The first time I made an appointment (I came with my mom and best friend) I made it clear I was just looking (at this point, my wedding was over 18 months away). Liz, the woman assigned to help me, was very nice and didn’t care that she wouldn’t be making a commission that day. She gave me honest advice and feedback. I tried on 8-10 dresses, which, when you are talking about wedding dresses, represents a lot of time. At no point did I feel any pressure to make a decision but I also didn’t feel ignored. A few months later, after finding a dress at another store I thought was ‘the one’ I decided to go back to La Belle Elaines and look at what they had, just to make sure I was making the right decision. When I made my appointment, I explained the situation and said that I didn’t even need someone helping me (I didn’t want to unnecessarily take up anyone’s time). When I came in (by myself), the woman who ended up ‘helping’ me (their policy understandably requires a sales person be assigned) was extremely rude and informed me I only had 30 minutes so I should probably find two dresses to try on and that was all there would be time for. I ended up finding two dresses that I may have like more than the one at the other store but I’ll never know since I wasn’t allowed to try them on. I’d already used up my 2 dress quota. When I asked her if I could make another appointment to try them on, she gave me a piece of paper and a pencil and told me write down the style numbers. I asked if I could make my next appointment for an hour instead of 30 minutes. She then said that all appointment are an hour. But wait – I thought I only had 30 minutes. She looked like a kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar. She then informed me she was then told she was very busy and that I could make an appointment with the receptionist. All and all, my second appointment overshadowed the kindness I’d been shown in the first.
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