Vendor ratings?

Christina, I don't know about the knot, but WW does verify reviews from brides.

I think the reason you're finding lots of good reviews here is because vendors who take their businesses seriously are here. If someone were lousy, they would not want to be on a website where reviews are posted.

WW vendors can not edit reviews. If a review is fraudulent (such as a competitor bad-mouthing), the vendor can contest it with WW who then looks into the situation.

Also, don't just look at the star rating -- read the whole review, you'll find good info there.

There was some controversy over reviews in the past. Vendors can challenge the reviews, and there were questions about negative reviews being back up. WW always said they were posted after being verified.

I checked reviews on WW, TK, and if there were any on Yelp or Google. Most of the time, they were consistent and accurate. The only time they weren't was unfortunately the brides' mistake. Sometimes people do not understand you cannot review a vendor until after the wedding. Bridal salons are an exception (along with some other categories). So brides find their dress, and leave a wonderful review because they're excited. But that's not the end of the story, so the review should NOT be written until the whole process is done. But I digress :-) In general, I found the reviews pretty accurate.

That's good to know! I guess I'm not questioning the validity of the reviews too much, but just wondering why they're mostly good. I guess it makes sense that a bad vendor would not want to be getting reviews here.

I think another reason is because WW only lets you review one vendor in each category and only after your wedding date, right?

It is frustrating to me that the dress shops I went to last weekend had good ratings on here. They were awful. Obviously if that is the vendor you decide to go with, you would have had a good experience from the start. If you had a bad experience from the beginning, you wouldn't have used them, but then you wouldn't be able to rate them either.

I have 2 dress shops and 2 venues that I would give less than stellar ratings for, but since I didn't book them, some other bride will also waste her time calling them and have a frustrating experience as well. I guess you have to rate them off the site. I understand there is a difference between the experience you have all the way through and the experience you have just at the beginning, but I wish there was a way we could rate them and then distinguish between raters who used the vendors and raters who didn

Good point Beth!!! I definitely went to a bridal salon that I would NOT recommend but obviously didn't end up purchasing my dress from them so if we can only do one review per category, that salon won't get a negative review from me.

Yea I went to a salon I wouldnt recommend either! I have definitely come across some bad reviews though and if they arent reviewed I am weary of hiring them. Reading the meat of the reviews is where it gets good though because some people rank people as 5 stars or 3 stars and then the reviews dont match up. Its strange. i do wish there was a system for vendors you didnt use but you want to review. I mean, i had a horrible experience with one bridal salon for my sister and I was furious.

That's true. But I don't see how it would work in practice. One of the things you have to "sign" (or whatever they call it) when you write WW reviews is that you, in fact, did business with a particular vendor. If you could review vendors you didn't work with, what's to stop anyone, including the competition to write whatever they want? If the review is challenged, WW asks the brides to provide proof they worked with a vendor. There's no such think if you didn't work with them.