Distinctive Designs Bridal

Bottom line up front: Buying a wedding dress from this store was the worst decision I’ve made throughout the duration of my wedding planning. The story is a long one, so please bear with me.
In March 2012, I excitedly began my search for The Dress. I found a beautiful A-​line at Distinctive Designs, however, I wanted a fit and flare. When I tried the dress on, the bridal consultant firmly clipped it to fit the shape of my body, creating the desired appearance of a fit and flare. I asked if it was possible for the seamstress to alter the dress to look exactly as she had pinned it to me. She assured me «absolutely» and that the seamstress is «a miracle worker, she can do anything». These promises were made several times by two separate bridal consultants in the store.
With its intricate lace and beading, I was concerned about the feasibility of altering its form. The bridal consultants again promised that all necessary changes could be made. I called later that week to discuss the dress. When I expressed hesitation about the purchase without first speaking to the seamstress, the consultant warned me that she was worried «the dress is going to go soon, very soon», implying that another bride was interested in the same dress. In hindsight, the staff was definitely playing to my emotions in making the purchase. They warned me that because it was an ‘off the rack purchase’ they may not ever have another like it. Panicked that I might lose the opportunity to have the perfect wedding dress, I decided to buy the gown based upon all of the promises made by the bridal consultants concerning the alterations.
Later that week, I met with the seamstress affiliated with the store (not a direct employee). During our first meeting, she told me that it was impossible to change the dress from an A-​line to fit and flare. I contacted the store immediately and expressed my desire to return the dress since the changes were impossible, based on the professional opinion of the seamstress they contracted. They called me back within several minutes and said that it had all been a misunderstanding and that the seamstress was ready to make the changes.
I contacted the seamstress myself and asked her to explain her why he had changed her opinion. She worriedly admitted that she could lose her business with the store if she did not tell me she could do this. Distinctive Designs used bully tactics to intimidate the seamstress into attempting impossible alterations on a wedding gown!
I took the dress to another bridal alteration store for a second opinion. Both seamstresses concurred that it would be impossible to alter the dress to make it a fit and flare, and any attempt to do so would irrevocably ruin the fabric. They stated that any bridal consultant who advised that this dress could be altered in that manner was either wholly uniformed or ill-​equipped to make such a promise.
I met with the Joann, the owner at Distinctive Designs, in a final attempt to rectify the situation. As soon as I explained my situation, namely that I had been misled in my purchase and that I felt that Distinctive Designs was unable to uphold their end of the deal, the owner became extremely combative. She raised her voice and urged me to «go ahead and sue» without me having made any mention of legal action. I expressed a willingness to do an exchange, and seek out another dress in the store. She refused. As an aside, my dress that they had threatened would be gone was back in the store, an exact duplicate. It was very apparent that Distinctive Designs was solely interested in obtaining a sale. I felt totally had.
The owner continued to insist that I let the seamstress work on the dress. When I asked if I could be reimbursed in some way should the dress be ruined by the alteration attempt, she refused. In other words, Distinctive Designs was assuring me that the alterations would be successful, but refusing to accept any responsibility for problems with the proposed alterations, even if the dress was ruined. This allows Distinctive Designs to make any promises necessary to make a sale, even baseless and misleading ones, and then wipe their hands clean of any responsibility to the customer and their product. It was assuredly an unethical sale, and their total unwillingness to work with me as a customer given the enormity, both financial and emotional, of this purchase, was absolutely devastating.
I believe that making empty, unfounded, and ill-​informed promises to brides in one of their most exciting and important decisions is immoral at best, and criminal at worst. In light of what happened, I had to purchase a second dress and hope to be able to sell the first to get some money back for my upcoming wedding. My fiancé and I are paying for everything on our own, and as all you DC brides know, every penny counts! Steer clear if you can ladies, this is a store wholly uninterested in working with its customers.

I was hesitant to go to a Bridal store (sounds scary), but I had a good, relaxed experience here. Dresses are easily sorted by size, so there may be about 30 dresses per size. I was in town for just a day and they were accommodatin enough to have me come in the same day (unlike I Do I Do that said they were booked for days and were inflexible). I very much appreciated that the sales staff helped when needed and gave me a lot of breathing space — I had my mom helping me, so I did not want a stranger following us around!
Check this place out.

