the dress was order online at house of brides.com but when I called to ask questions about my dress, it was very difficult to get a response. I had to call several tomes before o got someone to call me back

wide variety of dresses. associates are helpful and knowledgeable

I purchased a sample gown from the downtown store. I loved my dress, but after finally tracking down the designer and name, I think they inflated the original price of the dress quite a bit. They told me it was originally on sale for $2,500.00, it was probably closer to $1,200.00 new. I did pay less than that and loved the dress, so OK.
The alterations department was very no-nonsense and they took the three fittings necessary to make the dress fit properly. They were flexible with appointments, which was good.
I had a good experience overall.

I should say that this review is for the website only. I used this vendor to buy my wedding gown, after finding it at a very pricey bridal boutique. I can say that the dress arrived in good condition. The price was indeed quite a lot cheaper than the boutique where I first found the dress. Now that it's all done, I can say I would have paid more for the customer service and peace of mind that I would have gotten elsewhere. I placed my order in early February and got a single confirmation email - then nothing. for MONTHS. I was incredibly anxious for weeks because I had no idea where my dress was, or when I could expect to have it in my hands. Calls and emails to customer service could only tell me that my credit card had been charged (duh) and the order was pending - not helpful at all. Then one day in MAY, the dress just showed up! I was never notified that it had shipped, I received no tracking number. Considering the vendor charges a large fee (~$100) for a returned delivery, it was sheer luck that someone was around to sign for the delivery!!!! All of that said, it was the style, color, and size I had ordered, so they did get that right.

Customer service with this vendor is HORRIBLE. If you want to stay sane and save money, look elsewhere!

Well, it started out great. Colleen H was my consultant. She is a doll and helped me find a gorgeous dress that I loved - and bought. The dress came early and was perfect. If I had walked out the door at that moment, I would have given them 4 stars - maybe 5, but unfortunately, that is when things hit the fan...

I came back for my alterations and they sent me to a back room to meet with a crotchety old european woman with one red eye - seriously. It was straight out of Snow White. I am pretty sure she put a curse on me. She was so mean to me. My dress was ordered in the size THEY measured me for and she refused to zip my dress all the way, accusing me of gaining weight. Now, any bride knows perfectly well you need to use a little elbow grease to zip a wedding dress THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SNUG. Besides, ummm...aren't you a seamstress? Isn't your job to make it fit? (And no, I had not gained an ounce) It turned out I just needed to take off my bra and then it was perfect. I asked for my original consultant Colleen to come help because I was upset with the seamstress at that point. That's when she really got mad. She crossed her arms and moped around, refusing to speak to me.

It gets worse. The store had guaranteed, in writing, ON MY RECIEPT that I would not pay more than $349 for my alterations. The crazy red-eyed seamstress indignantly insisted that her prices had gone up and I would have to pay $499. I complained to a manager and all she could do was tell me "we will have to get back to you." WHAT?? I'm pretty sure that's illegal, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and left. The next day they called me to say they would honor the $349, but it was too late. I decided I would not leave my dress with Cruella the wedding dress ogre.

When I came to collect the dress, a woman at the desk asked why I wasn't leaving it. I told her about what happened with the alterations woman. She was not the least bit surprised. Her answer? "Well, we know how she is, but she does a good job." You know how she is?? There are plenty of people who can sew, there is no excuse for letting your customers - brides no less - who are supposed to be having a special experience and spending a significant amount of cash - be treated that way. That's a real shame if they are aware of this. I wouldn't expect to be treated that way at Burger King, let alone shopping for my wedding dress.

I took my dress to Dress Dr at the water tower for alterations - lifesavers!

Ladies, this city is filled with lovely bridal stores dying for your business. Find one. Don't go here.

When our initial bridesmaid dress vendor refused to come anywhere close to www.houseofbrides.com pricing, we decided to put our trust in this online company and we're so glad we did! House of Brides.com based in Chicago, IL was great to work with and well worth the money. The dresses came back in just the right sizes and colors just as we requested!

