Website Reviews

Many websites have a couple or more customer reviews showing. While they may well be genuine there’s really no guarantee of this. In fact it’s all too easy to have a friend write a review or to even sign up to another Facebook or Google identity and make direct reviews by the owner. All I can say about the value of these reviews is, Be Wary. A similar approach can be taken by a competitor to send a critical review on someone else’s shop. Of course you’d never know so the way to perhaps come to a useful opinion is to look at the majority of the reviews to work out why, when most reviews carry a five star rating, it suddenly drops to a very low level from just one person. The link to our own reviews are those posted by Google notifications which include an “identity” of the reviewer. And I “keep” all the notifications so can always refer back to them.

Alterations

Our alterations service is undertaken by a professional seamstress/dressmaker. Her measuring and fitting takes place within our shop and is carried out at her place of work. She is an exceptional seamstress and her work is guaranteed by us. We believe that such alterations should be underwritten by the shop from where the outfits were bought but also believe that this is rarely the case. You can get the full service from ourselves from choosing the most suitable outfit right through to the final alterations. Add on the matching shoes, bag, hat purchase or hire and we are truly a one-stop shop

Price Match

While there are some amazing bargains in our shop, and most styles being very competitive in price, you may well see something somewhere else that has a lower price. We will match that price, including any costs for postage, on a like for like basis. We will extend this offer to those shops who are official stockists only. We would require proof of price in the form of an official email from the supplier or a quotation by letter.

Foreign “Chinese” and unofficial suppliers

You will inevitably have found some mother of the bride type outfits from various “overseas” websites in your online searches AS WELL AS SOME ON eBay. They will almost certainly have pictures of styles taken from the actual designer’s website which adds a certain validity to the ridiculously low prices shown. BE AWARE. THEY ARE ALMOST INEVITABLY SCAMS. You will get a shock if you dare to order one. If it arrives, and that’s a BIG IF, it will more than likely be of such poor quality it will best be used as a bin liner. You will not be able to return it for refund, and in most cases payment is made by a means where you cannot instigate a “chargeback” The supplier always has a get- out of sorts. Just looking at one typical site and clicking on a rather luxurious evening gown, the RRP is said to be £406.50 BUT IS NOW at ONLY £96.75………. OH YEAH????? Just be wary and if in any doubt check out the purchase via the official manufacturer’s office. Bearing in mind the first comments about online reviews, most of these sites also do their own reviews or have someone do them as a professional service so don’t be taken in by them. Still not sure? Then here’s the site I visited. All the reviews are 5 star BUT then do a Google search for the company and add in “Scam” and here’s what you get. A visit to Facebook will give you honest consumer opinions. Some time ago, my husband was the UK agent for the Franc Sarabia and Manu Alvarez collections and we did stock them at that time. We took orders from all over the world and one of them comes immediately to mind. A lady called Pinky Omotoye from Minnesota, USA e- mailed for a Trajano, picture below in silver/blue. She had already paid for a Tirano from a typical “Chinese” type website and got a real shock. Pictures say better. One final word on this. Even if you think you can risk it as being such a stupidly low price so that it won’t hit your purse much anyway, well you probably won’t have it delivered until you are so close to your planned day of use that you won’t have time to look for a proper outfit.

SOMEONE ELSE HAS THE SAME OUTFIT

It doesn’t happen too often but sometimes you may find that, let’s say, the mother of the groom has bought an identical or almost identical style as the mother of the bride. Perhaps a guest has something too close for comfort as well. We know of not another shop who will offer to exchange a style for one of the same or higher price in these circumstances. We however offer this to a customer with some exceptions mostly to do with the original purchase price against the current selling price (sale prices included). We cannot do it if the style transcends into another season. ie a style from the spring cannot be exchanged in the autumn as we will have to more or less reduce it’s price immediately and put it on sale. Exchanges are done on an outfit being as new when returned. This includes that all extras such as belts etc are with it, and it must be fresh, ie not smelling of smoke in household where smoking takes place. This service is unique among specialist retailers for the mother of the bride and groom, unless you know of someone else that I don’t know about.

News & Views from Norma & June’s

The home of the best mother of the bride outfits and collections for special

occasions

Website Reviews

Many websites have a couple or more customer reviews showing. While they may well be genuine there’s really no guarantee of this. In fact it’s all too easy to have a friend write a review or to even sign up to another Facebook or Google identity and make direct reviews by the owner. All I can say about the value of these reviews is, Be Wary. A similar approach can be taken by a competitor to send a critical review on someone else’s shop. Of course you’d never know so the way to perhaps come to a useful opinion is to look at the majority of the reviews to work out why, when most reviews carry a five star rating, it suddenly drops to a very low level from just one person. The reviews posted here are taken from my Google notifications which include an “identity” of the reviewer. And I “keep” all the notifications so can always refer back to them.