We showed up on a Saturday. The store is in an industrial area of Rockville and looks like the store is in a townhome. Upon entering, we stood in a small reception area for about a half hour because appointments were running behind schedule. We were then escorted back and left to browse on our own, which was great.
The store is deceptively large. We were shocked that there were two smaller rooms and then a huge room in back full of dresses. They had a wonderful selection and offered a variety of prices. However, the place was so big and so busy that I felt completely rushed throughout the entire process. Get in, look at the mirror, get out. Plus, you can’t take any pictures of the dresses.
This place ultimately did not work for me, but it’s worth a look. They definitely have a variety of styles and sizes in different price ranges.

After reading the reviews from this place, I was expecting the worse. However, I was pleasantly surprised by DIstinctive Designs Bridal.
Came here on my hunt for dyeable wedding shoes. They had several in the store to look at and try on. However, I wasn’t interested in any of them. Like a couple of other stores in the area, they had several books that I could look through to see if any caught my eye. Prices were marked up and unlike, Pattrapon down the street, once you order a shoe from them, tough luck if it didn’t fit! They did have a shoe that I liked, however, I’m in between sizes (I’m either a 7 or 7.5), so I really needed to try on the shoe before I ordered it. The lady asked if I wanted to try on a shoe that they had in store for size. Ummmm no thanks. Not only did I know that the size I picked was shoe dependant, all the shoes had toe stains on them! G R O S S. Seriously, you guys can’t order new sample shoes?! I could definitely tell that these samples were used and abused. Definitely a turn off.
Since the shoes were a no go, I decided to ask if they had any short wedding dresses in the store. They had a whole rack of them! Sweet! I found a couple I wanted to try on, and they happily helped me get them on. I liked one of them, but didn’t want to purchase it just yet, as I wanted to check out other stores in the area first. If I decided to get this dress, they informed me that it would take 5 – 6 months to come in! Yikes! But, if I wanted to purchase the one they had in stock (which would have been several sizes too big), they could give me a 10% discount. Very enticing offer, but I still wanted to hold off.
The sales associates were friendly and very helpful. They weren’t pushy at all, which was nice. Pictures are not allowed, but they kindly snapped a couple pictures of me in the dress I liked to send to me mom. Score!
Overall a decent place to go to if your looking for wedding gowns. Shoes on the other hand, I’d try at your own risk.

This was the second of four stores I ultimately visited and I returned a second time.
When we first arrived we were entirely ignored– no acknowledgement of our presence whatsoever– for about 10 – 20 minutes. Joanne, who eventually showed us back, was simply odd toward us. She was odd the second time too. I had an appointment and arrived on time and yet was seen late as Nancy was finishing up helping another bride before me. Then after she switched her attention to me someone came in off the street with no appointment and Joanne and Nancy both turned to help her during my appointment time!
Despite this, I really liked Nancy, I found her to be warm and helpful. Though the first time I went she did refer to my friend Hillary as my mother, so Hillary M.‘s review may be justifiably more negative than mine.
The first time I went it was fairly quiet and there were only one or two other brides. There is privacy for changing, but there is not much seating for entourage (of which I was warned in advance) or separation between daïs (daises?). When I returned for the second time it was loud and busy and there were several brides all at once and absolutely nowhere for me to even stand to display my dress to my entourage of four. We weren’t expecting a spot for them all to sit, but I was expecting a place for me to stand so they could actually see the dress! And I had an appointment for that second visit too!
There is a surprisingly large number of dresses considering the store’s frontage, though it seemed as though most of the dresses are repeats in different sizes.
I was looking for dresses with more coverage and most of the ones here, like at most stores, were strapless, but I did get to try on a couple that were not.
I found my second choice dress here, but sadly I can only reasonably justify buying one. It was about twice as expensive as my first choice dress at another boutique.

I am a very tiny girl and this is the first bridal salon I visited that I could actually try on a dress in my size. That made a huge difference for me. However, I did try on a dress that was a size 16 and once it was clipped a lot it looked great on me. They insisted that they would be able to alter to a size 2. Their seamstress must be a miracle worker! I wasn’t willing to take that risk. They did say that the max that they will charge for alterations is $ 350.
There was a pretty big selection, but it was almost overwhelming. It was hard to tell if I’d like a dress until I tried it on. It may have been helpful to have a picture of the dress attached to it. Their prices ranged from $ 500 and up, the sales associate told me that the highest priced gown they had was $ 2,300. So it wasn’t that bad. The problem was, all the dresses I liked were from their «one and only» room; they were old styles that they can no longer order. They were discounted in price, but it was a take it or leave it kind of thing. So if you loved it and wait to buy it, you could lose your chance.
Just FYI, if you have been to several salons, they do not provide you with a bra or slip like other places may. So come prepared with a strapless bra and not one that keeps slipping down like mine did! Not that I need any help putting on a dress, but this is the first place that didn’t have me step in it while the held it, or one that they slipped it on over me. It was a «here put it on and I’ll zip you up» type of thing.
Last notes: You can NOT take pictures. They won’t let you. That was a bit of a problem for me. Yeah I look good in a mirror, but will I look good on film? They were great at switching my appointment time at last minute and my sales associate was very friendly.

