hmmm. here http://www.tsr.ch/emissions/abe/assu...-possible.html,
a whole debate on the cancelling of a sale transaction in Switzerland.

A contract can be resent within 7 days if established at the home of the buyer, with street vendors or during advertising events. At a fair or in a a shop, the contract is considered fully binding, unless there is a fault in the product delivered.

Sorry. it sounds like your fiancée got a very expensive real life lesson.

A signed contract is also binding in most other countries...

I realize that CHF2600 is a massive strain on your budget - but is there anywhere else you can cut back a little to partially compensate, and make the best of it? Maybe as Lou suggested, you could agree to try and sell the dress afterward to recoup part of the cost.

There are always unanticipated expenses when planning a wedding - or at least there were for me, and every married woman I talked to about it assured me there had been for them too. If it isn't this, it'll be something else - unless you are both very fiscally disciplined (which, no offence, doesn't sound likely) and have your budget on a tight leash.

If your fiancée feels she has found "THE dress", then even though rationally she may acknowledge you two can't afford it, emotionally she will still have a hankering after 'what might have been'. I'm not saying that this emotional attachment must carry all before it, but do recognize that it is likely to exist and to carry rather more weight with her than you suspect or than she is willing to express.

Think of your own not-strictly-rational revulsion at the idea of wearing a wedding suit obtained from this shop... now transfer that to the idea of 'settling' for another dress, any other dress, when you have found The One and seen yourself in it....

I'm not saying that's how it ought to be, but that's how it is, modern-day wedding industrial hype, etc. etc. and unless your fiancée is extraordinarily strong-minded about the whole thing (which, again no offence, it doesn't sound like) she has probably absorbed at least a certain amount of this. Again, nothing says that such irrational considerations must necessarily carry the day, but you really need to reckon with the fact they exist. I'm a bit concerned that you are hearing only rational assent to your propositions (yes, the dress is over budget; no, I should not have bought it; yes, it's best we try to send it back) and discounting any other sides of the situation.

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If she decide to go for the dress I'll suggest this to you:

According of her size, if she is in the petite range, I will ask the dress to be ''temporary'' fitted on her. So after the wedding, if she wants to sell it, she will have a larger range of potential buyers. Same thing for the length of the dress.

Nil

My friend showed up at the boutique where she ordered her dress......and it was the wrong dress! Two days before her wedding! Her husband is a lawyer and the stupid shop wouldn't give them their money back when they made the mistake.

Good luck. I have a feeling I know what shop you're talking about and I walked out after 10 mins because the service was so crap.

Going back a few years I managed a shop for Pronuptia. You will probably find that the contract is binding, we never ever gave anyone their money back....those contracts are water tight and they will think nothing of instructing a lawyer to enforce.

And yes hitting their monthly target comes into it too, add to that the fact that the sales girls earn commission on every extra item you buy , underskirt, underwear, jewellery, veil and shoes is worth a fortune to that salesgirl ........

Sorry this is not more positive but just letting you know how it worked when I was in the trade. Being nice is your best tactic here, ranting and crying will not hep.

Are you having bridesmaids ? perhaps you could get those dresses from the same shop with the credit ?


Good Luck

It sounds as if she found the dress she really wanted.

As such, given the situation in which you find yourselves, I would first go back to the manager of the shop with someone who speaks the local language and point out that 10 minutes after opening the following morning, it was agreed on the phone that you could get back the deposit of CHF 2000.- as a "Gutschein" as the dress had not yet been ordered; so in fact, even though there was a signed contract, you were still told that it was ok to do it this way afterwards. See how they respond.

If they still maintain that the total has to be paid for, go ahead and buy the dress, put it behind you as a lesson learnt and simply enjoy it (cut costs somewhere else to make up for it, e.g. rent your suit instead of buying or cut back on the catering costs).

However, also let us know who they are so that future brides-to-be can be saved from similar situations.

Probably not the response that's going to win me any favors with many (particularly not the guys I'm sure)

BUT

It sounds to me like your gal found a dress that she LOVES but is more expensive than you'd "told her" to spend and now, to try to save things WITH YOU she is claiming that the shop clerks got her in a tizzy.

She probably was in a tizzy - a tizzy of excitement over a beautiful dress, imagining how she'll look for you and for herself that day.

Stop fighting it, YOU said she loves the dress. Yes, it is expensive but, it is her wedding dress. Could she have chosen a less expensive one? Yes, likely... but with jeans being 100chf here and even "PayLess" quality shoes being up around 50 - 100 chf as well, I'm SURE that a dress that would be had for about $2000 in the US would come up to at least the 3600chf you describe.

