Weddingbee Blog

I have issues with the customer service at David’s. The place is huge, impersonal, and I always feel ignored there. This feeling is the same at multiple locations.

I was in a wedding last summer in LA - the dresses were from Alfred Angelo on La Cienega Blvd in Beverly Hills. The dresses were reasonable and the staff great. My bridesmaid dress was a ‘little’ snug and the zipper popped 2 weeks before the wedding while I was trying it on. I was in VA — the store and wedding were in LA. I was stressing! I overnighted the dress to them - it was perfect when I arrived in LA two weeks later for the wedding! Free of charge too.

We went to David’s to shop for my sister’s wedding - and it was terrible.
I called and made an appointment, because they said they required appointments on weekends. When we arrived, at the time of our appointment, we were told they would be with us in a “minute”. An hour passed, and when I continuously went to see what was taking so long, they said “oh, well somebody came in without an appointment and they are taking a really long time”.
I have seen bridal shops explain, nicely, that they do not take people without appointments, and that the people can look around but they can’t try anything on. This is why the appointment policy exists. It does not exist so you can snub customers by trying to get the largest number of people to spend money there.
After we were finally seen, the saleslady acted bored with us and annoyed when we asked her if there were any other A-line, strapless dresses. (Not a hard question.) Additionally, their dresses were itchy, poufy, poorly constructed, and made of cheap material. While a dress is only worn for a day, if it gives you a nasty rash, its not worth it.
For a bride on a budget, I recommend looking at Watters dresses. The Watters dresses my sister has tried on are made of nice fabric and are flattering but reasonably priced. The are also available through online retailers like houseofbrides.com. Also, just go to your local Lord & Taylor or designer dress shop - they sell some gorgeous evening gowns in white for less then what a typical bridal gown would cost, and you don’t have to order them 8 months in advance.

I made an appointment because I too, am on a budget, when I got there they made me wait 10 minutes before someone walked over and asked me no to look at the dresses on the rack please. I told her I had an appointment she then told me to hold on while she checked, 25 minutes later she came back with, please don’t look at the dresses again(what was I supposed to do?) they didn’t have my appointments the person on the phone scheduled it for next month????? then she told me she would see if someone could help me. So my 3pm appt. started at 3:45 and I tried on 5 dresses which they helped me get into, but first I had to thumb thru the catalog and point out dresses even though on the phone they said I could make a list of internet numbers and they would find them that way. Not so, she said she didn’t know numbers by heart to please point them out. ok. So 6 dresses 1 1/2 hours later when her next appointment was arriving she left to greet her. Left me in a dress for 10 minutes. I had my sister help me out , put the shoes and hoop thing away waited another 10 minutes and finally grabbed my registration (with my number and info) and left. They had no way of contacting me, thank god, a friend of mine said they called monthly to get her to come back in.
The dresses that were “cheap” weren’t nice…the dresses that were about 600-1000 were okay. BUT! you could find the same dresses on craigslist for about 300.00(they always have these dresses for resale)or you can buy a sample dress like me for about 600.00. My dress was originally 1250.00 beautiful what I wanted, good material and best of all on sample sale!!!

They were very huffy with me when I came in without an appointment just to LOOK at veils and sashes!!! Will never go back!

Yes, David’s Bridal stores tend (not all) to be lousy in the customer service department, but frankly *some* bridal salons are even worse with their elitist attitudes (making it clear they want to cater exclusively to wealthy & thin patrons). Both DB’s I went to had brides who seemed to have brought their entire bridal party. Bringing more than two ppl with you is a nuisance to other brides, JMHO. My DB “bridal consultant” and I use that term loosely, was disinterested at best. However, she did her job and I was pleased with the final product: a beautiful, well-constructed gown for 60% off, it’s a Monique Lou.

Typically I buy my clothing at Nordstrom, Lane Bryant and Neiman Marcus. So would I have been happy with a “poufy, poorly constructed cheap material” gown that made me break out in a “nasty rash”? Nope.

