China quality at Gupta prices

Bought a wedding dress from Eurobride Menlyn, the shop assistant assured that the beading was hand stitched and held to be an “end of range item” as they no longer imported this kind of dress due to the laborious “hand stitched beaded lace”.

Although it was a beautiful dress, the dress was two sizes too big - the shop assistant once more assured that we could resize the dress and that the dressmakers are available to assist over the weekends.

The dress was paid for and sent for dry-cleaning with Eurobrides’ preferred cleaners. I received the dress back damaged and pointed out to the shop assistant that there was a noticeable hole in the top of the dress that was not there prior. The shop refused a refund as this was apparently a “sales item” .

In an attempt to salvage this disaster I requested an appointment with their dressmaker over a weekend and was informed that they could not assist in resizing the dress, despite the shop assistant swearing high and low that it was possible to make an appointment for a weekend. The next available date was for a Wednesday, one month before my actual wedding.

The evasiveness and unwillingness to rectify an already uncomfortable situation caused a great deal of concern, so I approached an independent dressmaker and was advised that not only was the beading glued on (and not hand stitched as represented) it was nearly impossible to remove in order to resize.

Although a reputable company, its menlyn branch has made saying yes to the dress the most painfully stressful and unpleasant experience to me.