NEVER RECOMMENDING THIS PLACE FOR BUSINESS!!!
House of Brides has done nothing to help ease the burden of being a bride and wedding planner of my own wedding. I came to Chicago (I'm from Las Vegas) to go dress shopping with my mom in January and heard good things about this place, so we went. Honestly, they didn't have nearly the selection advertised on the website available to try on in the store, which made my heart sink a little after bringing in an entire list of dresses I wanted to try on but most of them were not in the store. I don't know about the average bride, but this one expects to be able to see what I freakin' will look like in a dress before I buy it.
Anyway, I ended up picking a dress that I liked and they told me it was going to take 3-4 months to get since it had to be made. After 3 months, I called and they said it was going to be 4-5 months. I called again 2 weeks later and was told at least 6 months. My wedding is in Sept and I live out-of-town, so when I asked if I could have it expedited the day I paid for it over the phone, she said I wouldn't need to. Needless to say I still don't have the dress and when I decided to get another dress that I liked better elsewhere and knew I could get in time, I called House of Brides, told them my situation and asked them what my options were. The manager Nadia? told me that, "your options are none. You will get the dress in time and we have a no-refund policy." I told her I was upset and scared that I wouldn't get it in time to do alterations properly and she basically told me to stop worrying and that it would be fine.
Now I have a dress that cost me 1/4 of the price that I like better and have in my closet currently, so I guess you'll be seeing my on Amazon, Ebay, and Craigslist trying to sell this freaking dress...whenever it decides to get here. Thanks for making my wedding dress experience NOT special House of Brides!

I ordered my bridesmaids dresses in September and received my receipt and confirmation via email. Late October, they called me with a question about my order. Because they had a pending question my order was never placed even though I received a order confirmation! There was no way my dress would arrive on time seeing that they waited 4+ weeks to close out a pending question. Needless to say I had a shouting match with the customer service representative and she hung up on me. When I called back I was informed that since I was not happy with their service they had already canceled my order!! Luckily I found NetBride (my dress angels) to order the same bridesmaid dresses through at the same price. I reported House of Brides to the BBB. DO NOT USE HOUSE OF BRIDES!!!!

My review has to deal with 2 House of Bride locations.
#1:Schamburg
My initial visit there was great. Joanna K helped us find both the bridesmaids dresses and my dress within 1.5 hours. She made me feel very comfortable, and made dress shopping easy. That is the only good thing I can say about the Schamburg location. After the initial visit things went downhill extremely fast. First of all, we were told to order the bridesmaids dresses in May for an October wedding. My girls got the orders in by May 8th. The dresses took over 5 months to come in, when I was told it would be 14-16 weeks. The dresses came in 1 week before the wedding, and they forgot to order one. So with 7 days to spare I had to find a replacement dress, and House of Brides did absolutely nothing to help! They even tried to blame the missing dress on us! The woman in charge of ordering, named Debbie, was completely rude to me every time I talked with her on the phone, and even hung up on me once! The store manager pretended to be sympathetic, but did nothing to solve the situation. I would NEVER recommend this location to anyone! Please save yourself a lot of time and stress don't even bother with them!
#2:Chicago
After the horrible service I had from the Schamburg location I did not trust them to alter my dress, so I took it to the House of Brides in Chicago. Let me say that this store has the class that Schamburg lacks. Not only is it cleaner and nicer looking, the staff was more friendly and responsive to my needs than the other location. Donna in alterations is AMAZING! She cracks jokes the entire time, which I found refreshing in the high stress situation of dress fitting. She made the entire alterations process simple, and even scheduled an appointment with me outside of her normal appointment times. My dress was beautiful and fit perfectly, and nothing she did came undone or fell apart the day of. If I could review Donna alone she would get 5 stars and then some! My recommendation is to skip the Schamburg store and head downtown for a better experience.

I ordered my bridesmaid dresses from here. We were happy with the dresses in the end but the service at this store was absolutely horrible and the process was confusing. I was also misquoted on the price.

Great dress and wonderful alternations - Donna can really work some magic!! This was only the second shop I visited and I knew right when I walked in that I was going to love it there...they did not disappoint!

