Bella Bridesmaids

We had the most wonderful initial bridesmaid appointment with Annie at Bella Bridesmaids. We had been to two other retailers who were of very little help amidst an overwhelming amount of bridesmaid gowns with very subtle differences. Annie helped us sift through after we explained what type of look we were hoping to achieve. She was confident, enthusiastic and patient with my daughter and her maid of honor and we had so much fun working with her! We walked out smiling! Don’t go anywhere else… and ask for Annie!

DO NOT GO HERE. They are Rude and Incompetent.
I never write Unilocal reviews, but a place finally pissed me off enough to do to. We made an appointment and showed up on time. They didn’t see us for about 20 minutes. We told them ahead of time what dresses we needed to try and they has none of them ready then when they got a few most of them were XS and couldn’t get a sense of how they would fit. She barely helped us and really offered no guidance and sat chatting with someone else on the staff.
Then they advised me I needed an XL because my my bust was large. I didn’t agree but they pushed. 6 weeks later I get my dress and I’m drowning in it. I now have to pay another $ 100 to get my dress taken in 6″. I promise you my wait and bust did not shrink 6″ in 6 weeks. I’m beyond pissed and will never come back!

My bridesmaid and I (I’m the bride) worked with Annie at Bella Bridesmaid and had the most wonderful experience! We had no idea what we were looking for when we walked in. I had not chosen my dress yet. We didn’t have any particular colors in mind. Annie took the time to get to know us and the vibe we were going for for the wedding. She truly got us! We then walked around the store and looked at a few dresses. I picked out one color (a print!) that I liked and she took it from there. She then suggested a whole color story to match the one I picked, showed us different styles, and put together a beautiful combination of dresses for my 3 bridesmaids! Then we tried them on and took lots of pictures. Annie was great! Not only did she help with the dresses, but she may have just chosen the color scheme for my whole wedding! I would 100% recommend Annie and Bella Bridesmaid to anyone looking for exceptional customer service!

Had a lovely experience at Bella — Annie was so helpful! We ended up selecting the dress that we will be ordering for the wedding! Went on a weekday after work, was a great time to go to avoid the crowds, had a very personal experience.

While reading through the other reviews the most consistent complaints seem to be regarding communication and organization.
The first time I called for an appointment the rep. was very sweet and I was super excited as they had all the styles I wanted to try on. (Bride already picked the brand/​color/​length we needed to get we just had to pick the style) I told the rep. on the phone I was interested in a single order.
One or two weeks passed (They book up fast) I receive a message 7pm the night before my appointment. The message is intelligible but I hear something about a fee. I call back and the (nastier) rep informs me that there will be a fitting fee for 20 dollars that I have to pay up front before rushing me off the phone. Though I understood the need for a fee as they are a small boutique and want to make sure people are just not using their store to try — this is something that should have been mentioned when I made the appointment.
I go to the appointment, the space is fine and the stylist is pleasant enough. Though she kind of reminded me of the customer service attendant in «Sisters» saying everything I tried on looked great in a monotone voice. Overkill but again I get it. But, when I go to settle everything there’s confusion over the fitting fee and how it applies. Get your story straight.
Then she tells me thedress is 272 before tax and fees. When I asked why the dress was so much more expensive than another bridesmaid had paid the stylist couldn’t even come up with a fake answer. (Another bridesmaid who lives in Texas ordered the exact dress/​style for $ 237 total — I eventually let it go as this is NYC and I understand things are pricier.)
I ended up not ordering the dress through Bella as I found the exact dress at online retailer for $ 191. Even with the $ 20 fitting fee I paid them up front, I’m still saving around $ 100. Again, this was for a single order, I can see this being a good place for a group order as they have a nice try on space and they seem to specialize in the «stylist» thing. I would not recommend this for single orders. If you know your size order online.

I had a lovely experience today being fitted for a bridesmaid dress! Fittings are by appointment only and they have evening hours. Unfortunately they reserve weekends for special events so they do not even do bridal fittings those days!
I arrived about 10 minutes before my appointment and was greeted immediately. The process went smoothly and, though they did not have the particular dress in their showroom that I was ordering, I was able to try on a similar style by the same designer in addition to being measured, so I could ensure I was ordering the right size. I was in and out in 20 minutes! What a breeze.
I do wish I had been able to try on the actual dress I was ordering, but otherwise it was a very pleasant experience all around.

Very rude customer service! They never call back and when you do reach someone, they act irritated and lazy. When I finally visited, I found their dresses in very rough shape. I would not recommend this spot at all.