I’m the maid of honor, so I’m not the bride, but of all the places we went to go dress shopping I liked this one the best. I was surprised by how big and spacious it was and the amount of dresses they had. They also had dresses for mostly any budget. I think one of the least expensive dresses we saw was only $ 500 and it wasn’t even tragic looking.
The girl helping us was nice and patient and helpful. Plus we were there after they closed and they weren’t annoying telling us we needed to speed up. I am a little surprised by the bad reviews because we didn’t really have that kind of experience here.

Worst service ever! Two weeks ago I had an appointment to look for wedding gowns. When I got there, nobody was there to greet me. The owner came and showed me the rooms with the gowns and told me that I could search and pick whatever I wanted to try. At the end, I had no consultant working with me and I was pulling gowns out of the racks and trying them myself, putting them back in the bags, carrying them back… it was just a big mess!!! I left and nobody even noticed it. And the salon only had like 3 or 4 more customers, so overcrowding was not the reason for their horrible service! I found my dress next day at Betsy Robinson’s. Lovely service (on the contrary)!

Staff is wonderful and great selection of dresses, but very expensive

I have not personally went into the store, but my bridesmaids dress is from here and reading other reviews, sounds like I’m not the only one with negative experience. I had the same issue with them sending me a bigger size from what I am (I’m a size 8, they sent me a size 10). When i first called, the employee who picked up the phone said that someone will call me back. No one did. I just kept calling them back. Oh, did I mention that I’m out of state and have to deal with time difference? When I told them about the size, they said they sent the right size because of the measurements. I asked why they needed the measurements when I fit in a size 8. Makes no sense. When I got my dress, talk about disaster. It looks like they dragged the dress around before putting it in a plastic bag and shipping it to me. They said that they check EVERY SINGLE DRESS before it’s released to the customer. Obviously not or else I wouldn’t be going through this ordeal with them. They said they’ll cut me a check for $ 40. Are you kidding me? How about sending me a dress with the correct size and no flaws. And this whole 3 month business is total BS because we ordered it and got the dress in less than 3 month. WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER! If I was the one ordering, I wouldn’t have ordered from them at all. Always check your reviews before doing so. I may change my rating at the end if they correct the issues since they have the dress back. The verdict is still out, but my initial encounters with them sucks.
I don’t think they check the reviews or else you would think they would try and improve their customer service.

I came here with my sister (the bride) for her second time ever shopping bridal. Compared to the place we had been before, the selection was a lot bigger and the prices were more reasonable. So that was a huge plus! With the help of our sales associate, we found some pretty beautiful dresses. They take you through their selections and let you (and your family, if you so choose) to hand select dresses.
Unfortunately, I’m not going to give this a 4 star review because I did not like the service. When we got there, we were waiting on our mom to meet up with us. One of the ladies at the front kept telling us, «You can start if you want now, or later, we have associates available.» Which would have been fine, if she didn’t say it LITERALLY every 2 minutes. It was VERY annoying. I wasn’t sure if she was rushing us along or trying to be attentive due to previous Unilocal reviews complaining of inattentiveness. Also, our sales associate, Nancy, was a bit of a disappointment. She picked some nice dresses, don’t get me wrong, but personality-​wise she was not all there. She was a bit cold and did not smile much… and she seemed to have gotten a little bit annoyed with questions and other such things.
In all, great place, but the experience with the staff* was less than desirable.
*Some of the sales associates that we were not with seemed extremely nice. Particularly a young one (I think she’s Hispanic) with long dark hair.

Terrible. No way in hell I’m getting a dress here, even if it’s perfect.
Went there Saturday at 3. Sat around being ignored in their trying-​to-​hard to-​be-​trendy lobby area. Finally an older employee practically forces a kid that looked like she was 15 to help us. I tried on 3 dresses with absolutely NO HELP getting in an out of them. Finally at 4:15 we were rudely asked to leave because the store was closing.
Boo to the terrible service at Distinctive Designs. They seem to fail to understand that brides are looking for some common decency and politeness when buying one the most important dress of their lives.
Granted i am a 26 year old black woman who might look like I’m about 23 or so, but that just makes it worse don’t you think?
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.