I was a little nervous when looking at HOB because I had read many negative reviews online previously. I went to the House of Brides Couture location in Chicago. It is a nice boutique and very easily accessible by the el. I met with Alex and she helped me to pick out a few dresses that fit the criteria that I was looking for. I found the dress and Alex was able to give me a discount to help keep the price down. I had to purchase the dress with extra length because I am over 5'10, I think we had 2 1/2 inches added. Obviously when you try dresses on they will likely be too big or small because they keep one of that dress in stock...so when I tried it on it was a big small so we went one size bigger. I ordered my dress exactly 6 months before my wedding and HOB put that my wedding date was a month early so we could make sure it was in on time. No problems there, it came in exactly when it was scheduled to. When I tried on the dress...it was pretty big which I expected, but I was disappointed that Donna (the alterations woman) said that we needed to shorten the dress because it was too long (I wore flip flops to my wedding) We ended up taking probably 2 inches off the bottom of the dress. I don't know if ordering 1 size bigger made the dress longer, but I was upset that I paid for the extra length (about $200) and ended up having it taken off basically. Other than that, everything went great. Donna did an excellent job with the alterations and everything was professional and done in a timely manner. And my bustle did not fall or break, which has happened to many of my friends at their weddings recently. I was very pleased overall.

I don't know about their other stores, but I would recommend the Couture Shop in downtown Chicago

I loved my dress and the bridesmaids dresses that were purchased here! For the most part we had a very good experience. The dresses were purchased here, but only mine was altered there because of the price. My dress had a pretty good fit and didn't need many alterations, but the bustle was super complicated. Donna did a wonderful job with it! The girls that work there are friendly and informative. There was only one who we didn't really care for, but only had to deal with her once. I'm not sure if it was just the way they were sized or if it was the girl doing the measuring, but 4 of my 6 bridemaids needed quite a bit of altering because the dresses were sooo big in certain areas or all over. That was really our only issue. I would really recommend them!

Tip: When we were getting my dress, one of the girls mentioned something about getting a dress for less.... so I'm pretty sure that they can discount the wedding dresses to a certain degree. I would do a bit of.. "well.. I really only wanted to spend this much.." before you buy and you may save a bit of money!

House of Brides was the FIRST place I looked for a dress and definitely did not think I'd find one on the first trip, but I did and it ended up working out perfectly for me. The pros for HoB were that it was super convenient for me, living in the city of Chicago. I could book alteration appointments easily and the woman in the alterations department, Donna, was so great to work with. She was flexible and accessible when I changed my day I wanted to pick up my dress. It was also a huge "pro" that I paid one flat rate for alterations, and had three fittings - but didn't pay any more. The con is that a few weeks after I bought my dress, I found my it at Gigi's of Mequon in Wisconsin for a few hundred dollars cheaper - but I don't know what their prices are for alterations, so being able to zip downtown for a fitting quickly in the morning and the flat rate for alterations probably outweighed the fact that the dress itself was cheaper at Gigi's. I would definitely recommend HoB in Chicago - I was very happy with it from start to finish.

I bought both my dress and veil at the House of Brides and for each appointment (including alterations), I felt extremely important and well taken care of. I actually found my dress at a different store, and then found it online on the House of Brides website. They honored the online price, and gave me an accessory credit that helped me purchase my veil. Their selections are wonderful. The alterations department is exceptional.

House of Brides has 6 locations throughout the US, but have an entire online store which is what I used. They offer brand-name dresses (bridal, flower girl, bridesmaid etc) at prices well-below any bridal shop. My bridesmaids were right out of college and I didn't want them to spend a fortune on a dress they are likely never to wear again. House of Brides allowed me to choose a dress I loved while giving them a decent price that they could afford. They are professional, honest, and quick! I ordered all of the bridesmaids dresses online at the same time for everyone to ensure that they would be from the same dye-lot and had the girls pay be back later. I chose Bari Jay dress #818 which was $129 at HOB while in a bridal store it averaged at $200!! Great deal and is a legit business. Don't be scared to use an online vendor in this case!