At Raleigh bridal shop, dress comes with stress

Delayed dresses, wrong sizes and stressed brides are not a good combination for a bridal shop. One local store has brides and bridesmaids complaining that dresses ordered months in advance arrived too close to the wedding day and others just didn't fit.

Libby Klein contacted 5 On Your Side about her sister Abby's wedding. In January, the bridal party ordered five dresses from Victorian Rose Bridals in Raleigh's Cameron Village. They expected the dresses to come in the first week of April, but they didn't arrive until May – one week before the wedding. 

On top of that, three of the dresses didn't come close to fitting. 

Klein's turquoise maid of honor dress was about three sizes too small, so a different bridesmaid, whose dress also didn't fit, ended up wearing it.

"They did the measurements here, so if nothing else, my dress should have been the one that fit perfectly," she said. 

Instead, Klein had to rush to a department store to buy a coral substitute. 

On a third dress, the bridesmaids used tape, bobby pins and ribbon to stick it together.

But when they complained to Victorian Rose Bridals, the store offered "no reparation ... not even an apology," Klein said. 

Owner Kathy Purser said the store is "all customer service oriented," but that they have a no refund policy because dresses are custom orders. Still, she said, if the problem is the store's mistake, "we're going to remedy that."

5 On Your Side heard from other bridal parties with similar complaints about Victorian Rose Bridals – a bridesmaid whose dress arrived late and was the wrong color, a mother of the bride whose dress didn't fit and a bride still waiting for her gown two weeks before the big day.

The reviews online are mixed. 

Asked whether the store at least has some communication and organization issues, Purser said "not at all." Customers didn't understand that estimated delivery dates are just a ballpark figure, Purser said.

"Estimated means two weeks before, two weeks after," she said, adding that her clerks now make that clearer to customers.

Purser eventually admitted problems with Klein's order and agreed to refund $364 – the cost of two of the dresses that couldn't be worn. 

As for the wedding day, Klein said everyone involved made the best of it, while keeping a close eye on the bridesmaid who had to be sewn into her dress.

"We joked that we were all going to be on watch, just in case her dress fell down," Klein said. "Like I said, you try to make the best of a situation, but it was still very upsetting."