I have worked in the Bridal industry since I was a junior in
high school(1997). I remember the first time I went to press a veil and the
iron was too hot and burned a hole right in the middle of it. My heart sank and
I thought for sure I had just lost my first job, lucky for me it was a sample
veil for the store and I had really understanding bosses. We are all human and
we make mistakes. Fast forward to today, I am now the manager of the Margene’s
Bridal in Boise and the lessons from that day burning a hole in a veil still
ring true, we are all human and mistakes happen. While it is never
our goal as a store to mislead a customer in anyway, make a promise we cannot
keep or worse order the wrong dress for a customer, we are human we make
mistakes.
We learn from our mistakes and try to make sure they never
happen again. We put systems in place to check orders, double check and triple
check but if a number or letter gets inverted or left off you get a completely different
dress than you wanted.
We also put our trust in the companies we order from that
their systems are in place to prevent mistakes from happening. Together we trust the person actually making the dress that they will follow the pattern and replicate the fabric, inner-construction, beading and other embellishments they same as the sample that we have in the store and then they will ship it out when they say they will and to the correct addresses.
One human mistake in the whole chain and it is not a happy day.
It is how we handle the mistakes that happen that defines
us. We never intentionally want to ruin anyone’s special day and let me tell
you the mere thought of causing stress to someone with a dress not coming or
coming incorrectly is hard on us. We are emotionally invested in all of our
customers and when you look good we look good.
I experienced disappointment when it came time to pick out
my own wedding gown. For years I had loved a particular gown and knew that when
I got married that was the dress I wanted. When my boyfriend and I started
talking about getting married, I knew how long shipping could take and decided
placed the order for my dream dress and then as to not jinx it, forgot about
it. We got engaged shortly thereafter and I was so excited to get my dream
dress. What happened next was not the dream situation. I had not gotten a
confirmation number back on my dress and called to see when it would be coming.
Well it wasn’t, the factory had thrown away the pattern, couldn’t get the lace
any longer and wasn’t willing to try to make my dream dress. I was devastated.
I didn’t want to even think about trying on another dress, and here I was going
to work everyday surrounded by amazing, beautiful dresses and I couldn’t even
pick one. I was heartbroken that I wasn’t going to get married in what I had
been dreaming about for years!
The story has a happy ending, a month before my wedding with
no dress yet, a miracle happened. Six months prior our owner had traveled as
part of the design team to Taiwan to work on the new collection of dresses, she
had decided to go ahead and place an order based on sketches with no actual
samples produced yet. One of the dresses came in, it was my size
and when I put it on it didn’t need a single alteration, not even a hem(I am
5’4 on a good day and certainly not a sample size). I had a dress to get
married in and it was all good!
I have experience disappointment firsthand and would NEVER
want to intentionally cause any customer to go through what I did. My heart
breaks when the occasional mistake happens and we try to make it right before
the customer even knows something is wrong. Sometimes mistakes can’t be fixed
and that is even more heartbreaking.
It is my hope that we always live up the expectations from
our customers and that when we fall short they understand that we are human and
mistakes can happen. We will do everything we can to make the situation right and at the end of the day we want the best for our customers.
Jaylee
