I decided I wanted a custom wedding gown and was willing to fork over a good chunk of change for it. $1,000-ish dollars to be a bit more precise.

I got on Esty to find a dress that was less “cookie cutter” than the average David’s Bridal Bedazzled dresses. Unfortunately, I came across Angels Bridal Boutique and Angela Vaden’s shop. The photos of her dresses were gorgeous. She seemed to have a pretty great track record too. In fact, her reviews were outstanding! She even had 100% positive customer feedback. 5 Stars all the WAY!

Lesson? You should never trust someone with 100% positive feedback.

I shot Angela an email as I knew it was late in the game to try and get a custom dress made by my wedding. It was early May. I would wed late July. Her response, as seen in email correspondences on the following page was, “Sure! I can “work you in” for another 100 bucks and we can have your dress done by early July. But we’ll need to get started right away.”

I signed a contract and sent pictures of my “dream dress,” Ali by Augusta Jones, and stated what I wanted in a dress– a sweetheart neckline, sash with a flower, mermaid fit, etc. All these requests would eventually be ignored.

I understood that she didn’t do replicas, but wanted something in the same ballpark. After all, her business is all about “custom” dresses. I figured she could pull it off.

As stated up front, I didn’t hear anything from her for months. I gave her space, knowing she was busy. Right around the estimated completion time (early July) I shot her a checking in email. Her response? The air conditioner in her shop had broken down, meaning she was 2 weeks behind schedule.

This would put my dress arriving early in the week of my Saturday wedding.

I took deep breaths and talked myself out of panicking.

You know what? The dress didn’t make it early in the week. It didn’t even make it by mid week. My calls were ignored. Emails were ignored. At this point, I was losing it. I had never had such poor customer service. In. My. Entire. Life.

It was ridiculous.

I stayed quiet though and didn’t email her anymore… internalizing most of my frustrations with her. I was holding out and still willing to give the dress a chance.

The dress came in on Friday (the day before my wedding) at 10:30am. It was clearly not the dress I asked her to make. I was not comfortable wearing an open-back dress, and was never consulted about that. The dress was shoddily constructed too. There was no clasp for the neck area, the lace looked worn, and while I had professional measurements taken (as per her contract and “process”) for her to construct the dress, it still desperately needed alterations.

She left no time for that.

I scrambled to find a backup dress. That day I shot Angela a few emails stating my case- that that this was not the dress I ordered, it was unwearable, etc. Her responses were unprofessional, sarcastic, and unaccommodating.

My day, and the back-up dress were fabulous. There was no way she would steal my sunshine…

I would warn any brides considering ordering a custom dress to do business elsewhere. This is certainly not the first time she has done something like this. I can only pray it would be the last.