the dress today they will do the alterations for free. I knew I would be able to find this same dress elsewhere for cheaper but I thought that this store was trustworthy and reliable and that was justification enough for the premium and since alterations and other manufacturer modications were free the costs basically even out.

I ordered the dress 11.5 months before my wedding, they said it would take 4-6 months. About 6 months roll by and I had not heard from them, I call them and ask when I should be expecting my dress, 20 minutes later after being on hold I am told by Monia that my dress got damaged during shipment and that they will be making a new one and it would be here basically 4 weeks before my wedding. Its bad enough that the dress is going to get here so late but it was very unprofessional of them to not have followed up on my dress until I called them. Monia said that she would call weekly to find out the status of the dress and keep me posted. Three weeks went by and I had not heard from this store so I decided to give them a call. I find out from Sessy that my dress will not be here 3 weeks before my wedding. I got extremely upset because no one called to update me even though I was told they would. Their answer was that they just found out. How convenient right?

Fast forwarding a few months to the day the dress got in Dawn from the store called to schedule my fitting. I asked if I can come in on a weekend as that is much more convenient for me and she said no, then I pointed out that my dress was 4.5 months late and she just rudely said the seamstress is only here during the week. Alrighty then, I scheduled something for Wednesday afternoon which my mom and I both had to take the afternoon off. I got off of work and had to go pick up my mom at home (which is about 50 miles away) and as soon as I get home I get a call from Sessy at the store telling me that the seamstress had an emergency and that they had to reschedule. At this point I am furious because both my mom and I had taken time off of work to make it to their store on a weekday because they wouldnt allow me a weekend appointment. All she did was apologize and I told her that at one point apologies dont mean anything because you are not doing anything to rectify the issue. She then offered to have the seamstress come in on weekends for my fittings.

Saturday comes around and I go in for my first fitting. We ended up waiting because the seamstress was not done with her other appointment yet. I thought the seamstress doesnt work on weekends? They brought out my dress and when I pulled it out, none of the manufacturer modifications my mom had asked for were made. So I turn to the associate that brought out the dress and I tell her the problem and her response is I only brought out the dress I didnt order it.

It baffles me that a store associate has this type of response and its even more frustrating that no one bothered to check the gowns that they received to make sure thats actually what they ordered. I then had to wait another few days for the store manager Monia to call the manufacturer to figure out what happened. One of the modifications my mom wanted was to not have any pickups on the dress, Monia decided that it was appropriate to take a pair of scissors and start hacking away at the pickups to take them out. Im sorry but this is probably the most expensive outfit I will ever buy myself, and I dont ever want to see anyone just hacking away at it. TOTALLY UNPROFESSIONAL AND RUDE. Monia apparently was very proud of herself as she was fixing the problem.

Fastfowarding to the actual fittings, the first one went fine and it was fast. The second one wasnt so smooth as one side of the dress sat higher on my chest than the other. Then came what I thought was the third and final fitting which was a week before the wedding. At this fitting I noticed that the dress had been altered to the point where it didnt sit straight on my body, the left breast was a different shape than the right breast. My mom became furious because we were assured that this seamstress knew what she was doing. Youd think that a seamstress at a bridal shop would be more careful but she was tripping and stepping all over the dress.

The third fitting took place on a Saturday, we were told everything would be fixed by Monday to do the final fitting, that didnt happen, we ended up going to the store Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday night we just stayed there and tried on the dress after every alteration since we werent able to make it to the store on Friday because it was the day before my wedding and I had other things I needed to take care of. On Thursday we went to pick up the dress and to learn how to bustle it. When I examined the dress the beading that she put back on after all the alterations were done looked as if she did it half asleep, some areas missed the beading. Afterwards my bridesmaid was learning how to bustle the dress and we realized that we needed more bustles since the train was so long. This was the one thing I didnt re-check because they managed to screw this up too. They managed to make a bustle on the left but forgot to do it on the right side so I was lopsided. At that point what could I do.

At every point all they kept saying was Im sorry, we promise it will be ok. After we had paid them, nothing was ever ok and they never tried to make it any better for the customer. Youd think that people think fondly of their wedding dress and remember all the happy memories associated with it. When I look at mine all I think of was the months and months of frustration I had to go through with this store. Word of advice, please do not go here, I found my dress for $500 cheaper somewhere else. I decided to purchase it here because I thought they were a reputable business, unfortunately they are anything but that. They do not care to make their customers happy, all they want is your money and all they do is tell you that everything will be perfect and great but they don't do anything to make it that way.