This is the first time I will be a bridesmaid and Bella did not make my experience pleasant or easy.
When I went to pick up my dress, a Bella rep gave me the wrong dress. She did not look at the name on the dress, the style of the dress, etc and literally handed me the wrong dress. She also did not ask me to try on the dress, which I thought was strange, while I was there to check for any errors. They didn’t even realize they gave me the wrong dress until I brought it back in to get my ACTUAL dress.
When I got home, I found that my dress had a manufacturing error. Not only did they/​Amsale refuse to reimburse me for a manufacturing error they made, but they were rude, inconsiderate and not helpful with the entire process. Unresponsive to emails, called during the busy work day.
Overall terrible experience. Would not go back EVER.

My maid of honor and I had a much better customer service experience at Bella Bridesmaids vs. Here Comes the Bride.
When we arrived we were checked in. We had one staff that was dedicated to help us. She escorted to the area where we would be trying on dresses. We had space to place our purses, coats, and sit. There was no space at Here Comes the Bride to put our purses down or even sit expect the floor.
They asked me what type of dress we were looking for and collected information about my wedding. We the began picking out dresses. The staff was helpful in guiding us through different styles, designers, and length. We found two different styles of Amsale dresses that we liked. We have no yet ordered but the in store experience was pleasant.

Well, I am no longer as confused as I originally was about the other ratings.
I was told our dresses would be delivered in April 2015 for my July 2015 wedding. Two weeks after the quoted date of delivery, I had to reach out to Bella Bridesmaids to find out there was an issue with the manufacturer and the dresses would not arrive until June! I’m thankful that we went shopping as early as we did or we really would have been in trouble. To make matters worse, we found out in June that one of my girls could not get the dress she originally ordered.
I will say that Bella Bridesmaids provided free shipping to each of the girls and gave the bridesmaid whose dress was no longer available a complimentary dress, which was great. However, the lack of communication to even let me know that the dresses would be delayed months was very disappointing. Wedding planning is such a stressful time, and the lack of information and communication made it even worse.

I just a had a good experience here (i.e. Good experience = in and out in 20 minutes). To maximize your experience at this place set up an appointment online, email them the styles you’re interested in PRIOR to your appointment. Depending on your styles, the sample sizes are often too big, dirty with broken zippers. All in all the appointment was quick and painless.

Help? Anyone here? I tried calling this place for an appointment, but no one picks up. So my cousin and I decided to stop by and see what’s going on. When we got to the store, the employees didn’t even realize we walked in or they were too busy walking everywhere else. It wasn’t till after 10 minutes standing there lost, that someone came up and realized we existed. Sure, we didn’t have an appointment, but if a customer walks by your store, you would want a sale by first acknowledging customers are there. So besides the horrible customer experience, the dresses are also so bland and nothing worthy. Definitely a waste of time here.

Our appointment was awful. Our sales girl was completely useless. She didn’t help us pin the dresses and we had to do that on our own. She never talked about our different options and we basically ran the fitting ourselves. Brides, please do not go here and do support this business.

If I could give 0 stars I would. This is a terrible franchise. We bought the Amsale dresses as bridesmaids for my friends wedding and I was assured over and over and OVER that I was measuring at a 34 and would fit perfectly in the size 4. I asked several times if they were sure and that I would rather go with a 6 but no, I was told the 4 was perfect. Months later the 4 comes and it does NOT zip and when I can zip it there is major back cleavage. I go to the Bella in SF as I live there, they re-​measure me, tell me yes you’re still a 34, yes you should still fit in a size 4 perfectly, this is clearly made wrong. We work with Bella NYC and send it back to them, they take it back to Amsale and the designer says nope, this is made absolutely perfectly.
Now Bella says that their policy is to not pay for any alterations. Clearly they miss measured me or have incorrect measurements from the designer. This is completely unacceptable that neither the designer or Bella are owning up to a mistake or compensating me for the huge alteration fee I will be facing. I will never use Bella again and I will make sure that any friend of mine does not use them either — their policies are terrible and their designers clearly do not stick to sizing.
The icing on the cake is every time Bella NYC said they would call they did not. I had to follow up with them 3 different times to find out that they were doing nothing and just sending my dress back to me.

Because of Bella Bridesmaids, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BE IN MY SISTER’S WEDDING.
I was supposed to receive my bridesmaid dress on ⁷⁄₂₇ when all of the other bridesmaids did. I am pregnant and I absolutely must have my dress with plenty of time to make alterations, we made this very clear to Bella Bridesmaids on several occasions.
First, they received the dress in the wrong size — something they didn’t even have the courtesy to let me know until I called the store in the beginning of August wondering where my bridesmaid dress was. Then, they had the WRONG DRESS sent to me last week (two weeks before the wedding). Finally, the correct dress was sent to me on ⁸⁄₁₈ leaving me with less than a week to get the dress altered — a feat that no tailor could possibly accomplish given the amount of work involved during the peak of wedding season.
*They refuse to refund my $ 300 bridesmaid dress*, and as a result of their mistakes, I had to buy a separate dress for $ 200 to wear to the wedding, and can no longer be in the wedding party.*
STAY AWAY FROM BELLA BRIDESMAIDS IN NYC!

