Where's the maternity wedding dress?

by mother of the bride
(Hertfordshire)

Sorry to tell a not so positive maternity wedding dress story, though I know its going to have a happy ending.

I'm not even the bride, but the bride's mother!

I took my daughter to try to find her dress at Expectant Bride in Chiswick. The website is still there. It looks great! We found, ordered and paid for a gorgeous dress. The owner has a great eye and the first one she suggested was "the one" even though my daughter tried quite a few more.

She told us it would be in in 3-5 days, and that she could organise to have it shortened. After some chasing we were told the dress was in and arranged an appointment, for which my daughter came back to London from North Wales.

We received a text saying that the owner's daughter had been rushed into hospital with meningitis (every mother's worst nightmare!). Of course, we were sympathetic, and Tracey promised to post the dress asap to my daughter in Wales, so that she would have time to get it shortened. There followed a saga of texts and e-mails telling me that the dress had been posted, would be posted, giving me an invalid tracking number. I really didn't know how to handle it. We had a wedding date getting closer, but I didn't want to be too hard on a woman with a seriously ill child.

Now the better news. I ordered a substitute from the manufacturers. They were unbelievably nice, giving me a good discount and promising next day delivery. They also told me that they had had a lot of trouble with Tracey's disappointed customers (and had even reported her to trading standards!). I'd love to name the manufacturer, but as she was careful to talk to me over the phone, and not by e-mail, it probably wouldn't be fair to.

My daughter should receive her dress tomorrow, just over 2 weeks before her wedding, so hopefully should be able to get it shortened. I am hoping that my beautiful daughter will be married to her lovely boyfriend in the dress she wanted.

What I can't work out is what happened with Tracey. She's a young mum, who seemed very nice. She has two young children and told us she was in the early stages of her third pregnancy. I can't quite believe that someone like that would take advantage of a young girl at a time that is so important to her. Surely Tracey's daughter's illness must be genuine - would anyone make up a thing like that? But even with a daughter in hospital, it should have been possible to organise the posting of a wedding dress which she had told me she already had in stock.