Price Match

While there are some amazing bargains in our shop, and most styles being very competitive in price, you may well see something somewhere else that has a lower price. We will match that price, including any costs for postage, on a like for like basis. We will extend this offer to those shops who are official stockists only. We would require proof of price in the form of an official email from the supplier or a quotation by letter.

Web-scams

You will inevitably have found some mother of the bride type outfits from various “overseas” websites in your online searches AS WELL AS SOME ON eBay. They will almost certainly have pictures of styles taken from the actual designer’s website which adds a certain validity to the ridiculously low prices shown. BE AWARE. THEY ARE ALMOST INEVITABLY SCAMS. You will get a shock if you dare to order one. If it arrives, and that’s a BIG IF, it will more than likely be of such poor quality it will best be used as a bin liner. You will not be able to return it for refund, and in most cases payment is made by a means where you cannot instigate a “chargeback” The supplier always has a get- out of sorts. Just looking at one typical site and clicking on a rather luxurious evening gown, the RRP is said to be £406.50 BUT IS NOW at ONLY £96.75………. OH YEAH????? Just be wary and if in any doubt check out the purchase via the official manufacturer’s office. Bearing in mind the first comments about online reviews, most of these sites also do their own reviews or have someone do them as a professional service so don’t be taken in by them. Still not sure? Then here’s the site I visited. This is a Condici 70889 rip-off that retails here for around £750 . So even though this company shows up prominently on most Google searches for mother of the bride dresses they are paying to get placement on such searches, and scamming you. They claim to have a refund policy but they are in china, so you would have no control over that. These people are ruthless. In fact they sometime promise a refund but then you have to write a 4 or 5 star review to qualify for it, but there’s no evidence that people get even the partial refund they were promised afterwards. See this about the same company from a review page posted by a lady who had previously given them a 1 star review: Some time ago, my husband was the UK agent for the Franc Sarabia and Manu Alvarez collections from Seville and we did stock them at that time. We took orders from all over the world and one of them comes immediately to mind. A lady called Pinky Omotoye from Minnesota, USA e-mailed for a Trajano, picture to the bottom left, in silver/blue. She had already paid for a Tirano shown to the right, from a typical “Chinese” type website and got a real shock as depicted on the other pictures shown.

OUCH, SOMEONE ELSE HAS THE SAME

OUTFIT AS MINE

It doesn’t happen too often but sometimes you may find that, let’s say, the mother of the groom has bought an identical or almost identical style as the mother of the bride. Perhaps a guest has something too close for comfort as well. We know of not another shop who will offer to exchange a style for one of the same or higher price in these circumstances. We however offer this to a customer with some exceptions mostly to do with the original purchase price against the current selling price (sale prices included). We cannot do it if the style transcends into another season. ie a style from the spring cannot be exchanged in the autumn as we will have to more or less reduce it’s price immediately and put it on sale. Exchanges are done on an outfit being as new when returned. This includes that all extras such as belts etc are with it, and it must be fresh, ie not smelling of smoke in household where smoking takes place. This service is unique among specialist retailers for the mother of the bride and groom, unless you know of someone else that I don’t know about.

A risky business

I really can’t emphasise enough about ordering goods from outside the UK. Pinky ordered from a Chinese website that had .com on the end of it to give it an impression of it being from the USA. As she lives in Minnesota she saw no risk attached. BUT IT IS CHINESE…….. Anyone can buy a domain name with .com or .co.uk or .es for example : Even the Chinese, and a website domain isn’t expensive. The picture was a genuine one from the designer’s own website they ripped off so giving it an air of authenticity. The outfit she bought from us is shown with her wearing it at her sister’s wedding. She was delighted with it. On the other hand the one she ordered in the light brown arrived too late and was a real horrific mish-mash of poor quality taffeta with no lining in it. You may notice on the bottom of the “official picture” the embellishment of DHGate. This is where I got the picture from and this company is just one of dozens all scamming people. I’ll give you a tip. If you browse onto a site using Google Chrome and do a right click on a picture then choose “search Google for image” this is what you get. I have seen this on a Chinese site selling at £115. The normal retail price is £895. Suspiciously low? Of course it is. BEWARE

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