Dress Debacle

I headed to Manassas, VA this weekend to visit my sister and FINALLY try on my Vera Wang bridesmaid dress that arrived late at the dress shop. We got in a little shopping before our appointment, and I found the best shoes to wear with the dress. They were a steal, too! So our day was off to a great start, complete w/a trip to IKEA...

We got to the dress shop at 3:00 pm. I was ushered to a dressing room with a dress hanging in it which was not the dress we ordered for the wedding. Megan and I immediately told the attendant, who automatically insinuated that we simply remembered the dress incorrectly. The owner of the shop took over and also insinuated that the order was placed correctly and that Vera Wang had sent the right dresses.

It was only after I sat the owner down at her computer and pulled up pictures of myself wearing the correct dress in her shop in September that she believed a mistake had been made. Not her mistake, of course...

We then checked the Vera Wang website and verified that the shop had indeed placed the order for the correct style number. It became apparent that she would have to sort this out with the Vera Wang warehouse, which was not going to happen on a Saturday.

So I went ahead and tried on the dress, which was beautiful even if it was not the right dress, and had Jeanette pin it up to be hemmed, just in case. Megan and I headed home for a glass of wine.

Of course Megan was upset...aghast...enraged...heartbroken...but she handled it so well. In these situations it is perfectly ok to display your emotions. She effectively made it clear that this was not okay. No one was walking all over her!!!

Monday rolled around and I was back in Raleigh, impatiently awaiting word from Megan. The dress shop had promised to call V.W. first thing, and let Megan know what our options were. By lunchtime, I couldn't take it any more and called Jeanette's myself. I was told that they had no success getting in touch with their contact at the warehouse.

This was unacceptable...certainly this one person is not the end of the line. So I took it upon myself to call Vera Wang corporate headquarters in NYC. I immediately connected with a woman, Emily, who was able to help me right away. I was instructed to call the dress shop to have them forward certain information to Emily. When I did so, Jeanette was flabbergasted at my ability to get the ball rolling when she couldn't.

Many calls back and forth later, Jeanette finally told me that the woman who placed our order at the store had ordered our dresses in chocolate, when in fact the dress we chose was nutmeg. Two different colors, two different fabrics, but at least it was the same dress. However, Jeanette still refused to concede that the mistake was from her end...she insinuated that V.W. had changed the names of their colors or something.

So we now had options:
a.) V.W. would make 5 new dresses, which at best would arrive at each attendant's doorstep the Friday before the wedding;
b) Jeanette would give us 50% off the cost of our dresses if we would keep the chocolate.

Megan levelheadedly chose b, not wanting to deal with the stress of getting the dresses in time. She grilled Jeanette when going over the choices until Jeanette admitted fault in the situation.

Moral of the story...
a.) Be aggressive. Jeanette could have totally redeemed herself by thinking outside of the box and getting in touch w/Vera Wang HQ when the warehouse was unresponsive.
b.) Be honest, for goodness sake. Admit to your mistakes. Don't dig yourself in deeper.