The little bitch in all of us...

GGGRRRRRRRR!!!

SO my little brother is getting married in less than a week, and I'm a bridesmaid in his wedding.

On it's own the above fact is no big deal.

But somehow the forces that run this universe are bound and determined to make this as stressful for me as possible. And they are accomplishing the task through one thing... my dress.

I guess I should start at the beginning, which was several months ago.

The bride went into this little shop in De Vargas Mall, and got some information on bridesmaid's dresses. She was told the costs, options and expected times.

Fast foward to the end of July. We decide that it is time to order the dress. I had picked out what I wanted (we were able to choose our own tops), and we went in thinking that there was still plenty of time.

That is where the problems started. The bride was initially told that the dresses would take 4-6 weeks, but when we went in in July she was told that it was in fact 12-16 weeks. But they could be rushed for 10-12, which we barely made.

So rather than hold up the process even one more day, I plunked down $225 to get my dress ordered.

The bride called the following monday (we had gone in on a Saturday, and couldn't get exact dates on when we could expect the dress to arrive) and after paying the rush fee was informed that my dress would be in the shop no later than Sep. 30th.

She called me and gave me the information, and at that time said that the person on the other end of the phone had been extremely rude.

So I waited a couple of weeks and with no word that there were any problems I went in and scheduled a fitting for today. I did it that far in advance because I know I would be in Socorro, and that today would be the only day I would have in Santa Fe to get it done. I explained when I made the appointment that this was the case, and the girls who took my information said no problem. There was no indication at that time that there was any problem whatsoever.

Another fast foward, to last Sunday. We (nikki and I) stopped in to make sure that there were no problems. All the other girls, who had ordered from elsewhere, had already recieved their dresses. So mine hadn't come in yet, but I was informed that it had been shipped the previous friday. Considering that it should had been shipped 2nd day (according to the lady I talked to today) I figured that there would be no problem with it having arrived by today.

So skip to today. No dress. It hadn't arrived yet.

And this is where today's title fits in.

All women have their inner bitch. Some of us manage to keep it hidden until needed, others keep it out in the open.

I'm of the first type, but the manager (owner?) of this little store was of the second.

I'm not one to let that little bitch out very often. I find that it gets hard to put back once loosed on the world, but today I had to either let it out or get walked all over.

The manager started talking down to me, and trying to blame the whole mess on the bride. No big deal, except that I knew she was lying, or at minimum didn't have a clue. I knew that the bride had been tearing her hair out because of this place for months. She had already tried to cancel my order and transfer it to a different place, but wasn't allowed to.

But the manager said that the reason it was held up was because the bride didn't inform them that the other girls had decided to go elsewhere. And that they then had to place my order at the last minute, and that was why it was late.

After about 10 minutes of being treated stupid by this lady we finally go over to the register so that I can at least try to get a refund on the alterations (since I'll have to get them done elsewhere). She then tells me that I still owed $25 for plus size. That's when I went off.

I'll admit that I'm plus size, but I paid in advance and made it clear that I knew I wasn't going to be able to afford anything else when I picked it up, so all charges were to be included in the initial cost. Since it wasn't I told them that I wouldn't pay it.

They tried to pull the we'll just take it out of the alteration fee thing, and then the 'well it says right here in the bride's contract...' thing. But I'd had enough. I made them give me back my whole alteration fee, and I hope that they don't try to charge the bride for the plus size.

Of course, I'm still left with the problem of having to get the dress altered now the day before the wedding.

I've already called the bride, since she has somebody down there she'll try to get me in with. And when she heard of all of this she's now thinking of calling the BBB and getting at least her rush fee back, since it wasn't in when they said it would be. And she confirmed what I already knew about how things played out on her end, and how they were lying to me.

I guess the biggest thing is how I was treated. I get tired of the business owners that get the attitude that they are doing you a favor by being in business. A paying customer should be respected, because without them the business would fail. And some of these people treat you like you should be thanking them for their problems.

And as for that little store, instead of references from me they will instead find that I will warn people to stay away.