Sandra Elizabeth Diaz Bridal

I don’t normally leave reviews but I do think this one may be important to share. I came across Sandra through a Google search and saw all the amazing reviews, so immediately wanted to come in and discuss having both my wedding and reception dress altered. I will say she was very knowledgeable in understanding the construction of each gown and explaining what she would have to do in order to alter them to my body. The price she gave seemed kind of high, but of course not having any knowledge of the industry, I gave her the deposit for each dress and left. After doing some research and talking to some other brides in the area, I did in fact realize her pricing was EXTREMELY higher than others in the North Jersey area. Unfortunately, my father who had agreed to pay for alterations wasn’t comfortable with paying that much, so I emailed her asking if she had started working on my dresses, because if not, I’d like to have them back. She did say she started working on my main dress but didn’t begin the reception dress which was fine, I told her I would just take that dress and she can work on my main dress. As my first fitting came to an end and I brought up my reception dress, she stated that she felt the need to “charge me” because she had taken scissors to my dress to cut where to hem my gown. I understood and said, that should come out of the deposit I gave you for this dress, and she insisted that it should be a separate and additional amount. I wanted to say how ABNORMAL that is being that the deposit I gave her was a sum of each deposit amount for each dress. Nevertheless, I agreed, and just asked for assurance that the total amount I have already given her would be applied to the dress she was in fact working on, and we ran the numbers. Then when I asked her the cost for taking shears to my dress and cutting the bottom, she told me $200. Again, this number is so high in my opinion, but as a business owner myself I didn’t want to disrespect her pricing and paid. Then on my final visit, I put my gown on and ask for assistance zipping up, and she says, blunt and matter of fact “It won’t go up, you must have gained weight”. To which I replied “I haven’t, I’ve lost 7lbs since you last saw me”, and then she gets the zipper up. I will say the alterations she did do were very nice and I didn’t have an issue with them besides the fact that she forgot to sew on the buttons for my detachable sleeves, and then admitted to loosing them, and had to use her own. But what truly made me uncomfortable with that final interaction was when she asked if I was putting my dress on at the venue and stressing how my zipper might even “burst” open when I sat down. And I had my mom look through images that we took at my previous appointments with her and even when I first got my dress and it has always fit me the same. My mom felt as though she was trying to upsell us into taking out my dress, but that was her perception. I just feel as though as a bride weight is already such a sensitive topic, there are ways to talk about it, and to bring it up in an accusatory manner, when I know for a fact I lost weight was incredibly inappropriate. So with all that said, I can’t say I recommend coming here for your alterations. Throughout my whole experience I felt like I was being taken advantage of. Update 2/26/24 : I had my wedding this past weekend, and the buttons Sandra had to replace after she lost my originals continued to not stay closed.