OMG! Service was not good at all. Personnel was very stuck up and seemed as if they did not want to assist us. I ended up ordering a $ 200 sash from there and when I received it, I realized it was the wrong one. When I contacted the store to exchange it for the correct one they told me there was nothing they could do about it! My receipt did say no refunds but I wast asking for a refund I just wanted what I ordered. On top of that the lady was very rude about it. I’m so disappointed.

First impression: difficult to find. They have a very tiny sign in the window of a row of townhomes. We passed it at first and had to turn around. Thus, we were slightly late, but that didn’t seem to be a problem.
I thought this place was great at first. The lady who greeted us seemed a little spaced out, but our sales associate was very warm and friendly. I showed her some pictures of gowns I liked, she let us browse and pull dresses off the rack for the first 10 – 15 minutes, and pulled a few more that she thought I might like. She was very helpful in getting me in and out of the gowns; however the clamps they have to pinch the dresses in to an appropriate size (anybody who’s tried on wedding gowns knows what i’m talking about) were pretty flimsy, and it was kind of hard to envision what the dresses would look like at the right size.
The prices on all the gowns were clearly marked, the sale/​clearance section was clearly marked, and you do have the option of buying any dress off the rack, which was pretty cool. I haven’t seen that at any other shops, except during sample sales.
Long story short, we came very close to buying a dress from here. I wanted to pay for it with my fiancé’s credit card, so we could get the miles, so I informed the sales associate that I would come back the following day, right before they closed. I arrived the next day, 15 minutes before close, credit card in hand, and their door was locked with all of the lights off. I called and left a voicemail, and went home disappointed. My call was returned the next day, apparently they decided to close early, because they had no more appointments that afternoon. Now, I understand that I technically didn’t make an «appointment», since the transaction would have taken about five minutes, but I thought I had made it very clear that I would be returning. I was very turned off by this, and decided to do some more looking. I finally found my gown (a Vera Wang consignment for super cheap!) at I DO I DO, and I’m very glad I decided not to return here.

I made an appointment to check out bridesmaid dresses on a Saturday morning, with four bridesmaids (self included) and the bride. I arrived early and the other girls were a little late so a woman showed me the bridesmaid dress area and said I could start looking while I waited. The selection was small but I saw a couple that could have been good possibilities.
The rest of the group arrived and we all started rummaging through the dresses and picking a few we liked to try on. We kept waiting for someone to assist us but received zero attention from any employee for the remainder of the stay. Well… that is until one hour after we arrived a woman came back with another group of bridesmaids and said our time was up! (There’s only one dressing room!) No one mentioned a one hour time limit for the appointment! We hurried to finish trying on our favorites, and nobody working there even asked for any details on the dresses we had, whether or not we found one we wanted, or ANYTHING. How do you expect to get sales like that? So ask we left, I asked why we had been ignored and was informed that only the brides are assisted, not bridesmaids. Would have been nice to know that ahead of time so we could have just skipped it all together.
Luckily lots of other stores carry the same designers that DD has so we just got the dress we wanted elsewhere. We ended up at Bridal Images where there was much better service!

Distinctive Design sells bridal gowns and bridesmaids gowns. It is located in a strip of those house-​like office building.
My sisters and I decided to go here after our cousin recommended this place. She went here for a wedding that she was in. The boutique has an awesome selection and at a reasonable price. They also have a discount where you get 20% off if you buy 3 or more gowns at the same time. My sisters paid there and I paid for my other 2 bridesmaids that live out of state. Once they call in with their measurements, Distinctive Design would submit the order. They actually called me when my last bridesmaid called in with her measurements. We’re supposed to get them in 3 months.
The only downside with the bridesmaid gown search was that the store seemed overbooked. Our salesperson kept going all over the place and only helped us occasionally. It wasn’t a big deal because we were the only ones looking at bridesmaids gowns and was able to ask questions when she came back to see us.
Since we were already here, I decided to try on bridal gowns, as well. Unfortunately, I did not find anything to my liking. I am having a destination wedding and the majority of the dresses seemed like they weighed a ton. However, the sales person that helped us with the bridal gowns didn’t think so and kept trying to sell me anything that was at my budget. I did try on some beautiful dresses, but they just didn’t have what I was looking for.

