RE: To Janise and Peter Arena I am writing(…)

My wife is a bridesmaid in a friends wedding. She has been having some problems with her dress and the place is completely unresponsive. If you life in the SEMI (South Eastern Michigan), we do not recommend you give them your business. They even messed up some of the brides stuff.

To Janise and Peter Arena;
I am writing this letter concerning the dress that I received from Arena
Bridal Salon on Saturday, August 6th, as well as the situation surrounding the
ordering of this dress and response that I received from your staff. I am a
member of Genevieve Crawford’s wedding to be held on the 25th of September in
2005 and ordered the Bill Levkoff style 354 in Euro Navy.
I arrived in your salon on April 30, 2005 to be fitted for the dress, as well
as to put down a payment. I was measured by a member of your staff directly in
the lobby while still fully clothed in a sweater and jeans. After having worked
with various wedding salons due to the three previous weddings in which I stood
as well as my own wedding, I felt that this was rather inappropriate and would
skew my measurements. I should have been taken into a dressing room and
measured without my clothing to ensure the proper size dress would be ordered.
When I expressed my concerns about this, I was assured by the saleswoman that
the measurements would be adjusted for my clothing. However, she never told me
what the measurements taken were and what size she would be ordering. I
explained that in every other bridesmaid dress by various designers I have
worn, I have always ordered a size six. Unfortunately, I felt as if this
explanation was brushed aside when the saleswoman informed me that every
designer has different size charts and my dress would be ordered based on that.
I was not fully reassured by this explanation, and so asked to try on the
dress. The only available model dress in this style was a size 10, which
promptly fell off without manually holding it up. The dress was obviously at
least two sizes too large, and the saleswoman agreed that a size 10 would be
wholly inappropriate and that I should have a size 6 ordered. I finally felt
that the dress would be correctly ordered and so paid for it in full.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. When a different saleswomen than the
one I worked with previously brought out the dress marked as mine, I
immediately knew just by looking at it that it was too large. I was extemely
upset by this as I felt that the matter was fully settled when I paid for the
dress: that a size 6 would be ordered and not the size 10 that was being given
to me. After expressing my concerns about this, I was finally told the
measurements that were written down for me; the saleswoman did not compensate
for taking my measurements when I was fully clothed and so only the measurement
taken for the bust was correct, both the waist and the hips were three inches
too large! The saleswoman did not respond to my concerns and so I asked to put
on the dress in the hopes of showing her that the dress was incorrect and so
being able to come to a solution as to what should be done concerning your
salon’s error. Upon trying on the dress, I encountered the same difficulties
as with the model tried on in April: the top of the dress fell down below my
bra unless I held it up with both hands. At this point, my husband, who had
accompanied me, also became very upset that I even appeared out in the lobby
while wearing this dress.
Unfortunately, we seemed to be the only people that were upset by this
situation as I was offered absolutely no apology or solutions to this problem
other than a list of seamstresses in the area. As I live south of Ann Arbor, I
was offered no help and was told to find a seammstress myself and get the dress
taken down two sizes. I felt as if the saleswoman’s error during my fitting
was being pushed off on me as my problem. I was so upset by this utter
disregard to customer service, that I left so as not to cause a scene in front
of your other customers.
I have since been unable to find a seamstress in my town that is able to
basically remake the entire dress, I feel that help should have been offered in
this regard. I am also a graduate student at the University of Michigan and am
living on very limited funds from which I budgeted purchasing the dress and
paying for it to be hemmed up; I cannot afford to purchase a new dress or to
pay for the major alterations it will take to repair the error, nor do I feel
as if I should when the error was not mine. I feel that the size 10 should be
exchanged for the appropriate size 6, the size I was assured I would receive.
If this is not possible as the dress is needed for September 25, I feel that
Arena Bridal should take over the responsibility of altering the dress down to
a size 6. I have quite a few friends and family members that will be looking
for bridal salons for themselves in the near future and I would really like to
be able to tell them that despite my initial difficulties, Arena Bridal would
be a good choice for them. I would also really like to solve this problem
ourselves,
rather than having to make a formal complaint against your business. I
appreciate a timely response to this matter so that we can solve the problem as
soon as possible. I can be reached between the hours of 8 am and 6pm weekdays,
as well as Saturdays in my laboratory at XXX-XXX-XXXX, and after hours on my
cell phone at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to putting this issue to rest,