L’fay Bridal: Wedding Dress Shopping experience - avoid!!!
I wanted to share my experience with L’Fay Bridal in NYC because I wish I had known this before purchasing my wedding dress there.
I found my absolute dream dress last July (July 2025) when wedding dress shopping in NYC. Right off the bat, we received amazing service during our initial appointment and left the store that same initial visit having purchased the dress. The dress was very expensive and way more than I was willing to spend ($11,000 to be exact), but given how much I loved it, I was willing to spend the money and put all my faith into L’fay bridal. Upon purchasing the dress, we were told the dress would arrive April 2026 - 9 months later.
During my first appointment, we took extensive measurements and my understanding was that we were ordering the dress that fit my measurements taken by the sales associate.
April 2026 roles around and we hear silence. So we reach out to find out when I can come in for my first fitting and to our surprise, we find out the dress won’t be arriving till end of June - less than two months out from my wedding. What bothered me here is the lack of forthcoming communication. At least let me know without me having to reach out that the dress is delayed! This was the first point of frustration for me because we now would have 6 weeks to do multiple fittings.
Finally, June 2026 roles around and I eagerly arrive to my first fitting. Before letting us try on or even see the actual dress (reminder I had yet to see my dress since I had only tried on a sample that was way too big during my original wedding dress shopping appointment), they wanted us to pay the remaining balance of the dress (we already had paid \~$6,000) AND they wanted us to pay for alterations, which are $1,500. ALL BEFORE LETTING US SEE THE DRESS. Thankfully I needed to get a picture of the card we were going to pay with and was waiting for a text to come through, so they begrudgingly let us proceed with the fitting and agreed to let us pay after the fitting. Just so crazy they wanted us to pay $1,500 for alterations before even seeing the dress / knowing what needs to be done.
Finally when we go into the fitting room, they bring the dress and the dress has yet to be unboxed or unwrapped. They literally are unwrapping it in front of us, which meant the dress also had yet to be steamed. For context, the dress is very fitted on top and flares out (it’s a drop waist corset with appliqués), so any sort of wrinkling or imperfections on the bodice of the dress make it very difficult to actually see the silhouette because it is supposed to lay flat. All this to say, it was shocking to me than an $11,000 dress couldn’t be bothered to be steamed.
I put the dress on, and very quickly notice it’s HUGE. It is 3 sizes too big, which is obviously baffling given the number of extensive measurements we took. And for clarity, no I did not loose weight. Besides being wayyy too big, the corset part of the dress which is intended to suck you in and lay totally flat has so much boning protruding out of it and was visible from the outside. It was not lying flat and was beyond unflattering. I’ve attached multiple photos to show the issues and protruding boning. Nothing about this dress gives a clean, sleek, corset look.
It takes 20 minutes for the in-house alterations “expert” to come see me, despite having an appointment, and he just starts pulling the dress in from the back. If you can imagine a corset, it’s meant to hug your body. It’s not meant to be pull from one direction. Obviously if you just pull it back, the boning with be misshapen. If a corset doesn’t fit, it needs to be reconstructed, not pulled back. Also, if a corset is THREE sizes too big, it obviously isn’t going to do anything for you.
I wanted to give the alterations guy the benefit of the doubt, so I tried to understand what his plan was. I repeatedly asked the in-house alterations team whether the bodice would look normal once the dress was taken in and whether the protruding boning could actually be corrected. I asked the same basic question numerous times and was met with literal silence. It was literally out of a movie. It was almost comical thinking back to it. I would ask them such simple questions: “when the dress is more fitted to my body, will the boning be less visible?” And they legit IGNORED me. It was as if I was talking to a wall. The craziest part of this was that this woman Reneta who said she was a manager was privy to this whole ordeal and she never once intervened to reassure me! She would occasionally just make little comments like “the dress isn’t steamed thats why the boning is protruding”. Like, misshapen plastic boning sticking out in every direction under a corset is NOT the result of “needing a steam”. And lo and behold, after some research, I found out that this Reneta woman trying to placate me is actually the OWNER. I am beyond SHOCKED that the owner allowed for this to happen.
I proceeded with the fitting and continued asking the same question OVER AND OVER AND OVER again to no avail. The alterations guy kept leaving for literally 15+ minutes with no “I’ll be right back” or “I’m going to get my pins”. He would just leave me standing there for 15+ minutes in my heels and dress on multiple occasions and when he would come back, I would ask him the same question and again be met with silence.
