Stella’s Gifts & Bridals

At first I was very impressed with Stella’s, especially one specific sales girl who helped me try on wedding gowns. She was wonderful and very helpful. The reason I am giving Stella’s a one star rating is because they informed me that I could order a particular dress with no problems. They raised my hopes and I fell in love with this dress. I tried to find it at another store in VA to show a family member and after more digging, I found out from the Designer directly, that the dress has been discontinued since 2011! and there is no way to order it. Apparently, you can buy frauds online that are not from the designer. I don’t know if the owner of this store purposely tried to sell us a discontinued dress and replace it with a fake or if she was just that out of touch with her stock to not know a dress was discontinued over a year and a half ago! Needless to say, I am very disappointed and now I have to start my search over. If you decide to go to Stella’s and find a dress, be sure to call the designer directly right away to ensure you can still order the dress for your wedding.

I was neverous about shopping here due to the location and the dresses in the window. BUT I had amazing service once inside the shop for my bridal gown. I made an appointment and was the only bride in the shop. I actually purchased the second dress I tried on after consultant spoke with my mother and I made comments on the first dress. They will also change anything you like about the dress, they are going to move the strap on mine and add some diamonds and change the bottom for my beach wedding. So cost effective and so amazingly helpful. The outside does not do the inside justice. Give them a try!

I actually went here for wedding dress alterations after reading a number of recommendations for Doris (previously with her own alterations business called Sew Elegant). First, this seemed like a kind of awful bridal shop — it’s run-​down, the lighting couldn’t be more unflattering, and there are an abundance of outdated, chintzy-​looking styles.
However, I was just here for the alterations for the gown I’d bought elsewhere, so I just tried to ignore the crusty ambiance. My wedding gown is a simple, more modern dress and the seamstress seemed to have no idea how to fit the torso to my body appropriately. First, she didn’t notice that it was too large (because I always wanted to look 10 pounds heavier on my wedding day, right, ladies!) Then, when I tried to show her how it was supposed to fit, she just seemed confused, put a few pins in, and told me she would try to get it right. I finally decided after some angst and anxiety that I was not leaving my wedding dress alterations to the random chance that she might get it right. Doris made me pay $ 50 for the fitting — I got absolutely nothing out of it, but it was worth it to leave with my dress still intact.

I haven’t set foot in this store, so I can’t really comment on any face-​to-​face interaction. However, after an awful experience at another bridal salon, I decided to have Stella’s order my wedding dress for me. (They were the only place in the area that carried the designer.) It turns out, they tried to pull a fast one on my mother when she called back to pay for the dress!
My phone conversations had been with Helen — after giving her the designer name and style number of the dress, she quoted me a price and said to simply call back if I would like to place the order. But when my mother called the next time — the price all of a sudden went up over $ 100. She tried to tell her that we needed to pay for shipping and handling since they didn’t have the dress in stock! Can you believe it?! No stores carry dresses in stock — they just have the sample to try on, if that! My mother called her out on it, and after Helen put her on hold for an extended period of time, she came back and said the price would be what she initially quoted me.
So, on that note, their prices are reasonable and up until that point their service was fair. I would just warn customers that they may try to pull one over on you.