Back in April of this year my daughter began the dress hunt for her wedding. After checking out several dresses she fell in love with an Alfred Angelo dress that she found at a local bridal boutique called “Katharina’s Bridal Boutique” (http://www.facebook.com/katharinasbridal) http://www.katharinasbridalboutique.com/

The dress that was on the rack was a couple of sizes too large and we were told that we would have to order in another because altering the one on the rack just wouldn’t be possible.   This doubled the cost of the dress (off the rack was roughly $500, the ordered in version was around $1000) but my daughter loved the dress so we asked for it to be ordered in.  We were told the arrival date would be around July 17th.

July 17th came and went and we heard nothing from Katharina’s, figuring things might be busy we held off from reaching out until July 22nd.   We began to send emails and left a few voicemails however none of the messages were returned.   Getting worried we went into the shop on the 28th and got a less than warm welcome.   Katharina (owner of the shop) seemed annoyed that we were pressing her for info on this dress and with a rolling of the eyes explained that she is at the mercy of the supplier and that she has since put a rush order on and that the dress will arrive on Aug 5th.   Why this couldn’t have been communicated in a reply to the voicemails and emails we sent was never explained.

August 9th we head in for a fitting as the dress has arrived. Looking forward to seeing her dream dress the bride was quickly in the corner in tears as not only did the dress arrive in the wrong size, it was the complete wrong dress model.   The wedding is now three weeks away and there is no dress.   Katharina’s response was less than empathetic instead choosing to blame the mistake on Alfred Angelo and saying there was little she could do about it.  In fact she was shocked that it was the wrong model.  I called my husband to come in and talk as I was furious and my daughter was in tears.   After an angry talk from my husband Katharina has agreed to the following:

1.   Full refund

2.   The model she has on the rack would be given free of charge.

As I mentioned earlier this dress was a couple of sizes too big and would require significant work to make it fit and look like it’s supposed to.  At this point we had obviously lost faith in the shop and it’s owner due to the lack of communication prior and the mess-ups. We agree to her deal of the refund and her attempting to correct the dress but since the wedding date is fast approaching we begin the search for a replacement dress.

We called several boutiques in the maritimes and ontario trying to find anyone who had that model of dress in her size.   The shop owners we were speaking to on the phone were incredibly helpful and we heard back from several of them in minutes and anyone we left voice mails for or emailed called back within hours – showing how customer service in the wedding industry should be.

Eventually we got in contact with the supplier that Katharina uses for her dresses and after speaking with them they revealed that the error was definitely on Katharina’s end – the model that was faxed to them is what was shipped.   They also knew of the mess-up as earlier that day (prior to our arriving at the shop) Katharina’s had been in contact with them.    This was frustrating as Katharina acted very “shocked” that the wrong dress had arrived as she obviously had known about it before we had even arrived.

The supplier contacted every shop in N. America looking for this dress however finding that model in that size seemed to be a losing battle. We gave up hope on the dream dress and started looking for a plan B.

We found one at Casleys (http://www.caseleys.com/).   While looking for a replacement dress we spoke with other bridal shops and mentioned what had happened.  one explained how complicated the process to modify the dress would be and said she had a seamstress with lots of experience and offered to do it for us for a very reasonable price.

We contacted Katharina’s and asked if she would release the dress to us unmodified and we would take it to our own seamstress.   We were told no – Katharina said she had seen this seamstresses work and wouldn’t release her dress to her.  Katharina’s seamstress was much better and she would release to no one else.

We agreed however at this point wanted no more to do with Katharina and asked that we only have  to deal with the seamstress and we would deal directly with her – we didn’t want to speak with Katharina or enter her shop again.   This was agreed on.

So now we have a dress we’ve purchased and another one off at Katharina’s seamstress that we honestly don’t have much hope in.

However a week later we get a call from Elizabeth Miner (Katharina’s seamstress) and it looks fantastic.  She some how had pulled it off, the only thing left was some beading and we could pick it up in a couple of days.

In this couple of day lapse we start hearing from other people who have had bad experiences with Katharina on facebook,  one of the threads sent to me had a very detailed story and several replies to it.  I replied to the thread stating that we also had some issues at this same boutique but didn’t really get into any details.

Once the beading is completed we get a phone call from Elizabeth saying the dress is done but she can’t release it to us, instead we now have to go back to Katharina’s – Elizabeth isn’t sure why but said she had heard something about facebook.

So we are three days away from the wedding and we go into Katharina’s for one last visit. I bring my son with me to do most of the talking as my frustration level is at an all time high and I’m not sure if I can be all that civil with the lady.

