And The Award For Customer Service Goes To...

It is this week’s conclusion that if the men out there in the industry who think they know everything are ‘Wedding Wankers’, then the women who believe they are a monarch of all things matrimonial are potentially the ‘Bridal Bitches’. I was actually somewhat offended on the weekend when I was shopping for wedding gowns. I suppose I should have known better when the owner got a bit too free with the “darl” in conversation at the time the appointment was made. To be honest, I don’t actually have a problem with people calling me darl in general but when its patronising I kind of want to point out that I was given a name and if they’re too stupid to remember it then I will quite happily give them leave to write it down on a piece of paper so they can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine and maybe that will help them remember. I would never do that of course but the thought has run across my mind once or twice…

So I was asked if I had been to any other stores, tried on any other gowns and if I had found anything that struck my fancy so to speak. I recounted a couple to make it known that I had already begun my search and intimated that I had a vague idea but I was still looking at options. I also described one dress that I had really liked. I mentioned that the dress was from a well known bridal designer in the centre of the city, how the dress was styled and fitted and finally the colour which happened to be bright red. Without a pause, the owners automatic response was, and I quote “Oh Yuk!”. Far be it from me to tell you how to run your business and treat your customers lady but it has been my experience that out in the commercial world, a lot of businesses and owners alike are devotees of the axiom that the customer is always right. Regardless of your personal opinions and preferences, red is not an unheard of colour at weddings and is in fact traditional for the Chinese, you have not seen the dress either by itself or on me so you really do not have an accurate basis on which to judge and you just blatantly insulted my taste since I had already told you I liked the gown in question. Where did you learn your manners? In the barnyard?

Unfortunately it didn’t really a great deal better from there either. After I had tried on a few gowns, she proceeded to insinuate that I had a fat bottom! I am actually not a big woman by any means (or so I thought). I have been told previously that I have a tiny waist however I was blessed with hips. As a result, no matter how much I exercise or lose weight (and conversely gain weight), I will pretty much be one dress size bigger on my lower half than I am on the top half. I actually quite like having curves though and are not opposed to showing them off in a dress but I was advised that given my body shape, I really need to keep an open mind and should be looking at a style than minimises my backside. Now that I have looked at her gowns and found that most (but not all) were too tight over my hips, I should be a little more “realistic” about the options that are available to me. So once again I was clearly wrong. I am apparently one of those fat girls who secretly thinks she’s a size 6. Irrespective of the fact that every other bridal attendant has advised me that they would order in the dress size that fit my hips and would take in the bust where necessary, I now have it on good authority that I won’t look at all attractive in that type of dress and I should cut my losses and go for something else. Beggars can’t be choosers apparently. They certainly can’t be prudish either.

Now it’s a damn good thing that I have come to terms with my fat posterior and none too buxom assets as there didn’t seem much of an option for modesty with this particular woman. As I soon found out when I started wedding dress shopping, you frequently find yourself standing in changing rooms with an attendant in nothing but your knickers. As you go from dress to dress (and your rear end is a little gravitationally challenged) the dresses need to go on and come off over the head. As they are also so much more expensive, awkward and sometimes delicate than you’re average t-shirt, someone else needs to actually dress you. Now most of the other attendants who have dressed me have made as much allowance as they can for a customer’s modesty. They have allowed me to undress and face the wall or have threaded their arms through the top of the dress, right down to the hem of the skirt, and raised it high in front of them so I could pretty much dive into the dress without being seen until the dress was covering what it should. This woman on the weekend however would watch me stand with my arms over my chest and pick up most of the skirt and reach out her arms just below chest height. She would then stop so I had to lower my arms to pick up the rest of the skirt in order to slip the gown on over my head. She pretty much made it impossible for me to avoid flashing my breasts at her. Now as I said, I have come to terms with my figure and this is not something that has mortified me completely but I thought that she might pick up on some of the physical cues that I wasn’t entirely comfortable. Then again she did come across as having a few screws loose so I don’t know why I expected more.

I clearly have to work on my unreasonable expectations.