Dress mix-up almost ruins bride's big day

The 29-year-old had been paying off the £750 gown for a year but was left in tears when the DEButante Bridal Boutique in Wath rang her just five days before the big day to say there had been a mix-up. 

Melanie said that she was so upset that she was close to calling off the wedding until she managed to buy another dress as a last-minute replacement from another shop.

The newly-wed, who had wait more than a week to get her money back, said that she had made several attempts to contact DEButante in the weeks leading up to the wedding but had only found out that she could not have her ideal dress with a few days to go.

“The alarm bells started ringing the closer it was getting but I was just trying to stay calm,” she said.

“When I got the call, I was just devastated, I completely broke down.

“For me, the dress is the most important thing to get right about a wedding, and when you have been looking around everywhere and found that you like, and then you are told you can't have it, it's a bit hard to take.”

Melanie, of Broadwater, Bolton-On-Dearne, said that she had gone to the Wath shop after the mix-up came to light and been urged by staff not to go anywhere else to buy another dress.

“They tried to charge me another £750 for a sample dress that had no guarantee of fitting me,” she said.

“I was sobbing in the shop when I was trying on the dresses, it was horrible.”

Melanie said that she had paid £100 a month for the Margaret Lee dress she thought she would be wearing to her wedding on May 15.

She put down a £150 deposit last year and regularly went into the shop to have a card stamped for proof of her monthly payment.

But she was told a week before the wedding that the dress supplier had cancelled the order because DEButante had not paid their account.

Melanie, who gave birth to her baby daughter Alexia Murphy just a month before the big day, added: “Because I was pregnant, I tried to get all the shopping out of the way early so I wouldn't be rushing around later, so it was terrible when I got the news.

“If it wasn't for my father-in-law paying for the new outfit, I can't see how the wedding would have gone ahead.

“I seriously thought I wasn't going to get one.

“I just don't want anybody else to get stung like this.”

The Wath Store did finally refund the £750 for the dress this week—more than a week after the wedding.

Debbie Mullins, the owner of DEButante, said: “What happened was the dress that was allocated to this shop got sold to somewhere else.

“We had a hell of a week prior to letting Melanie know. I hadn't ordered from the company for a while so I had no contact with them.

“I was just knocked from pillar to post trying to get Melanie sorted out.

“I couldn't apologise enough to her for what happened, I would have driven down myself to get the dress if I could have.”

Melanie married her husband Matthew (29), at St Andrew’s Church, Bolton-On-Dearne on May 15.