Great service and selection of dresses! Once I walked in they were very friendly. My consultant was Itchel (Sounds like Michelle) and she was perfect — not pushy, gave me her honest opinion, and pulled out dresses that fit my style and budget. Since she helped me unpack the dresses and zipped me up, we were able to try on about ten dresses in less then an hour (unlike Maria’s Bridal in Fairfax). Great great service and I highly recommend this salon!

Despite the number of sample gowns to try on, they were all the same. I kept asking for dresses with straps and the saleswoman just kept telling me they could add straps to all the strapless gowns. Obviously, she missed the point. Strapless gowns that are flat in the front with a straight-​across neckline just were not flattering on me – my shoulders looked way too big and broad, and all these dresses made my chest look small. Even though I kept telling her why I did or did not like the features of certain dresses, she just kept giving me more of the same. The most annoying part was that she told me I looked great in almost every one. I think I have a pretty nice figure and yet she managed to hide it!
It was a waste of time to go here. I felt like the saleswoman did not know what she was doing and was a terrible listener. I left the shop not liking a single dress that I had tried on.
The only good thing about this shop is the range of prices, from the clearance sample gowns that are priced around $ 500 (only a few of these) all the way up to the $ 5000 range.

Five stars for this bridal shop — not only because this is where I found The One (AHHH!!), but because of the most important things when searching for the dress: excellent variety, competitive prices and fantastic service.
VALUE: Like Kristin said, you can buy the dresses off-​the-​rack, which is what I did, and saved a bit of money! There were plenty of beautiful designer dresses between $ 1,000-$ 2,000, which is hard to find in our area.
VARIETY: When I tell consultants that I’m looking for a v-​neck with straps, that usually takes out about 95% of the options in the store. But at Distinctive Designs, there were way more than I could try on. I chose about 5 of the best ones and took them into my dressing room.
SERVICE: Please forgive me — I can’t remember my consultant’s name. It sounded like Michelle without the M, but when I repeated it back to her, she corrected me, but I don’t think I ever got it right. (Now I know how other people feel when trying to figure out if my name is Nina or Tina!) She was kind, gave us our space, offered her opinion and some suggestions, and didn’t pressure us at all. Exactly what we needed.
Like some others said, this place can be hard to find if you don’t come prepared with directions in hand. Look for a row of what looks like townhouses, and if you’re coming from E. Gude, you’ll see the vague outline of a girls’ dress in one of the first windows on your right. Happy wedding dress shopping! :D

I bought my wedding dress here and though I have not yet had my first fitting, I have been happy with the service I have received thus far (will update post fitting).
Yes, this place is a little off the beaten track and can be difficult to find, but the selection is quite varied and the prices competitive for the region.
I bought a sample. Unlike most bridal stores that have an annual sample sale, all of the dresses at DDB can be purchased off the floor as a sample. For the bride, this means a significant reduction in price. I did the sample sale thing in DC and it was an utter disappointment. The featured dresses were unpopular styles and were badly stained and/​or ripped from being on the floor for 12 months. Here, the samples are sold regularly and are in remarkable shape. Note: Most samples here are a size 10.
I absolutely love the sales associate I was assigned. When I described the sort of dress I was looking for (a classic, timeless A-​line dress with no bedazzling), her dress selections hit the mark. DDB has a large selection of dresses (very youthful ballroom types with lots of sparkles to very simple elegant gowns befitting of black tie dinner) in a wide range of prices (from $ 800-​$ 3000). All of the dresses are clearly marked with their price and there is no pressure to try on a dress outside of your price range. As best as I could tell, there was no limit on the number of dresses you could try on.
I appreciated that the owner of the store told me to wait on purchasing my veil because it was going on sale during the trunk show the following weekend.
Now for the bad… the store purchased an accessory for my dress and had it shipped to the store before quoting me a price. Although I was fine with the price, had I not been, I think I would have been seriously irked. Second, I did receive a telephone call a few months ago asking me if I could pick up my dress since the store was in need of storage room for the spring brides. I bought my dress 9 months before my wedding and was told I could store my dress at DDB until the wedding, which was important to me because I 1) live with my husband, 2) have a dog at home, and 3) don’t have the room to store the dress. Again, nothing tragic, but I was disappointed when I got the call.
Overall, I think this store has a lot to offer and the good generally outweigh the bad. As with all things wedding, shop around, but do consider this store when its time to make a decision regarding your dress.