To Dearest Alice and Her Amazing Staff at Sposabella Couture:
My First Wedding Anniversary was this week on June 25, 2012. I wore a simply elegant dress to my ceremony and reception held last year on Saturday, June 25, 2011 (2012 is a Leap Year!). My Wedding Dress was a work of art because of Alice and the Sposabella Staff. I want thank you, Alice, and your Staff for turning me into an unbelievably beautiful, glowing, and radiant Middle-Age Bride! My dress, created by you, was indescribably gorgeous! It took my breath away and brought me to tears -- through all of its incarnations, the trials and tribulations.
To Anyone who might be reading this, please take note and take this post to heart. You may not think that my writing about my Wedding Gown purchase from Sposabella is something important for me to write about and/or post; but, you could not be more wrong! The original Sposabella Bridal Couture Shop in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was destroyed by an electrical fire back at the End of Summer/Beginning of Fall 2010! It was a nightmare scene and scenario for Alice, her Staff, and the loss of a significant portion of the inventory and merchandise in the store. From that moment forward and until June 2011, enterprising Alice and her equally brave and stoic staff endeavoured to beg, borrow and bounce from one space to another in order to continue to purchase/replace/alter/store gowns for her brides/mothers of the brides/bridal parties, her prom attendees, her Sweet Sixteen/Quinciniera debutantes, and her Bat Mitzvah/First Communion/ Confirmation Celebrants -- and anyone else who needed a gorgeous couture gown for her special occasion.
Those were trying times: Alice had to accommodate the needs of her staff, as well as those of her then current and new clients; move around to work in some of the most unconventional and "interesting" spaces to meet/greet/fit her clients and her suppliers; argue/fight/plead/ with the FDNY, the insurance companies, current and future landlords; search for a new location and negotiate with realtors, landlords, and various contractors; retrieve and receive her inventory from various storage locations; and deal with some understanding clients and some truly mean ones (I am being kind to those of you who fall into the latter category!) -- all to keep her business going, her clientele satisfied and her staff employed.
Alice did it all. I was one of her clients (and a return client many times over) during this period of loss and insanity. Yet, Alice and her staff managed to work through all this -- they cried on the inside, but remained professional and personable on the outside. Through all the insanity that they faced, my wedding gown was altered, cleaned, pressed and delivered to my hands on Friday, June 24, 2011 -- one day before my wedding and at her store's new location on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn; it officially opened to great fanfare and welcome on Sunday, June 26, 2011...one year ago today!
You may not believe this story...but it is 100% true! Thank you, Alice and the Staff of Sposabella Couture, for providing me with a fairy-tale couture wedding gown; for helping to make my wedding a dream come true; and, mostly, for never giving up when you could have just walked away. If you want a collection of first-rate, beautiful gowns, courteous and attentive service, and a tastefully appointed showroom, shop at Sposabella Couture!
To Alice and the Staff: HAPPY FIRST ANNIVERSARY!!!
Love Always,
Shawn Simpson-Smith (Ficarra)