hi all,
I had the most terrible experience at Frederick Lee and wanted to share this in detail, because it was truly horrendous service and all brides-to-be should be aware (in fact I literally just signed up w this discussion forum so I can post this to warn future brides!).
It was my first time at the boutique and when I entered, and said hello and apologised for being late, his assistant was on the phone, glanced casually at me, and waved me in nonchalantly without saying a word. I was a little shocked, but proceeded to sit down. After a while of silence, as we were waiting for him to get off the phone, the assistant then came by, chucked a sheet of the packages and 2 albums to me and my bridesmaid, then rudely said this is our package and literally walked away back to his desk without giving us a chance to ask further questions. No further communication for the next 10 or so min while he was back at his desk, we had no clue if we were supposed to pick out dresses to try, or wait for him to come back. Finally we went up to ask what was going on, and he casually said we could try 2 gowns. I proceeded to ask if I was to pick 2 designs from the album to try. To our horror he said that the album he just gave us were NOT FL designs, only the first 2 dresses were. My bridesmaid and I looked at each other in disbelief, as we could not imagine why he had passed us an album of other people's dresses when we were there to see FL designs!
He then asked briefly what gowns we wanted (in a very disinterested way). My bridesmaid said we were looking for something edgy, but not over the top. He kind of rolled his eyes, laughing, and said he didn't understand what that meant - how a dress can be edgy and not over the top. He pciked out the most horrendous dress and when we said we didn't like it, he then looked over impatiently and told us to choose for ourselves. He then went back to his desk and proceeded to do his own stuff. When we said we kind of liked a dress on a display manequin, he said curtly that was meant only for fashion shows and not for brides.
We couldn't believe the service that was rendered. It was truly appalling and really plain rude and unacceptable. This is definitely NOT the way to do business, and we literally left because it was so unpleasant we didn'nt want to spend another moment in the shop. Getting a gown is really about the entire process and not just about the design, and I cannot imagine any bride wanting to endure this kind of treatment. I have not met FL himself, so perhaps he is a nicer person. But this is still no excuse for poorly trained assistants, especially because they are the first face for the shop. Absolutely appalling without a doubt.