White Lace & Promises

I am usually skeptical of bad reviews, but be warned on this place! They seemingly have a good selection of gowns, but don't buy here unless you know you are going to be paying much more than what is told to you upfront. First, I ordered a gown with a "6 week rush order". I paid extra for this service. It finally came in in 12 weeks When I told them I will be expecting the payment for the 6 week rush applied to the cost of my gown, I was told they can't control manufacturer processing times?!!! HOW are you charging extra for a service that you "can't control"???
Now they are wanting to charge me extra for rush alterations. It truly sounds like a scam, but what can you do? The contract states that the item is non-refundable. Also, I was told since the order was "customized", that is another reason this is taking so long. If they can customize the length, I don't understand why they couldn't customize the other measurements and cut out the alterations altogether.
This place is obviously ran by greedy people who care nothing about customer service or happy brides. I am not hard to please, so if I have a problem...buyer beware. Eventually this place will be outed.
Also, the 10% off "sale" that I hurried to take advantage of has been reinstated several times since January...do not rush, it seems to just be a markup and the price will be lowered again in a weeks time.
If I had to do it over, I would pick Davids bridal...and that's saying A LOT!

Comments (1)

Heidi Louise Arvin - 10/12/09
I am very sorry that you had a bad experience here. I personally had excellent service from Lori, the manager, who personally sought out my every need. Unlike you, I did not need to rush my dress for order because I ordered my dress 6 months in advance of my wedding. The dress that I purchased was able to altered in every way that I needed and I was NOT charged extra for anything. I paid a reasonable price ($1000) for the dress, shoes, and veil. I would choose this place over any other Bridal shop in the region. I have been to David's Bridal and I hated it. They don't care about the bride and just want to sell you a "cookie cutter" dress.

If you expect (as you should) to be treated like a pampered bride who is getting ready to spend big bucks in their store, DON'T GO HERE! I made an appt to go in at 10am when the store opened. I was the only one in the store. The lady who apparently was assigned to me hands me a little piece of wood with 5 (count em 5) clips on it. She tells me to go around the store and put clips on dresses I like. 5??? She also tells me that the dresses are sizes 6-10. I am a size 16. She says "Oh we have clips and stuff so you can get a fairly good idea on how it fits and then we order it in your size." Ok, so I started walking around and found 5 okay dresses (Unfortunately they had VERY few destination dresses and they were all so dingy it was hard to be attracted to them). I asked for more clips and she told me that until she got my first 5 in the dressing room I couldn't have more clips. So what if someone else comes in and wants to look at dresses? Guess they are out of luck LOL.
Finally I got about 10 dresses picked out. She snottily asks me if I want a bra. Duh! No...I think I'll try it on with my D's to my waist!
She hands me my bra, puts me in a room and says "okay, let me know if you need anything."
OMG. No offer to help me get in/out of the dresses, nothing! I have no idea why I stayed after that, but I did try on a couple of dresses (really hard to get into by yourself btw). She comes back a while later and says..."if you want to hand me anything you don't want, I'll hang it up." STILL no offer for actual help!
I got dressed and came out of the dressing room. She and her coworker were up at the desk. She asks didn't I find anything. Again...OMG! I finally looked at her and told her that they really needed to learn how to pay attention to their bride. She informed me that she was on the phone, sorry.

YOU ARE THE BRIDE. YOU DESERVE TOP NOTCH TREATMENT, NOT HALF A**ED. DON'T LET ANYONE TELL YOU DIFFERENT.

Just a P.S.
I went to David's Bridal after that, and while they didn't really have the high quality designers I was looking for, they had very cute dresses at economical prices, and the service was SUPERB. I definitely felt the pampered bride and I was a walk-in!!! I had fun that totally made up for my WL&P experience.

Comments (2)

Heidi Louise Arvin - 10/12/09
I was not the type of bride that demanded so much from the nice sales ladies at White Lace and Promises. I found many attractive dresses that I liked, but I found the one I ended up choosing within just a few minutes. I brought my maid of honor with me so that she could help me get the dress on. I always go places prepared - not expecting someone else to anticipate my mistakes. As a consumer, I would not advise that you allow your own desires to suade someone's opinion about a place of business that conducts themselves in a very professional manner. The fact that they did not treat you as a goddess is hardly recompense for calling them a bad bridal boutique. My experience there was the best I've ever had out of any bridal shop that I visited. I became friends with the manager, Lori, who always knew me by name and waited on me hand and foot for everything I needed. I didn't even have to ask!

Sunshine - 10/13/09
If you want to submit a review for your "friend", go for it...but my personal opinion is just that. Do not waste my time or yours judging my personal desires from a boutique that touts themselves as "upscale". It was not a mistake on my part to expect to be pampered as a bride. Every single other bridal store I visited was more than accommodating and we had a wonderful time. At no point did I call them a "bad bridal boutique" in any way. I simply shared my experience and how I feel about it. Period.

White Lace & Promises offered very nice package discounts with my bridal party and my dress, but beyond that, they were the worst experience a bride could have. They claim to be a Christian organization but as soon as you need to deal with them, there seems to be nothing Christian about them.

I ordered my dress according to measurements I had gotten out of town, and I had the measurements double checked by a friend. I warned WL&P that on previous occasions my measurements had led to an extremely large dress that did not fit at all. They did not take any heed to my warnings. I got word that the dress was in and came to try it on. It turns out they ordered a size that literally fell off of my hips. The lady who was helping me had the nerve to tell me, "I've seen worse." I then proceeded to ask if they could provide any means for working the situation out, meaning that they probably should order another dress for me (I have since consulted with other wedding outfits that would have ordered a new dress for me on the spot). The lady, said that there would be no way that they could order a new dress.

We then proceeded to discuss alterations to my super-sized dress. The lady indicated that the seamstress would take chunks of the dress out of the back in order to get it to the proper size. This would destroy the pattern on my dress, and I was very unsatisfied. Again, they would not budge on how they would attempt to alter my dress. So, I wound up going to another seamstress in town that was absolutely appalled at the service I had gotten at WL&P, and she was extremely helpful, and did a wonderful job altering my dress.

In summary, the service was awful, the people were not nice, and I would never ever recommend them to anyone in Knoxville.

Comments (1)

Heidi Louise Arvin - 10/12/09
Always, always, always let the bridal store that you buy your dress from do your measurements!! Everybody is going to measure differently - I don't care how good someone is. Also, never assume that the saleslady can read your mind. Guess what? You have to tell them explicitly what you want! Playing games with them is not going to get you better service and trying to "blackmail" them into ordering you another dress is certainly not going to heighten your rapport with them. Perhaps if you had been more clear with what you wanted for yourself from the beginning instead of waiting until it was too late to do anything about it and ended up being unhappy. Again, this is a matter of miscommunication from the bride - not a result of bad service from the great ladies at White Lace and Promises.