We ask for the dress and told that we will need to pay for alterations.   The reasoning was that Elizabeth wasn’t her employee and that if we were willing to have a our seamstress do it that we could pay for Elizabeth to do it.   After explaining that this was never communicated and a bit of arguing we got passed this point.

Then we got to the heart of the real issue.   Katharina had been informed about the facebook posts and had taken them very personally.  This lady, it seemed, had no ability to see the difference between a personal attack on her and a criticism of her business. She was very angry and started spouting off on how it was all slander and that she had contacted her lawyer and the RCMP.   My son explained she really needed to lookup what slander was and that he welcomed a letter from her lawyer.

She seemed most upset that in my particular comment I hadn’t told the ENTIRE story – by ENTIRE story what she meant was the part about the refund and free dress.

Still refusing to release the dress without payment on the Alterations she finally relented after my son pointed out to her that the wedding industry was 90% word of mouth and that if she thought facebook reached a-lot of islanders to think of what would happen when the story reached the journal or the guardian.

We walked out with the dress and a very sour taste over all dealings with this boutique and it’s owner.   We also left with a guilty feeling that the seamstress isn’t going to get paid for the excellent work she had done.    Katharina if you are reading this please reply and let us know that she did get paid for her work.

Morals of this story:

1.   If a mistake is made, regardless of whose fault it actually is – own the mistake.  Show empathy and instill confidence that you will make it all correct.   Weddings can be stressful enough we don’t need your issues piled on top.

2.  Stay in contact with your customers, a lot of these issues were magnified by the fact that we were in the dark during most of the time.

3.  When you make a deal to fix the issue – honor it without conditions.

4.  If you are criticized either give your side or take it on the chin.   You are in the service industry and people are going to talk. If you take everything as a personal attack you are going to burn out very quickly.

5.  Be careful what you wish for – you wanted the whole story and here it all is. an experience

So if after reading this if you are wondering what my recommendations are:

1.   Do not go to Katharina’s shop.  I would recommend ordering from sears before her – sears rarely gets my orders wrong and are very polite when I talk to them.

2.   I highly recommend Elizabeth Miner as a seamstress – she did an amazing job on a very difficult project in a compressed timeline.

Our newest Granddaughter has arrived : Brianne Margaret Ruby Wallace was born April 1st at 10 pm weighing in at 7 lbs 1 1/2 ozs.  She is adorable of course  have been so bad for updating this site, I guess now that we use Facebook all our new pictures get put on there and we forget to come update on here.

After weeks of rain the sun is trying half heartedly to shine, would be a great day to hang all this bedding out on the line that I’m washing, except for the fact it would be red with dust and grim if I did that, they are working on our street here have been now for almost 2 weeks!! I’ll be glad when they are done, I’m so tired of hearing all the buzzing, and beeping and crashing and banging of the big equipment out there EVERY day.

Brookie loves her baby sister very much.

Brookie is becoming a “big” girl she is pretty much potty trained now and doing GREAT !!  We have always praised her a lot when she went potty now when she goes on her own she’ll ask us.. ” Are you so proud of me?”

She is a real ham most of the time. always laughing and carrying on

Karla is doing a 1/2 birthday for her this weekend, its so hard to try to get all her little friends together at Christmas time so we thought why not do her actual party in the summer and let them all play outside with the pool and swingset and all that good stuff. And more of her friends can come since they aren’t all going places for Christmas.

Wendell celebrated his 50th birthday yesterday,  I got him an E-Reader that he had been looking at. I got one a while back and I love it!! so nice to have this nice little light thing with litterly hundreds of books in it rather than trying to get comfy in bed with a heavy hardcover book!

Karla goes for her orientation this month for corrections officer, she is so happy to be starting up in her field of work, hopefully after she gets going in that job she will be able to move on to Group homes for youth which is where she really would like to work.

Kevin and Shan arrive home today they are coming home for the weekend to get some wedding stuff done up. So they will be here for Brookie’s party as well.

not much news to report, we never did get anymore painting done to the house, we have to get at that again when we get back from our trip the end of this month. We still have all of the downstairs to do.

My Flowerbeds are in terrible need of some TLC but again hopefully next week I’ll be able to get out there and get them all tidied up.

Here are a couple pictures I did up using my Scrapbooking Boutique program that Wendell got for me.

We will try to get on here and update on a regular basis!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Brooke was here a couple times this week she is such a joy to have around. and yesterday right after she went home I got to spend an hour or so with my 2 grandnephews, they are just so sweet. Such good little boys to look after.

