Imagine my surprise and horror when my sister's experience of buying her wedding dress turned into a sustained nightmare. Most people try and shed a few dress sizes for the event. Well I'd advise you to grow a thick skin.

My sister had seen dresses from this UK based bridal store featured in a magazine and thought that they were exactly what she wanted. They had designs that managed to marry (bridal pun fully intended) style and elegance and there wasn't a meringue in sight. Now this is not a lesson in being on time as we entered their Dublin store a good fourteen months before the Big Day.

We strolled in one summer afternoon and were pounced upon immediately. The pouncing wasn't entirely unwelcome as the girl, let's call her Lisa, was extremely friendly and not in a sycophantic way either. She was completely down-to-earth and even had a slightly guilty laugh with us about which of the dresses we would have to get paid to wear which was, incidentally, a hideous voluminous number with matching cubic zirconia studded bolero. My sister was initially a bit sheepish about trying anything on and was muttering about wrong underwear and creeping bikini lines.

A bit of persuasion later and a happy hour of trying on dresses ensued including the thrilling moment of finding the dress. It was a stunning combination of tightly fitted ivory bodice and a skirt with a train and I did get actually misty eyed. That lovely day marked the end of the pleasantries, unfortunately.

The next time we entered the store, this time for the serious business of choosing bridesmaids' dresses, Lisa's tone and demeanor were markedly cooler. The deposit (which was a sizeable amount) had been paid and she no longer had the thrill of the chase in netting a sale.
This time it was my sister, her other bridesmaid and I who had come to choose bridesmaid dresses. Thankfully, my sister wasn't sadistic enough to inflict anything upon us that we weren't 150% happy with which is a good job really as there seemed to be a plethora of shades that would have been more fitting in a 1970s bathroom catalogue. Bright hideous pink, glaring mustard, garish blue and an insidious shade of olive green. With a huge sigh of relief we spied some less offensive shades.
We chose a material in a beautiful shade of glossy plum and then it was time to choose a style out of the range that they had available. It had always been agreed that they we were going to have contrasting styles. For one, the other bridesmaid is almost a foot taller than I am and I didn't fancy the prospect of looking like a Mini me of anyone. As I surveyed the styles the assistant - a woman in her 40s with more lipstick on her teeth than in Brown Thomas - said 'Oh you'd really need to pick something glamorous to save you from looking like a child.'

Nettled by this I pointed out my preference in a tone which I hoped implied that there would be no further discussion about. I asked if I might try on my size and when I told Lipstick Teeth my size (I suppose it would be kinder to call her Moira) she looked at me dubiously and said 'Oh you wouldn't be that. I'd go two sizes up if I were you.' I looked at her helplessly. It seemed a rather ridiculous argument to embark on when I was standing there for both of us to see. I had a bit too much dignity to start scrabbling at the labels of my clothes to prove that I was the size that I had asked to try on.

She actually made me try on dresses that would have enveloped Lisa Riley (in her Emmerdale days) and then said in a tone which suggested that she was humouring someone very delusional 'Alright, we'll order that size for you.' Things got a lot worse when it came to our friend, the next bridesmaid. She duly chose her preferred style and this point Moira started to look like she might pass out.
'You're not wearing the same style?' she asked incredulously with eyes like saucers.

We explained that we would be wearing contrasting styles in the same material and that this was both the bride's choice and ours.
By this stage I was beginning to feel exasperated and the distasteful expression on Moira's face was not helping. 'Oh my daughter's three bridesmaids wore the exact same dresses. It looked absolutely beautiful. Much nicer that wearing different, I think.' The latter was said in an extremely huffy tone but I began to think that she was actually making things very difficult.

Having fought for our respective styles we decided that the best thing to do might just be to retire to the pub. Suddenly everyone needed a drink.
On our next visit (the fitting) things took a nastier turn. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we hadn't even closed the shop door behind us when Lisa was shrilling 'Would you like to settle up now?' Her rudeness shocked us. No hello, how are you, just an unabashed display of money grabbing. She didn't even look up, as she was too busy ringing up the astronomical total. Feeling annoyed we decided that we had no choice but to humour her and handed over the Visa.
My sister asked if she might try on her wedding dress again and Moira agreed very readily saying 'Yes, you want to get a nice dress on you. I think you were starting to feel a bit mumsy there, weren't you?'
After we tried on our bridesmaid dresses we noticed that two of the assistants had gathered together to whisper in a thoroughly unprofessional manner. Eventually they came over and said 'There's a problem with one of the dresses.' My sister, feeling that whatever followed might not be too tactful asked if she might talk to them in private.

They said that it a dress could not be made for our friend as 'there wouldn't be enough material.' I'd like to inject at this point that our friend is a size 16. Statistically this is the most common dress size for women.

The scare-mongering women in this bridal store seemed to think that the dressmakers in the UK might run out of material in their quest to make such a mammoth dress as a size 16. None of really understood how this could be. Perhaps I'm very ignorant but I would have thought that it doesn't matter if it's a size 8, 14 or 20. They all have to get hacked out of a bale of material. My sister managed to ask them to do their best and we left the shop. Again everyone felt like a drink. I couldn't believe that they had been so demoralising and managed one of us feel like they wouldn't be out of place in a Victorian freakshow.

I suppose the important thing is that the bride looks good on the day and my sister looked absolutely beautiful (us bridesmaids didn't look half-bad either, or so we were told). However, out of all the wedding arrangements to be made, we didn't think that getting the dress would be the most stressful and at times frankly, downright unpleasant
It's an utter shame how things deteriorated. When you walk into bridal stores there really is a feeling of excitement and expectancy with all these people in sparkling rings all starry-eyed at the prospect of the happiest day of their life. I hope for your sake that if you are going wedding dress shopping you are treated like a true bride-to-be.