Customer Service Pet Peeves

We got engaged in May and getting married in August. I havent had really any problems with vendors, which I'm happy about. However, we did have a lady at one of the rental places in the city give us a bit of attitude saying we have plenty of time. I'm also the kind of person that likes having everything organized to leave room for error and that would be very frustrating. In terms of suits and dresses, my bridesmaids ordered their dresses in December and the guys are going this weekend for their tuxes. From what I've heard from the girls at least, they prefer it that way because they dont have to stress about it if its ordered too late or backordered.

View quoted message Ugh! I’m so sorry this happened to you. That really sucks. Hopefully your next experience will make up for that 😀

David's Bridal (specifically the one in Vaughan, ON) was an absolute nightmare! I took my ladies shopping for Bridesmaids dresses this last weekend. Our sales consultant Monika was rude, aggressive, and just downright miserable. She even openly scolded one of my Bridesmaids for using the wrong fitting room by accident (FYI - no one else was using it so it shouldn't have mattered), and had her move to the other room while she was half naked. Long story short, I left the appointment and had a good cry in the car.

Wow that's horrible! My wedding is in two years and I'm trying to do what I can to plan and people are being kind of weird about it as well

We got engaged last August and have had everything pretty much planned for our wedding in May within the first couple of months. So far my vendors have been Great! From my dress to my coordinators, officiant, etc etc. I will say that when contacting venues there were a couple that did not even bother to email me back! I am like you, I like to be prepared and I must say a few of our vendors have commented on how prepared/ on top of things we are and how they appreciate it. I know things will go wrong and I like to be prepared..... Don’t let this kill your vibe! My piece of advice is.... if you are not happy with their service.... there are plenty of other vendors out there! The most tedious part of wedding planning has been the research but it has been worth it ( so far hahah).

I bought my dress from a consignment (personal shop) by appointment only. The service was amazing and the cost savings were amazing. We had attended 2 bridal shops (appointment) after a couple bridal shows....both were a nightmare. I grew up on a farm and they were snotty and felt like a auction mart cattle sale. It was over crowded, no real personal service for anyone. I bought my dress 1 1/2 years before our wedding. Gave me time to buy assessories at a slower pace and alterations without rush and panic. Groom got his tuxedos 8 1/2 months before. Gave the out of town groomsmen time to fit theirs which also allowed them to have first choice of time and date for pickup and any changes.

It's funny I think I had the opposite problem - a lot of dress places basically told me rudely they had nothing for me because my engagement turnaround was so quick (5 months) and that I should have started 18 months ago! ( Sorry, I wasn't engaged 18 months ago?)

David's Bridal was horrible, the girl helping me was also helping 2 other people and barely had time for me and I really hate how the dressing rooms are positioned so that you have to come out in front of everyone when there are a bunch of men (other brides fiance's) hanging out in the dressing area.

One of the venues we looked at, when we arrived for our viewing no one greeted us for 45 minutes, finally we went and found someone who found a manager who came back and told us the event coordinator got fired an hour ago (we had just been emailing with her that morning). Definitely didn't give us a good impression of the venue!

Also surprised at how long some vendors took to get back to me (like 2-3 weeks) while in the meantime I'd booked another vendor because I assumed they weren't interested. I just assume in the wedding industry it's pretty competitive and you'd want to jump on prospective customers right away?

Thank you for all the support ladies!
It sucks to hear that good customer service just seems to be a dying art. Wishing all of you well in your wedding planning 💜

Yup. The staff at David's bridal have been very unpleasant with the exception of one gal. I couldn't believe how rude they were to me and my bridesmaids. And one even said I was too early too. Nope, I like being well prepared. 🙄🙄🙄 Sorry to hear about your experiences, don't let it get you down. I flat out walked out of a store and told them that I would happily give my money to a different store. You're getting hitched!!! ❤️❤️❤️

I started planning almost a year ago, and our wedding isn't until October. I too like to be super organized about everything. I work in adminstration, specifically planning large corporate events so I know things can go wrong...and honestly you spend good money on a wedding so in my opinion If you want to plan early, all the better! I did find early on we had a lot of potential vendors that didn't get back to my requests very promptly, and to me - I wasn't going to give my business to someone/someplace that couldn't do me the courtesy of a timely reply. If you can't be courteous, you obviously don't want my money - and there certainly isn't a shortage of wedding vendors out there. I agree, it's incredibly frustrating!