Jake and Logan playing with Uncle Wendell. Logan took a real shine to Uncle Wendell and was having a great time being bounced on his knee.

our bedroom before and after:

Brooke’s room before and after :

enjoying her “new room”

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods,, thanks for stopping by.

And now the After shots.

I finished work today at least for a few weeks. While I’m off I hope to get the whole house painted, change some rooms around a bit and de-clutter.

Karla wants me to come up for a day or two as well and help her get some meals made and put in the freezer for when the new baby arrives so she won’t be run completely off her feet.

This weekend I plan on going to Karla’s for a night or two and attend a Benefit for a friend of ours.

On Monday or Tuesday the painting will start !! Bathroom first, I will try to remember to take before and after pictures as we go.

April 8th is the date for the new grandbaby to arrive, I will likely be back to work at that time but will hopefully get to spend a few days helping Karla get settled with the new one. and hopefully get to have Brooke stay for a night or two while mama is in hospital, of course all this will depend on work and when baby decides to make her appearance

I quit smoking on Jan 10th, although I have had the odd one since then I’m doing very well this time around and hope that it will last !!

I plan on returning to some type of weight loss group in May when I’m done of work for the summer and work hard at getting back in shape ! I want to look good for Kevin and Shan’s Big day

Wendell is still fighting back issue’s but is back to work.

Brooke is growing like a weed !! and is loving having her mommy home with her ! I dare say Karla is glad to be home with her little girl too, she is enjoying being a stay at home mom right now.

Viv and I have been going to Vibe I started back there shortly after I quit smoking to try to keep from putting to much weight back on. I’m paid up till the 1st part of April.

Today was such a beautiful day out I got home at noon today and got some housecleaning done and then took Rudy for a walk hope the nice weather keeps up for the month of March as I will want to have windows open to keep the paint fumes at a minimum.

Will try to post updates more often.  I will try to get on and put before and after pictures of each room as we complete them

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

Thanks for stopping by !!

Although Kevin and Shan are unable to be home for Christmas day Kevin is making a quick trip home for a visit from the 17th till the 23rd so we’ll at least get to have him with us for  a few day prior to Christmas which is the next best thing.  Would be perfect if Shan was able to come too.

Karla went for her 3D Ultra sound on the 5th and found out we’re getting another granddaughter.

She even gave us a little smile.

2009 in the Millman household.

.

2009 started of with much sadness with the loss of

Wendell’s mom in January.As we moved into February

we got mothers apartment cleared out and tried to move forward.

In March to celebrate Karla’s Birthday, Karla, myself, Brooke and Earl

booked tickets and went to visit Kevin and Shan for a week.

We had a wonderful time and Brooke attended her first Maple Leafs hockey

game wearing her authentic Jersey her Uncle Kevin and Auntie Shan had given

her on the day she was born (Christmas Day 2007).

In April I returned to work for 7 weeks which brought us into May.

After finishing work in May Wendell and I jumped in the car

and drove up to visit Kevin and Shan, again we had a

wonderful time and took in a Blue Jays game which was an early

birthday present for Wendell.

Once back home we got into a schedule of babysitting Miss Brooke.

She kept us on our toes all summer and made the summer pass by

quickly with lots of love and laughs.

In July Karla and Earl made their announcement.

They found out they were expecting baby #2.

Our next granddaughter will arrive early April 2010.

In September we packed up yet again to hit the road,

this time with Vivian and Shelton.

We headed to Richmond Virginia where we took

in a whole weekend of NASCAR,

2 night races, Pit passes the whole nine yards!

On the way home we spent a day in the White Mountains

in New Hampshire. What a wonderful vacation it was!!

We arrived home and immediately got back into

enjoying our time with Brooke on a daily basis.

The last week of October I was recalled back to work.

Wendell on the other hand had by this time been off work

for almost a month due to back issues which he is still dealing

with, and with no idea when he will be free enough of pain

to return to work, he is currently undergoing physio therapy

and medications to help deal with the pain

at least enough to be comfortable.

We are now into December and counting down to

our 30th anniversary and awaiting Kevin’s arrival home

for a visit. As Shan is unable to come home this trip

Kevin won’t be here for Christmas day but he will be

here until the 23rd which is the next best thing !

Also Brooke will be turning 2 on Christmas day

so we will have her birthday party

while her Uncle Kevin is at home.

And that about wraps up our 2009 .

We are looking forward to 2010 as we have

two very exciting occasions coming.

1)the birth of our 2nd granddaughter

and  2) Kevin and Shan’s Wedding in Sept.

We wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!!