A Hearts Desires Bridal

I highly recommend A Hearts Desire! The venue is spacious with a ton of natural light. Ashley, my bridal consultant was super efficient! She had me in and out of dresses and was very honest on the pros and cons of each dress. I really appreciated that she incorporated her knowledge of the designer with my wedding style and needs. She helped me find my dream dress! The dress that best suited my body type. I'm extremely grateful!

I was very disappointed with my experience at A Heart's Desires. It was very unfortunate, as this store is one of the few bridal salons in SLO, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Trying on dresses and choosing one was fine. However, there were so many issues after choosing the dress, it's difficult to begin. The store takes measurements there and suggests a dress size to order based on that. They usually recommend a size larger, too, just to be safe. I did appreciate that, however, they suggested a dress size that I have NEVER, even at my heaviest, been in my life. The seamstress took 6-8 inches of fabric off of it. My alterations ended up being significantly more expensive than they should have been because of how many I needed to have. I also found out that the store takes a commission from the seamstress on all alterations; in my case, it was over $100. My bridesmaids also ordered their dresses through the store. There were countless issues with this situation, too. To start, the dresses came in over a month later than I was told they would. The store told me to have them ordered by the end of May for them to arrive in the beginning of August, for my October 1st wedding. I asked the girls to have them ordered by the end of April, to be safe. August came and went and I heard nothing from the store. By the 3rd of September, I had to contact them about the location of my girls’ dresses and they told me they would be in “soon”. I had to call them about 5 more times in the week after that to find out what was going on, because they did not communicate with me. The dresses didn’t arrive until September 14th, which didn't leave a lot of time for alterations. One bridesmaid was yelled at over the phone for choosing a certain size. She usually wears a size 2/4 and was being told to order a size 14 by the store. The store failed to tell a couple of girls that they added extra length to their dress order, so those girls had to pay extra money for the length before they could take the dress home. They ended up having to pay more money to have that extra length taken off by a seamstress because they didn’t need it. One bridesmaid’s dress came in too small. She was told to order a size 14, at the store’s suggestion, and she ordered a 16, to be safe. The dress was so small it wouldn’t even come close to zipping. She had to pay $200 extra to have the dress altered to fit correctly and when she contacted Heart’s Desires to discuss the situation, the owner completely denied any responsibility. My bridesmaid had to take videos and photos of herself getting measured to “prove” that she wasn’t lying about her size and the store continued to blame it on her and blame it on the designer. This situation could have been fixed had the dresses arrived in August, when I was told they would, and my bridesmaid could have exchanged it for another size. Overall, the experience with the store was, in my opinion, truly awful. I was disappointed in the way that these situations were handled. I do not recommend this store. It caused more stress than necessary!

I had a wonderful experience at A Heart's Desire! I must admit that I was a bit of a difficult case, as I had a very tight budget of $800. My bridal consultant encouraged me to look through the dresses, pulling the ones that I liked, & then she pulled a few as well. She was patient & kind, but also had a bit of no-nonsense in her that I appreciated. I ended up buying an Allure dress that I'm in LOVE with, & it was priced a few hundred dollars less than at other larger bridal boutiques! The dress came in quickly, & I set up a couple of appointments to try it on (once for my bridesmaids, once for my mom and sister). SO pleased with A Heart's Desire! I highly recommend it!

I tried gowns on here and went back two separate times to look for bridesmaid dresses and mother of the bride dresses. I did not purchase my dress here, though I did enjoy my experience trying on. It's too bad "down the aisle" in arroyo grande closed because I had an even better experience there and would have recommended it hands down over heart's desire. The dressing room has a little curtain to change behind but was not very private from the rest of the shop. The woman who helped me, I wish I could remember her name, she was thin and mid-age with dark hair, was nice enough but did not seem genuine and more like she was just trying to sell me a dress because she said I was flawless in each one I tried on. If I was by myself I would have been frustrated she was just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. On the occasions I returned to look for mother of the bride dresses, their selection was small and the dresses very very matronly. I liked one of the bridesmaid dresses but even on sale it was very expensive and couldn't get any help finding it in the right color because the only girl working was occupied. Overall I did not purchase anything from this shop but enjoyed trying their dresses on since they did have a pretty wide selection of dresses.