View quoted message I feel the same way! All the girls at bridal centre are amazing!

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Exactly!! I think I left feeling a little taller lol!

View quoted message She’s amazing! At other stores they kept pushing how we needed to order soon and stuff. Cecilia didn’t even mention ordering or finding my size until I said “this is the dress” it was refreshing and made me feel so comfortable! Even when I started to panic about the dress we ordered not fitting, she calmed me down, made me feel good about myself and offered to resize me anytime I felt I needed a confidence boost.

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Cecilia from the Bridal Centre was amazing!!!! She is brilliant! I loved how she sat with me asked what I was actually looking for how I saw myself on that day. She helped me find my perfect dress, especially after I felt defeated and let down by other stores. I really did not have high hopes in finding anything that I would love, and since I was shopping alone she was very honest and didn’t just try to sell me anything!

No thats rude!!! i got engaged in dec 2018 and called a venue in jan 2019 for aug 2020 and they had ONE day available which is our now wedding date. i literally called a year in a half in advance. i dont know whats wrong with these people. ive gotten everything done as earlier as possible!! i rather be organized now!

Yes 100% we are planning things in advance just to space out the spending and allow our family time to save to travel. We are all really spaced out and I’ve had wedding cake cateres be soo rude. It’s ridiculous; sometimes they complain about brides not giving them enough notice and now they are complaining about too much notice

Omgoodness, I feel 5 months before is STILL not enough time lol. I'm a big planner myself. Don't let them rain on your parade gf. It's a sign from the wedding gods! Find another vendor!!

Do not let anyone kill your happy vibe! I am very similar to you, I like to get things done.. and it is absurd for anyone to tell you, THE BRIDE, that it is too early. It just means that they aren't the right people for you. and you WILL find better. Keep your head up!

View quoted message Glad that you walked out. They don't deserve people's money for terrible customer service. I honestly am surprised they can remain in business!

I haven’t had issues with being to early to the planning process.
I have however had an unfortunate experience when trying to block out hotel rooms. She was quoting us WAY more than it was listed online and wasn’t overly nice about answering any of our questions.
To make matters worse, we want to block rooms off at two hotels that are neighbouring (to give guests an option). We hang up from one phone call with Hotel A to call Hotel B about rates, and IT IS THE SAME LADY. Talk about frustrating!

Yes same here 😒 I like to do things early too. I had one dress store where I booked a bridesmaids appointment act weird about booking the appointment for April just the other week. I had lots of venues before we selected one not respond back, and the one we picked is hard to get a hold of, not because they're busy, but because they don't respond to any form of communication. I've always been under the assumption if you're planning a wedding, especially during peak season, the sooner the better for booking things, but I guess not always the case.

I hadn't had many issues with being told I was planning/booking too early. We also planned from a distance so often times I'd contact vendors in an email saying "we live in Thunder Bay, but are getting married in London. We will be in London __ dates and would love to meet with you."

Most of thetime by getting a heads up, vendors knew we wanted to establish a line of communication/meetings early due to our situation. We had one photographer tell us they only do business in person (why they had an email? I don't know. They didn't even want me emailing them basic questions) so we told them we were going with someone else (who was AWESOME at responding to my consistent emails!).

We almost had the exact opposite response. Most of the time, vendors told us "Good thing you're planning ahead/looking early" but I'm sorry you are getting attitude for being on the ball. I'd push back with vendors saying "I want to figure things out early so I'm not as stressed a month before the wedding."

I have had some push back from our resort in the planning process - even though I was following their timeline.. BUT they have not given attitude.

My issue was with my wedding dress - I had a hard time finding a store with an associate who was above and beyond. - Sounds like I was expecting too much but some of the service was a real let down and made me feel bad about myself.

Then I found Cecilia at one store in Calgary and she was AMAZING ! Engaged in conversation, listened intently and helped me find the perfect dress. We even went back to her for my bridesmaids dresses and she has been non stop outstanding!

Keep pushing back - maybe those associates are not the right people to help you out!

At this point you are not too early for anything!! What???

Ignore them and honestly - if you are like me, you can simply say that if they aren't interested in helping you just yet then you have no problem looking elswhere? All over the phone or in person to give that sort of innocent voice yet condescending... Never too early even if you were a year out...

