Alisa Benay

This was the worst experience of my life. I commissioned Alisa over a year before my wedding to create a wedding dress for me. She was energetic and enthusiastic and I really thought I had found a match made in heaven. However, she cancelled over 20 appointments with me over the course of 15 months—giving me crappy excuses and reassuring me that it was going to get done. Her favorite line was, “I can make a dress in 24 hours if I have to.” Well, I can blow dry my hair in 5 minutes, but it’s not going to look pretty! In the end, 3 weeks before my wedding, she slapped together a dress that was appalling. Before that final fitting, Alisa told me the dress was going to be 95% complete—everything but the zipper—and once she made final nips and tucks it would be ready to pick up. WRONG. The dress was 15% done—(no lining, safety pins holding up patches of lace, no boning or cups, no tailoring). It looked like a taffeta potato sack. It was nowhere near the design we discussed and nowhere near resembling a well-made dress. The worst part? She KNEW it. I knew I had to come up with another plan, so I cancelled my contract with her. Alisa refused to reimburse me the almost $1,400 I had paid her—which meant I had no money to get another wedding dress (THREE WEEKS BEFORE MY WEDDING!) After e-mails back and forth, she offered to give me a $12.25 refund. I’m not kidding. Twelve dollars and twenty-five cents. I cried a lot that week. I felt absolutely conned by this woman. I wish I could express how awful she made me feel and how little she cared about doing a good job. I do not recommend her to anyone. I wish I had been more forceful about holding her to the deadlines she set. I don’t know if that would have resulted in a better dress, but it would have allowed me more time to find a back-up plan without paying her so much to do so little.