Apologies for the length. My first appointment in January of 2022 a woman named Magdalena helped me. Magdalena was wonderful, but following this appointment my experience became extremely negative.
The dress I tried on had a bow in the picture. They did not have it in store. This bow was a big draw for me to buy the dress. We discussed it throughout the process and it was understood that we wanted it. We ordered and paid.
When it arrived on August 31st we asked how the dress looked with the bow. They realized they had not ordered it. The dress came from Spain and they communicated right away with the seller to get it ordered, which was appreciated. They seemed worried, but also assured us there would be a bow. However, at this point in the process I was already feeling like I was being blamed for the mishap. Turns out the bow technically did not come with the dress and I would have been happy to still purchase it if I had known.
I live in Denver, CO and my family lives in Cleveland, OH so I had already booked flights to Cleveland to then drive the 2+ hours to Dublin for my fitting in two weeks. My wedding date was also less than a month away (October 7th). Shipping takes time so this was a concern, but I was assured I would have a bow.
At my first fitting it had not arrived. They had a back up bow from another designer, which was fine for the moment. The operations manager, Lissa, was not there, but I was assured by the woman working there it would arrive on the day of my next appointment, October 3rd. We scheduled for the late afternoon to ensure it would be there. There was NO transparency about their concern that it may not arrive in time for the wedding. My mom called twice leading up to this final appointment. She was checking to see if it had arrived and was not given an answer, instead being told “Lissa said we agreed to the fitting on October 3rd at 4:00” - ignoring our question.
On October 3rd, the tailor, who does not work at White of Dublin, was there along with one other woman. This employee stayed in the back office while we asked the tailor about the bow. It was not there. We had to ask the employee in the back if we could talk to Lissa. Lissa was not there due to a family emergency, which is fine, but we weren’t told ahead of time or when we arrived that she wasn’t there. We also had to seek out answers from this employee ourselves. She was texting with Lissa who said she would call us in the morning. I took my dress home with the back up bow, per our request, because I would not be able to drive back to get it and was not going to risk leaving my wedding dress behind.
Lissa did NOT call us the next morning. I called her around 4:30pm. She was curt and talked over me (telling me I had never been told the bow would be in on October 3rd, only the week of the wedding). Her manner was extremely dismissive. She said when it arrived they would overnight ship it to me. When it arrived on Wednesday afternoon I asked a friend who lived nearby to pick it up instead. She brought it to me the next day with a blunt note and NO snaps to attach it to my dress.
I typically don’t leave poor reviews, but this experience warranted it for others choosing this dress shop. The place has beautiful gowns and Magdalena was great, but the overall experience was awful. I wish Lissa had been transparent from the start and/or taken ownership of the situation. It became less about the bow and more about customer service.