I did not expect to be waited on hand over foot at DB (I read up on the customer services issues that plague many stores), I was realistic with my expectations of service (no wine or fancy padded banquettes of which to rest my weary derrière) and quality (yes, many dresses looked of inferior *to me* however I knew someone else would find them to be lovely).

Bottom line: DB does a very good job at reaching out to a certain market: women who do not have, or chose to spend, thousands of dollars on her wedding gown. Also, DB is one of the few bridal salons that offers plus-size (and really, when more than half the population is plus-size is it that much of a stretch to accommodate our stylish clothing needs as well?) gowns to try on. Being a size 18 and trying on a sample size 10 wedding gown is not a pleasant experience in my book.

Whew! I feel better - just my two cents of course and no offense meant to those of you who choose not to shop at DB.

I had BAD service when shopping for bridesmaids dresses as a LAST resort, but we ordered there anyway bc I didn’t want my maids to pay big bucks for the look I wanted. The dresses came in and a zipper on one of the dresses kept breaking. On the wedding day we had to sew all of the bridesmaids in, just to be safe. I wanted to buy some matching fabric from the dresses, and everyone kept saying they didn’t sell it. FINALLY after talking with about 5 different people one girl said “Of course you can! and we did, very easily.”

You ABSOLUTELY CAN get a reasonably priced (same or lower priced) dress from places OTHER than DB and get better quality and service. My dress was not a bargain but when hunting I found so many dresses that were very inexpensive and it surprised me as to WHY would anyone get a cookie cutter dress from David’s Bridal when you can get something better for the same price?!!?

Also, I am a wedding photographer and you can tell DB dresses, bc so many people have them…bc of price! I don’t mind having the same t-shirt as thousands of others from Old Navy or somewhere to work out in….you can do better for your wedding day!

I have had the same reaction. I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that they are a retail chain and service a lot of people, which means that there is a chance that your service will suffer. I am not using them for my dress because I am anal about my gown and need the one on one attention I get from the little local boutique.

I’m going to give them a shot for my bridesmaids gowns because I have 8 girls in the wedding -2 from TX, 1 from NYC, 4 from Philadelphia, and 1 from Delaware where I live. I don’t know how else it would be possible for them all to get gowns that they are able to try on in person and get altered as needed. Alteration is important because one of my bridesmaids is pregnant and will give birth 3 months before the wedding, and another had gastric bypass last summer and is a different size every month.

I would say that if you’re interested give them a shot. If they’re rude or inconsiderate or don’t give you the attention you want then look elsewhere!

I went to DB the first time I wanted to try on dresses. I just needed to get an idea of what looked good on me. I went on a Saturday when it first opened and of course, it was packed. The service wasn’t too bad and my “helper” had other people to assist. I didn’t mind seeing that I was capable of putting my own dress on. The second time I went in on a weekday and it was empty but the lady was pushy. She asked me the names of all of my bridesmaids and wrote them down. I didn’t even mention buying a dress there! I found some dresses that I liked but in the end, purchased my dress from the local bridal salon for the same price as some DB dresses. And personally, I think my Maggie dress is much nicer than any DB dress I tried on. Shop around. You can find decently priced dresses anywhere-not just Davids Bridal.

It’s certainly not the place where you’ll get something like Vera Wang or Amsale but it’s honestly not bad. I know from experience! Definitely make an appointment no matter what day/time you go and be prepared for hard pitches from some of the “consultants” since they work on commission. Also, the try-own gowns are all store on racks and are big and cumbersome to shuffle through but once you get them to your dressing area and get things tried on, it’s not so bad. Definitely what you save in money makes up for all of the lackluster that they don’t offer. My gown was $699 on sale for just over $600 and despite the poor quality that some people have spoken of, it’s really not that bad. It’s decent quality taffeta and the workmanship is pretty good - you WILL probably have to settle for a zip-up back though.

It’s kind of like IKEA - you get what you pay for. And that goes for the shopping experience as well.

I bought my wedding dress at David’s bridal. I had a good experience actually. I think it depends on the person you are working with. I got a really good deal with my dress. They were prompt and efficient.