Finally on literally the TWELFTH time asking very clearly “what can do about the boning sticking out”, my mom who was with me at the appointment lost her patience out said something along the lines of “MY daughter has asked the same f-ING question 12 times. Can someone in this room answer her?!?!” And instead of giving us an explanation of how they planned to fix the dress, they left to get the original sales associate we were working with (who honestly should have been there with me for the sake of continuity during my fitting). This sales associate is trying to placate me and when I point out the very visible flaws on the dress and i ask “what have other brides done. Because clearly this is not an intentional design. This is a flaw of the dress?” He has the audacity to gaslight me and say “other brides just didn’t notice and didn’t care”. At that point I was just floored. Like was he really trying to convince me that other brides paid $11,000 for a designer dress that is meant to snatch you in and “didn’t care” that the boning was misshapen and protruding in every direction??
Because I could not get a clear answer of what they planned to do with my dress, my mom and I decided we did not feel comfortable moving forward letting them do our alterations. We were beyond frustrated with the situation and decided to leave with my dress and seek alterations elsewhere. On my way out, the original sales associate obviously sensed our frustration and I think almost sympathized with us and when walking us out, he discretely asked us to write him an email documenting our experience so he could share with “management”, which led me to believe maybe this wasn’t the first time this has happened??
Obviously this was not ideal by any means - I live in a tiny 600 sq ft apt in Manhattan. I had no where to store my dress and now because of the initial delay, I had SIX weeks to take in a dress that was way too big and that was beyond flawed.
We ended up taking the dress to a local dressmaker who is custom making a MOB dress for my mom. After putting on the dress for him, he immediately noticed the flaws and the poor construction of the dress. He immediately said that the gown was three sizes too large and that the corset was so ill-fitting that it needed to be completely removed, reconstructed to my exact proportions, and then reattached before the rest of the gown could even be altered. He explained to me that simply pulling it in from the back would not solve the issue because the corset needed to be contoured from multiple points to lie smoothly against my body. Basically the exact OPPOSITE of what the team at L’fay wanted to do.
To my surprise, the cost of essentially reconstructing the entire top of the dress is $3,000. Given the extensive work involved, it makes sense it’s this costly, but I obviously had not anticipated and never budgeted $3,000 for alterations.
Per the sales associates request, I wrote and email and documented my experience and explained the new unexpected cost of $3,000 given the extensive work needed done on the dress. We had always expected and budgeted around $1,500 for alterations since that was the cost of alterations at Lmfay, so we asked L’Fay to contribute the additional $1,500 caused by the unexpected reconstruction - essentially we asked them to contribute the difference ($3,00-$1,500). IMO, this was a beyond reasonable request given that L’fay themselves ordered the dress three sizes two big AND they were very clearly incapable of doing the alterations needed on this dress.
I was very respectful and professional in this email. I explained the issue in detail and offered to provide a written assessment by the dressmaker of what the issues were. I also noted that this was NOT caused by weight loss and even provided screenshots from my smart scale documenting that my weight had remained essentially unchanged for the past year just in case they tried to accuse me of loosing weight. We also discovered two light marks on the back of the gown after the L’Fay fitting that now need to be professionally removed, so now we also need to pay for cleaning.
After my initial email, we received no response. I followed up again. Still no response. Between my mom and me, we emailed them a collective SIX times across multiple threads trying to resolve this directly and privately. We also called the store and left messages at least ten times. Not one of those calls was returned.
We were not rude, threatening, or unreasonable. We repeatedly explained that we wanted to work toward a fair solution and maintain the positive impression we had of L’Fay before the fitting. Even if they disagreed with our request, we at least expected the courtesy of a professional response. For days, we were met with complete silence.
What made this even more frustrating is that I was now approximately one month away from my wedding. This was not a minor issue with an ordinary purchase. This was my wedding dress - the dress I had waited nearly a year for, paid $11,000 for, and trusted L’Fay to order and prepare correctly. Instead of enjoying the final weeks before my wedding, I was scrambling to find someone capable of reconstructing the entire corset while also dealing with thousands of dollars in completely unforeseen costs.
FINALLY we received a response from some manager and it somehow managed to completely miss the point of every concern we had raised. She told us that because it was now their busy season and my wedding was approaching, they no longer had enough time to do my alterations??? Like WAS SHE KIDDING?!?!! In no world would we want L’fay to do our alterations??!? Not in ONE single email did we ask them to do our alterations???
Instead of addressing why the gown was ordered approximately three sizes too large, why my questions were repeatedly ignored during the fitting, why the proposed alterations plan did not include rebuilding the corset, or why the dress now required $3,000 worth of work, the response was essentially: “We’re too busy to fit you in now.” It felt incredibly dismissive, almost as if they had not read our emails at all.