If you’re a bride looking for a vendor that can accommodate bridesmaids who live in different states, this review is for you. If you’re considering Bella Bridesmaids, keep looking!
My bride and fellow bridesmaids live in Texas, but I live in New York. Unfortunately, at Bella Bridesmaids, ALL of the dresses have to be ordered at the same time, at the same location, by the bride. Unfortunately for us, one of the bridesmaids didn’t submit her order to the bride until several weeks after the deadline, which delayed the order for the entire group.
Bella NY is rigidly unaccommodating with orders that don’t originate at their location. The only time they offer fittings based from other locations is on inconvenient Wednesday afternoons. Also, they refused to ship the dress directly to the NY location instead of the TX location, and charged an additional $ 25 shipping fee to have the dress sent to me from TX.
For a timeline reference: I had my fitting and submitted my order in early April. Because of the rogue bridesmaid, the final order wasn’t placed until mid-​May. Bella says that the dresses will arrive in late August, and the wedding is late September. I’m very nervous that, pending the shipping situation and alterations (which Bella doesn’t offer, by the way), I am going to have to pay exorbitant rush fees to have the dress ready in time.
**EDIT: The dress arrived in mid-​August and was damaged. There was a snag about the size of a golf ball on the illusion neckline. I asked if I could bring the dress in for repairs either to the store or to their distributor, but they told me the ONLY way I could have it repaired was to mail it back and forth. This process would take weeks, and I still needed (rush) alterations, so this wasn’t an option. Bella refused to compromise, and instead, only offered me a 10% refund for the damaged gown.

Very confused about this shop, had a decent experience in store, but received NO customer service post appointment. Scheduling the appt was fine, and the consultant who helped me & 2 of my bridesmaids was ok too. They have a somewhat limited selection, but I was at least able to get a feel for what’s out there. Consultant seemed a bit distracted, but sent me 2 follow up emails detailing the styles/​colors that liked. Initially it seemed like the perfect set up, as 3 of my bridesmaids live in different locations, all w/​a Bella Bridesmaids shop near to them.
When one of them called to make an appt, they were not flexible at all with their hours (who has the ability to leave work at 3:00pm on a Wednesday to go try on a dress!?) and then stated that w/​out a ‘group code’ they would *charge* to try on a dress. In addition, they only had ONE of the dresses I asked my bridesmaids to try on. What?! I was never given a code, and when I followed up twice (simply replying to the email they had sent me) I received no response. It appears that there is absolutely no cohesion if you have to deal w/​multiple locations. I guess I could have followed up again, calling or stopping by, but I feel that as a matter of principle that I should not have to hunt down a vendor. Wedding planning is stressful enough and they clearly showed that they don’t value my business. I’ll take my money elsewhere.

I received poor service from this location of the Bella Bridesmaid franchise and felt that they view customers of other bella bridesmaids stores as a low priority. I’m going to be a bridesmaid this summer, and I was given a couple weeks to get sized and order the dress. I live here in NY, and my bride is doing the organizing out of San Antonio. Since the order was to be placed from there, the store here in NY said they could only accommodate fittings on Wednesdays with very little evening availability. I emailed back and forth with them letting them know that I could not make it to them on Wednesdays, and requested another day to come and see them. They were not at all accommodating. I even offered to buy the dress from them and not from the San Antonio location, but they did not want to have the order come though them.
I would encourage brides to look elsewhere when selecting bridesmaids dresses. Many of their dresses can be found at much more accommodating retail chain like Nordstroms.

Oh I’m sorry… Did we send you a confirmation that we received your order and payment (with additional rush fees) but then never actually ordered your dress, and you only found this out less than a month before the wedding when you called to find out when your dress would arrive because you hadn’t been notified it had come in after the date it was supposed to? Whoopsy…
Seriously why is there not an option to give no stars? Or like 5 black negative stars?
Just no.

I was in town for only the weekend and Bella Bridesmaid was one of the few stores that took appointments on Sundays. I went in with two of my bridesmaids. I’m allowing my bridal party to choose the color and style of their dresses as long as they fall within a criteria of a range of blues, chiffon fabric, and knee-​length.
Our sales lady was very helpful and she knew the inventory very well despite the overwhelming number of dresses on the racks from multiple designers. She knew off the top of her head the availability of lengths, styles, fabrics, and colors for each designer.
After the visit, my friends each had a better idea of their dresses. Although another bridesmaid wasn’t a part of the shopping trip because she’s in Phoenix, she’s decided to get her dress from the Bella Bridesmaid in Phoenix.