Company name: Le Grand Wedding
Address: Le Grand Wedding 79 Tanjong Pagar Road, Singapore 088500
Company service: Bridal Shop
Headline - Here is to the most infuriating experience I bride to be can ever go through
As I walked into the daintily decorated bridal shop along Tanjong Pagar Road, another bride-to-be was complaining bitterly. I should have taken this as my cue to look elsewhere, but a lady at the entrance of the shop who greeted me in a friendly manner, convinced me to stay. So, that's what I did and haven't spent a day not regretting this. This lady, Adora (who helped design my dress) has now left the company. She left in the middle of making the dress. Sure, this could not be helped, but the aftermath is the reason that I felt compelled to write this review, because it's only fair for all brides-to-be to know exactly what they are getting themselves into before they agree to give away their hard earned cash to poor, poor, poor service (notice I said poor not once, but three times!!!)
So, here's my horror story. With most establishments, it is normal practice to pay a portion of the cost of the dress first and the remaining portion upon satisfactory completion of the service. But NOT Le Grand. They want the money first and now that they have it, you have to sit in agony and chew your nails. Because they don't respond to emails.
Daniel, is quite frankly an incompetent buffoon. He doesn't seem to understand the basic concept of customer service. I once asked a question about the status of my dress. And in his response, which came a week later, he simply copied and pasted a generic response not even bothering to respond to my question. He just went on about me being the most beautiful bride ever. I simply just gave up. The stress of planning a wedding plus this nincompoop adding to it was not worth my energy.
I no longer live in Singapore and have relocated to Hong Kong. This just added to my stress and helplessness.
I sent another email in June (dress still being made) Ok. July? No response. August, silence. Fast forward to the present, I sent a series of emails asking why I had no news about the dress in September when the dress was meant to be ready by April. September!!!!!!!!!!!
Silence. Then, I sent another email to Daniel saying - "It's been four days now and no response!!!!!!!!!" I had to call from Hong Kong to tell the store to PLEASE ask Daniel to respond to my email. To add to that, I sent yet, another email.
Three days later, he responds, apologies all round.
He then explained that he couldn't contact me earlier because he had no way of contacting me since I was no longer in Singapore. So, I forwarded previous emails that I had sent to him directly before he finally admitted that I did write to him after all and HE DID HAVE MY EMAIL ADDRESS. Meaning he could indeed contact me if he wished. (See email below)
I did email you earlier, but my company email address was crashed thats why i couldnt get you and needed Adora to email you. I do apologise for the incovenient causes to you.
Meanwhile, your dress is ready though. I heard from Adora that your wedding date changed, probably when? For a made-to-measure gown, normally we would like our customers to do their fitting before collecton. I wonder do you able to make a trip down to Singapore in near future? Otherwise we will have to ship you the dress and the shipping fees will be covered by your side.
Do let me know what do you think.
Thanks
Bst Rgds,
Daniel
Ok, so send me the dress. NO, Daniel responds, you have to cover the shipping costs (smiley face).
Really??? Really?? After ignoring my emails, after this service, that's that?
I explained to him that it was unfair to force a client to pay upfront and not get the service. Other establishments agree for their customers to pay a part of the dress first and the remaining part upon satisfactory completion of the service.
I told him I will have to write a review, because people have to know.
He didn't like this and went on the attack:
"Because i force you to pay up front" this is a very harsh sentence to see with my eyes.
Firstly, my company did not force any of our customers to pay for anything before they decided to sign a deal with us.
Secondly, you are getting a customize dress from our company, full payment is applicable before we proceed with the production.
Thirdly, how do you judge our service and quality of product is not acceptable. We do understand your situation of not living in Singapore and you have to travel all the time around the world, when comes to arrangement of appointment, it was difficult. We hope you do understand you are getting not an off-the-rack item, we need you to be around to make adjustment, fitting and stuffs. This is how we guarantee all of our customers are getting a perfect wedding gown. Thus, service takes two hands to clap, you should not have put all the blame on us.
Last but not least, writing a review on news paper, somehow it does sounds like we are being threaten. On behalf of my company, we hope you are not serious about that, otherwise company will make an effort of following up inquiries.
Many Thanks,
Cheers,
I responded as follows:
You can put it like this "full payment is applicable before we proceed with the production." But, all this is saying is customers have to pay up front or you won't make the dress. Period. Whether I like the dress or not, or the service or not. This is forcing.
You may not like it, but this is what you are doing to your customers. You are making them pay up front and then you don't deliver the service.
Writing a review is important so that future customers know exactly what they are getting into before doing business with you.
Daniel asked me what other solution I had in mind. And I basically, told him that the service has been pretty unreliable and from email communication (and I am including the tardiness of the emails, and the way you write to me, etc) and the fact that the dress was supposed to be complete by April for July and it wasn't. I told him to:
"please spare me any more grief. Complete the dress, and I will make the final fittings in Hong Kong after you've sent me the dress so I no longer have to deal with your company. That's the only solution I can think of. The alternative would be asking for a full refund."
He said he would check with management and get back to me. Then a few minutes later, he send me the below email:
Your MTM dress supposes to be self-collected and it does not include shipping fees, insurance and also any import or/ export tax.
Your dress is ready for collection since 26th of July. So do let me know when are you coming down for collection.
Many Thanks.
So, I still have no dress. I don't even have a picture of the dress. We are now mid-September and no dress. They keep telling me, the dress is complete, it is not yet complete, it is complete. I have no idea.
I seriously don't recommend this bridal store. Ladies, if you are looking to make a wedding dress and go past "Le Grand Wedding" on Tanjong Pagar Road, just keeping walking ---Fast. Don't look in, don't even bat an eyelid just keep on moving to the next store before you get burned like I did.