I went on April 18th to buy my dress from David's bridal in Modesto CA, it was the last dress of its kind, fit almost perfectly, I just wanted the long sleeves cut off to make a short off-the-shoulder sleeve and the fabric near the armpits and chest and some in the back cut since it was bunching up, as well as hemming because it was too long.
The first time we went for alterations on May 27th, the seamstress agreed to the changes I wanted, although the alterations all came out to almost $900, I agreed because I thought it was worth it and they'd do a professional job.
The second time I went, (first alterations pickup/fitting) on July 28th, the neckline had somehow risen to create a boat neckline instead of a straight neckline. I asked for it to be let out on the sleeves since I thought that they had taken in the sleeves too much and that had created the pull from straight to boat. The length was also still a little bit too long, and the fit overall was too tight.
I came back today, August 4th at 1:30pm and the dress was much more comfortable, but the boat neck remained and there was still some bunching up in the back. The head seamstress told me to come back in 3 hours and she'd have it ready.
I came back at 5pm same day, and was hoping my dress would be good to go since it wasn't anything too complicated to fix. When I went in, she said she had safety pinned it instead of sewed to make sure it was right, to which I thought "okay, I guess I can't take it home today but atleast she won't have to unsew or anything if it's still not right"
So I tried it on, and the zipper DID NOT GO UP. When I went in before the fit of it was nice and it wasn't tight, only the buched up fabric in the back and the sleeves needed to be corrected, but suddenly it couldn't even zip up. So we called her in, and she claimed that it was "my lunch". She basically told me it was my fault for eating lunch and that's why it couldn't zip up because she claimed she didn't do anything to my dress. There is NO WAY I gained so much weight that the zipper that went up comfortably 3 hours prior wouldn't even close. She forced the zipper closed and claimed it was okay when it was so tight I probably couldn't even sit comfortably.
At this point we were getting upset, although I remained kind to her. She started to argue with us and said "I'm the seamstress, I know what I'm doing" and proceeded to tell us that she'd loosen it up but if we felt it was too loose the next time she'd charge us $75 more.
Aside from it being too tight, the boat neck remained. Granted, she had pulled it down and loosened the sleeves so it wasn't as obvious anymore but it still wasn't a straight off the shoulder look as it was when I first bought the dress, and if I tried to pull the sleeves into the correct position they just kept coming back up.
In my opinion, the reason it felt tight was because she had pulled the whole dress down so the boat neck wouldn't be so high up and so the sleeve and neckline rested closer to my collarbone like it did originally, but by pulling it down she pulled the whole waist down, and obviously my hips are wider than my waist, so it felt tight on my belly now. But when I tried to explain that to her, she refused to listen to me and insisted that she was right rather than acknowledging that she made some sort of mistake.
At this point, three weeks before my wedding, I don't even wanna deal with David's Bridal anymore or do any more alterations fittings so I'm trying to get a full refund for the dress and the alterations. It's absurd to me that I'm paying $900 for these alterations, PLUS $1045 for the actual dress, but not only did the alterations manager disrespect me but also couldn't perform the one task I asked repeatedly, which was giving me back the straight neck that was originally on the dress, and the whole reason why I bought the dress in the first place.