Also, I've spent multiple-hundreds of dollars for undergarments for "every day" wear before (my "every day" bras alone retail regularly up around $40+)- the trousseau for a wedding certainly would be at least as costly.


So, forget about all the legal crap and stop making yourself AND your sweetie upset about the money of it all - and find someplace else to save instead.

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Well, this guy says.....nice catch!

or go to a place that has nice wedding dresses ( by Lily , http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/...6b#/85beee6b/1 ) at reasonable prices: http://www.magys-brautmode.ch/

Ah, but it's a bit late for that now, isn't it?

The money is "spent" already. The thing to do now is to try to get on with things, relax, know that "The Dress" has been picked out, sure it was more expensive than initially intended but that stressful part is OVER.

Think about the wedding photos and all sorts of other memorabilia of the day... would anyone really want their sweetie to (or want to themselves), see pictures of the wedding, wearing the dress that wasn't THE ONE, knowing that THE ONE had been found but there was such a fuss about the cost (after the fact no less!) that another dress had to be settled for?

I know I wouldn't - and I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for that niggling sense of disappointment that my sweetie would have, looking at pictures of a 2nd best dress.

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Gosh that website is the worst web design (and execution!) I've ever seen for a retailer in my whole entire life, and that's including the early 90's. How does a retailer expect to get any business with a website like that?

Try larobe.ch

That's right. Something similar happened to me years ago, only my mom was with me and we both got carried away. After you've found YOUR perfect dress, everything else will feel cheap and only second choice. Maybe the bride's proud father would be willing to help out a little? I come from a traditional family and my dad paid without complaining

Guys, this is almost 5000 CHF! For a dress. That you only wear once.

Imagine if you could spend those 5000 CHF on a week at a luxury hotel in Fiji instead...

I don't know the background of people on the forum here, but consider that perhaps the OP has a wedding budget and must stick to it for a reason. Not everyone's parents just "pay without complaining". Some people must finance the whole wedding themselves. Not everyone earns 120,000 CHF a year. Maybe there are other expenses the couple must consider in their lives together (sick family members, retirement, children, etc etc etc.).

If you're the type of person that can drop 5k on a dress just like that, you are extremely, extremely fortunate and unusual. Remember this.

The OP stated that he was prepared to fight the store & lose the money of it came to that. This indicates that they can somehow afford the cost of the dress plus accessories. THe dress can also be sold afterwards.

Agreed, but the arguments made are only to make him look at the brighter side of the whole saga, incase (most likely)the contract won't be cancelled.
We all know 5K is a big amount for a dress but let's admit it, many brides do it the impulsive shopping especially when its the "wedding"!!
The most practical thing to do now is
1) replan budget,
May be try to save something on the beauty/make up side, ask some friends to do it instead of a professional(incase it was planned)
2) Venue/guests can be compromised in some way etc etc
3) Plan a less" lavish" honeymoon or whatever, there are ways to save 2k when you have overspent it on "something"
4) The best is to sell the dress off , am sure there would be market for a "new" wedding dress if it was used only once, even it gets sold for 50%, you are back on your initial budget of 2K for the wedding dress!
5) Fighting legally would only add to the cost, and Cost I understand is (OP's primary concern) at the moment.

Did anyone watch My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding? Those dresses were expensive!! I'm with Peg and the other ladies - she saw, tried on and fell in love with THE dress. Cut back on the champagne and caviar and give the girl the day of her life and the dress of her dreams!!

What a way to start married life - bickering over a dress!!!

I also don't think ruining the shop's reputation will work. This is Switzerland. Shops with bad return policies are the norm. So I think they couldn't care less if you badmouth them.

Thank god for a male voice of reason. I love how so many people assume that they know my fiancee better than me and that they say she secretly wants that dress. I have offered to let her have the dress after all just to avoid this hassle and I will go and get mine elsewhere. The fact is, it is not an easy pill to swallow and it is really an expensive mistake but not earthshattering.

We decided after all that we are going to pay the rest and get the store credit. We are going to break it down into a lot of 500 chf credits, some of which we will use for her dress and maybe my suit, and some we will try to sell.

Well, FYI, I'm a girl.

So, I guess that just goes to show that logic and deductive reasoning is not exactly a "male" domain.

Anyway, OP: glad you found a solution that works. Best of luck with the rest of the wedding planning, and I wish you and your bride a lifetime of happiness!