Big retailers in trouble including David's Bridal.....

I had a horrible experience with both chains when I was shopping (both within 10 mins of my house). I ended up buying an AA dress at a family owned salon an hour away. It was about $600 cheaper than the AA store when everything was done. Definitely agree with supporting family owned shops.

I had a great experience a DB when I bought my dress. This morning was my first fitting there and again, had a great experience! I hate it for all the AA brides that have been put in a bad position and are now stressed!

I had an OK experience at DB. the 2 things that weren't "awesome" was that after an hour they were ready to kick me out. But it was a saturday and having a job where saturday was the main day for business and super busy, i understood. The other thing was, even though the dresses i said I wanted to try on were all around $500, they ended up bringing the last one priced at $1008, a brand new gown. .... unfortunately it's THE dress. It fit perfectly, it had every single thing i ever dreamed of when I thought i was being too demanding of details, and quite frankly didn't think it actually existed. But we couldn't afford it. We are waiting to see if it goes on sale once it's not considered "new" anymore.

At AA the next week, i had INCREDIBLE service. they were willing to let me stay as long as i needed and when they realized i wasn't falling in love with anything and there was at DB, they urged me to go get the dress that made me happy. They also worked with my budget (DB didnt ask me my budget and that was one of the first things AA asked me)

Luckily, I hadnt purchased anything from AA besides brides maid swatches... but my wedding is far enough in advance that its not a big deal. Unfortunately, there were so many that were affected. a really good friend of mine was supposed to receive her dress in August (her wedding is in May) and she's stuck playing the waiting game.

When I saw a post that DB might be in the same fate, i started to panic. I think if something does happen, it won't be the whole company id one fell swoop, but the smaller individual stores to go first.

Hey OP, can I just say I LOVE Clark.com?? Clark Howard is an amazing consumer guru!

But yeah, most of these large chains are getting too big for their financial britches, but I hate to say it, we (the brides) and the bridal industry are to blame. We want more choices, more variety, and exactly what we want without compromise. That means more overhead. More overhead means more money. It is a vicious cycle.