I am saying this to protect other brides, do not come here if you value your dress or your vintage…read moredress! Susan is one of the most unprofessional and unkind people I have ever met, and I like previous reviewers try to support small businesses ( please see my other reviews.) Susan and her team managed to give my dress back to me with blood stains (yes blood, see photos) and dirt after claiming it would be sent to their professional cleaners. (A verbal contract in the state of Maryland is a legally binding contract as well as paper.) She also claimed quote "it is not unusual to get a blood stains" "they are easiest to remove" "we leave it on until the end" unquote. Would you want your dress left with blood stains and dirt and given back to you like that a month before your wedding? Also, as we all know blood stains are some of the hardest to remove especially from white and delicate fabrics even with good hydrogen peroxide. My dress was a sample dress and only came in with a few water stains, which of course I knew because the store I bought it from informed me and sent photos . She kept claiming it came like that when I have clear before photos that it did not, from myself and the bridal store. Her team also made my drop waist an empire waist, which is exactly what I said I wanted to avoid since I have a short torso. I only wanted to raise the waist a little bit. So, I asked them to lower the waist again. They did not. She claimed my dress was just sitting in the done pile. They did not even sew the buttons back on. I looked at this dress since 2021 and it was my dream dress, but I couldn't afford it retail and was so happy when I got it at a sample sale. My heart has been broken. All it needed was a slight clean for small water stains in the back, some hemming and letting out the waist a little bit. Instead they ruined my dress. When I brought it to my personal dry cleaners the same day as that last fitting it was so filthy they were shocked and thought I had already worn the dress on my wedding day. Between them and another alterations team they stated it would not be ready due to the extensive dirt and damage on time (my wedding was in a month at that point and is still being extensively dry cleaned.) It was not even in sellable condition. So I clearly asked for a refund, but it took so long I disputed the charge with the bank. The bank refunded me of course, but by then the refund finally came in. The bank fixed the double refund, however Susan repeatedly harassed me about it and didn't believe me even when I showed her my bank statements that the second refund was cancelled. She also claimed she just gave me the refund without me asking (I asked in an email) and claimed my dress came that way even though I have photo proof before I brought it to her and the first day there. She also claimed I was harassing and bullying her when she started the emails and wouldn't let it go that the second refund had been cancelled and denying that having blood on a dress in your workplace is an environmental hazard. I only asked her to pay $280 in addition to the refund for the cleaning fee since her staff dirtied it which seemed reasonable considering the circumstances but she decided to gaslight me and did not take accountability. I would not wish the pain I have felt the last few weeks before my wedding instead of happiness on anyone. Again, it is customer's choice, but I would not recommend coming here. And in case you think this is just a disgruntled customer's review, please review the photos and keep in mind I was very kind to Susan and her team up to this point and even gave them gifts. I nor any other bride deserve this treatment especially after kindness. She now owes me $1500+ $280 =$1780 ( the value of the dress and my cleaning fee.) She and her team have caused property damage, non rendering of services, emotional distress, harassment, and slander and she will not even take accountability or admit it even with the proof. I also found her to be demeaning and rude to her employees whenever they tried to say anything in front of customers and observed that she constantly orders them around at all my appointments. So, buyer beware.

I was going to wait to write this review until after my 9/21/24 wedding, but felt it was imperative…read morethat I post sooner rather than later for the benefit of other brides. I will add photos of my dresses (if Yelp allows me to edit) after our wedding. I deeply love and respect small business owners, and understand the weight reviews have, so it pains me to leave this. I brought my dress to Susan and her team at their Baltimore location in mid-July 2024. My dress needed to be hemmed, taken in at the bodice, and straps shortened. I was quoted ~$1400. While expensive, I believe in Susan's mission of paying her employees a living wage and believed that this price reflected the high quality of their alterations. I also brought Susan a gown to be shortened to tea length, let out, and sleeves removed for my rehearsal dinner. I was quoted ~$1000. I picked up my wedding gown on Saturday, 9/14 after the prior 3 fittings in which I was expressing concerns with extra fabric in the side bust. In previous fittings Susan and her team attempted to add a dart to correct this problem, which caused the bust line to come to a point. I am grateful for their work to then remove the dart and try another approach to correct the issue extra side bust fabric issue. When I picked up my wedding gown, the problem of the extra fabric at the side bust was not corrected. Furthermore the cups were added to the dress without appropriately stretching the fabric around the cup, causing a bunching effect of the fabric. I picked up my dress, having paid an extra $100 for an extra fitting (per Susan's contract), and promptly brought my dress to another seamstress who, luckily, was kind enough to fit me in for a rush appointment less than a week before my wedding day. The bodice fit was easily corrected by this seamstress in one fitting. My rehearsal dinner dress was provided to me for pickup with a lining layer left raw, which I will now finish at home on my own machine. The horse hair hem of my wedding dress is not snug to the bottom of my hem, as it originally was, and in some locations, the hem doesn't appear straight. In one of my last fittings, Susan pointed out that the straps of my dress started to turn grey, which she claimed was from handling the dress a lot through alterations. She said I could get the dress cleaned if I wanted, but I declined. I understand how this was possible, but it seems that some measures should be taken to avoid discoloring wedding dresses while working on them. Susan repeatedly commented on the difficulty of working with designer dresses, and misidentified my dress fabric as crepe (it is silk mikado). I found it troubling that someone with her level of experience made these comments. I believe Susan was well-intentioned in her efforts to ease my anxiety throughout the process, and truly do appreciate the intention. Multiple times, she insinuated that I was experiencing "bridal psychosis", meaning that I was picking apart my dress given the pressures of being a bride. I agree - being a bride is stressful, and can lead us to second-guess ourselves. However, this phrase is inappropriate and gaslighting. My dress had serious problems, which another seamstress agreed with and promptly acted on. Furthermore, making light of mental illness in this manner is insulting. This experience left me more stressed than I have ever been in my life. I hardly slept or ate these last few weeks because in the two weeks before my wedding, I wasn't sure if my dress could be saved. I had nearby bridal shops holding samples for me, as until finding a new seamstress, I thought I would have to buy a whole new dress again. Susan stated her mission was to "take the stress out of dressing for your wedding." This is an admirable goal, which unfortunately was far from met in my case. Multiple times through my months of working with Susan and her team, I was asked to write a review. I'm deeply sorry it has to be this one. I appreciate the opportunity to work with Susan, Joan, and Joy, and genuinely wish them well and success with future brides' dresses. Perhaps I was just unlucky.