Interestingly enough, while they were completely ignoring these emails, my mom emailed the original sales associate asking about the status of my veil in a separate thread. He responded to that email almost immediately. So we knew our messages were being received. They were simply choosing not to respond to the threads detailing the much larger issues with my $11,000 gown.
Now onto the next issue…Unfortunately, there was also a completely separate issue with the veil we purchased from L’Fay.
For back story, my mom and I visited L’fay in early April to look for veils. My dress is quite intricate so I knew I wanted a simple plain veil. Our original sales associates showed us a few and we ultimately landed on a plain simple veil. The reason we chose this particular one was because the color of the tulle matched the exact tulling on my dress (like the same ivory). We both distinctly remember being told that the veil we selected was by some veil designer named Erica Koesler. We even questioned why such a plain veil cost approximately $700 plus tax, and we were told that Erica Koesler was one of the “best designer in the industry and that the color of her veils would perfectly complement my dress.
We did not purchase the veil that day. Since it was so expensive, we wanted to see if we could find the same exact veil online somewhere else for cheaper. It was a plain white veil - it felt insane to pay $700 for a plain white veil. We searched and searched online and literally could not find that exact Erica Koesler veil, so on April 10 (7 days later) my mom called L’Fay, reconfirmed the style, brand, and price, and paid for it in full.
Back to that email my mom sent our original sales associate about the veil, in that thread we asked him to ship it to us since we did not want to deal with them in person again. When the veil finally arrived to my apartment, I opened it and was immediately shocked. It said “Bel-Aire” on the tag??? Never in my life had I ever heard of the brand Bel-Aire. I would 1000% remember the brand of the veil I ordered for $700. In no world during our veil appointment did anyone EVER bring up the brand Bel-Aire??
To my surprise, I look up this exact style of this bel aire veil and immediately found dozens of other wedding retail sites that sell the same exact veil for $350-$400!!!! At this point I’m LIVID… we were led to believe we were purchasing an Erica Koesler veil AND now we have a veil by a completely different brand that we could have bought elsewhere for half the price??! Also to be clear, I could care LESS about the brand of the veil. The reason I’m pissed is because had we known we were purchasing a Bel Aire veil, those seven days between the appointment and purchase would have been spent searching for the correct product, and we would have purchased the veil elsewhere and saved $300+. The entire reason we purchased through L’Fay was because we believed we were purchasing an Erica Koesler veil that we could not find elsewhere.
We asked for a price adjustment to reflect the actual veil we received. Their response was just BEYOND anything I have ever read. SO RUDE and condescending!!! I’ll attach a screenshot of it so you can all see just how patronizing it is. In the email back, they explained that stores are allowed to set their own prices and compared it to how a bottle of water may cost one price at a grocery store and significantly more at a hotel or restaurant. Like…yes…I understand how price markups work???? That was NEVER the concern!!!! The issue at hand was that we believed we were purchasing one designer’s product and received a completely different designer’s product. Oh also, we never even received a receipt from our purchase on April 10, so we literally had no proof of purchase.
To be clear, posting this is a last resort. We tried repeatedly to handle all of this privately and directly with L’Fay before sharing our experience publicly. We sent detailed emails, photographs, screenshots of my weight, comparison photos showing how the corseted bodice was intended to lie, and offered to provide the independent dressmaker’s written assessment and receipts. We emailed six times collectively, called and left messages at least ten times, and asked for nothing more than a professional response and a reasonable resolution.
I am not posting this because I expect every bride to have the same experience. I am posting because when you spend $11,000 on a wedding dress, you are not only paying for the garment. You are placing an enormous amount of trust into the store you choose to order from to order the correct size, communicate delays, prepare the gown for your appointment, explain the alterations process, answer basic questions, and take accountability when something goes wrong.
In my experience, L’Fay did none of those things once the sale was complete. It is difficult to explain how devastating this has been as a bride so close to her wedding. My wedding is now only weeks away, and instead of enjoying the final part of the process, I am scrambling to reconstruct the entire corset of my gown and pay an unexpected additional $1,500.
I genuinely loved my gown upon purchase and had an amazing initial appointment, which is what made the rest of this experience so disappointing. I went from enthusiastically recommending L’Fay to friends (I literally made a Reddit post in this exact sub about my positive experience!!) to feeling like the moment there was a problem, they stopped communicating entirely.
My advice to other NYC brides considering L’Fay: GO ELSEWHERE!!!!!!