Some vendors don't have the right attitude or way of interacting with customers lacking of their own behaviour. I went for wedding cards quote and colour to style to choose from a vendor. When i called a few days later, i did notify about indian style cards considering my options and felt as she didn't want to work with me brushing it off rudely. She gave the inpression of customers not wanting their business taken seriously(sisters family business).
I'm glad i didn't end up paying $4.50 for each card and ordered it from Vistaprint site.

I would totally understand the feeling of frustration from being faced with "that" attitude. Unfortunately I've been receiving the complete opposite (maybe for good reason), but still. We got engaged end of Sept 2019, and our wedding is May 23, 2020. Didn't mean for it to happen fast but our venue (that was booking into 2021) became available suddenly and we SNAGGED the date. I'm an organized crazy planner and Ive been told I'm on track for planning, but I still REALLY despise the "oh when's the date? OHHHHHHhhhhhhhh.....that soooooon eh?" and the disappointed looks, like I purposefully waited till the last minute!!!

I've also come to realize the estimates you see online about invitations, rsvps etc are not even a good ROUGH estimate.

Send those puppies out WHENEVER you feel ready, if you have a venue nailed down and someone to marry you at a certain time? Mail those invites OUT!

A lot of people have to schedule their time off way in advance, and they might like to plan your wedding with another event if they are traveling &&&&& apparently our postal systems are NOT as great as I first assumed! (invitation STRESS!)

So my long winded advice?

If in doubt? DO IT EARLY!

if someone's seriously gunna give you stink about being TOO early, and TOO prepared? they have a problem NOT you! (and that means you can find someone else who DOESN'T make you feel stupid or a "keener" cause you got the time!)

Future sister in law had problems with David’s bridal. Looking we’re the bride, brides mom, sister (moh), bridesmaid, my mom, my sister, and myself. We got there about 20 min early, the one girl was sweet and said we should take advantage and look at the racks. We were doing just that and at about the time of the appointment the lady who would be dealing with us came over super annoyed that we pulled a couple of dresses into the side racks (what we were told to do, only three were pulled). When future sister was getting changed in the room, she asked her mom to help her with something, and instead of letting her mom go in, this lady opens the door and says “no I’ll do it” (totally understand that they want to be the ones helping to put the dress in to not damage the material, but she would keep flinging open the door as she’s in there pretty much naked). Would keep opening the door, and considering there was only one other appointment (which she wasn’t involved in) she kept disappearing and would get mad when the bride would take the dress off herself. She seemed super annoyed the whole time, and we honestly had no idea why. Will give credit to the one girl who was at the doing and not actually a stylist, she was super sweet and wound make future sister in law feel like a bride (asking questions, saying congrats) we wish she would be a stylist. Sorry for the rant, it just upset everyone in the group, and being newly engaged, I know I’m not going there :b

View quoted message I really had a horrible time at David’s bridal! Booked an appointment only to arrive and have no on assist us for a half hour, but they invited us to “have a look at the dresses” — when we finally got fitting rooms we were already being told to start settling on colors/styles because there’s a time limit to the appointments.... it was really pushy and unhelpful. I was so shocked that they were so disorganized considering we were planning to pay a pretty penny on quite a few dresses! We ended up walking out.

View quoted message I know! The worse one was I was trying to book an appointment for a venue I was super
Interested in. I couldn’t even set an appointment because they ignored my calls and emails. Not a good sign! Same thing is currently
Happening with photographers I’m reaching out to! It’s like they don’t want my money lol

I havent had a problem with any vendors yet thank goodness. Anyone I've contacted has gotten back to me within a reasonable amount of time and been very friendly and helpful. I started booking a lot of things over a year and a half before the wedding.

View quoted message That’s crazy! Sorry that happened to you. I’m just appalled at the level of service from a lot of places. Even something as simple as sending/reading a whole email in full....most of my vendors were highly recommended by either the venue, wedding wire or word of mouth. So far, I’ve been turned off by all of them at some point. Just terrible for the money you’re trying to spend

David's Bridal was awful to deal with. We went there shopping for bridesmaids dresses. We were told we could order a specific dress, but it wasn't really what I liked as the bride. Then I went back to their store to see if adding a blingy belt to the waist made the dress a more acceptable option and it did. So I went to inquire about when the dresses would arrive if my bridesmaids ordered them later that week. I am told that you can no longer order the dresses ( this is two days after our appointment). So the associate we had the appointment with misinformed us which created hassle for everyone and another day bridesmaids dress shopping. Needless to say the dresses that the bridesmaids selected were not from David's Bridal.