Lottie

Have a good one gorgeous! xXx

Sadly its not for a good reason though.

As many of you know i got married to Rufe just over a month ago.

Ive had major issues with my wedding dress and basically, so have 11 other brides...

It all started when i walked into the shop, saw my dress and put the deposit down.

She said this was one her designs so wouldnt have to pay for alterations as it will be made by her specifically for me and would be a perfect fit.

After i paid the deposit, she was on the phone every month demanding payments from me which were paid. When asked for reciepts, she had run out of paper work or 'mislaid it' or left it all in the car. I could never pay by card, always had to be in cash. I knew something wasn't right then but at the time it was not a major issue.

After making the final payment, didn't hear from her again.

Well coming up to the wedding about 2 months before, i heard a rumor that she had done a runner so i tried to ring her, no answer, tried several times a day for a week and after that week the phone line went dead.

Obviously panic set in, Rufe did some digging and managed to get her number for the lady who owned the premises this woman was renting. Called her, she seemed very taken back that i had managed to get hold of her number and made an appointment for a final fitting for 6 weeks before the wedding.

She cancelled that appointment as she was ill, bearing in mind i had rang her an hour before to make sure it was ok, she couldnt even tell me she couldnt make it. Re-arranged for next week, she cancelled that as she had a funeral, again, this was after i rang her an hour before. The week after she was ill again and didnt tell me and i finally saw her 2 weeks before the wedding.

At which point she told me at her new unit which she failed to tell me she had moved to a new premises, my dress would not arrive till the week of the wedding which it could be too late if it needed to be altered as it was coming from America. This was after she told me this was her dress that designed and would be making!

She said not to worry she would make it and had to do the same for some other brides too.

So i was there, every other day more or less getting measured and the dress slowly started taking shape. The friday before the wedding it was nearly finished and she asked if i could come back the next day at 6pm, the night before the wedding to pick the dress up as she had a new layer to add on and some blending of the dress to do.

This unit must have been left un used for I don’t know how long, it stank of damp and cat pee, there were pins all over the floor and it was infested in flies. My final dress stank and I had to use a full bottle of febreeze to get the stench out. It was stomach turning.

Well i picked it up and i was gobsmacked. The dress had been left exactly as it was, no stitching done, the pins left in the dress and i just broke down in tears. She had nothing to say and didnt even apologise.

Whilst i was crying, my friend was looking around tesco as the design of the original dress had a swarovski crystal broach on the hip and the way this woman had left it was just hanging material which looked awful. My friend popped down to tesco, had to buy a headband with a flower on it, cut if off the headband and we had to sow it onto the dress to make it look half decent.

Whilst I was in the dress, it started falling apart in my hands. The top had come away from the bottom, the sewing came apart, the dress started fraying and all the crystals started coming off in my hands.

It was now 8pm the evening and I had to leave there with what I can only describe as something that looked like a bed sheet. When I put it on in the morning, it felt like I had cut a hole in a bed sheet and stuck it over my head.

The finished ‘dress’ was nothing like I paid for, colour was wrong, style, shape, everything was just wrong.

After we left the unit, my friend rang her nan and the lady that altered her daughter (my god daughter and flower girl) dress happened to be with her nan. She told her all about it and this lovely woman said bring her down and we will try and sort something out for you.

Well travelled for nearly 2 hours and got there and this woman was in sheer disbelief at the dress that had been made. She couldn’t believe the state of it. The dress was ripped, the pins had been left in it, the quality of the material was awful and it was just all over shocking.

Well this lady did all she could could for me and refused any money off me and just did it out of sheer kindness. If it wasn’t for her, I couldn’t have walked down the aisle in that ‘dress’. I didn’t get home till 1/2am the day of my wedding after I had a planned a night in for me and the bridesmaids with some wine and pizza. That didn’t obviously happen!

All the way home all I could think was ill have to bleach one of my long dresses in the morning. You shouldn’t be thinking that after you had picked up your dress.

Anyway, got married, the day itself was amazing and couldn’t have been anymore perfect but the fact that I had a dress which was falling apart played on my mind all day.

Well all I have been trying to do since that is get a refund on my dress.

My friend called me the other night with some news on this woman as she had just disappeared, and came back with a number for a lady who had gone through exactly what I had done with the wrong dress, not arriving in time and having to have a dress made for her.

Basically after a long conversation, she advised that 10 other brides have gone through exactly the same thing. They had ordered paid for her dress and she tells them weeks before its stuck in customs, makes them a dress and it’s the wrong one.

She said that the BBC1 Wales programme called X-ray was filming her and the other brides to get their stories across and said she would pass on my number.

So had a call from the producer, said what happened and she asked me to attend which I did.

So got to the location of the interviews last night which happened to be where I had my wedding reception and left there at 11pm last night.

The stories I heard last night were so sad. She has ripped so many people off. 1 poor girl to the sum of £7000 and she wont even be getting her dresses and now has to find new ones and come up with more money. One girl didn’t even have a dress and only found out 3 days before she was getting married, the other was having her pictures done in the dress and a hole appeared where she had tried to hand stitch a 2 stone skirt to the bodice so she had to change into a different outfit completely and couldn’t wear her dress for the evening and some pictures.

It basically turns out this woman has been ripping people off for years, ripped off other dress makers and designers and also failed to declare any of her earning so has been ripping off the tax man.

I was going to take her to court as I haven’t had nothing from her but 2 of the brides have taken her to court and she hasn’t paid a penny to them.

I know I wont get anything off her now but hopefully, this programme will show her up for the thief, con woman and scum that she is and she will never trade again and put someone else through what we had to go through.

And I hope the tax man sends her down!

If not, ill be sending her 6ft under if I ever lay eyes on her lol.

Sorry about the long story but I had to get it out of my system ha.

Hope you have had a lovely day
xxx