Annette Bridals

It was my assumption that it is the intent of businesses to make sales… I would never think that based on the visit that I made to this place. I hate a pushy sales person, but when I go to a place with the intent of using sales assistance to make a purchase, I wouldn’t think it would be difficult to get.
First of all, as much as I appreciate the «no shoes» rule in my home, I think it’s a little weird for a place of business. I mean, seriously… had to take my shoes off to enter the store (and I happened to have socks that I had painted in before, so yeah, quite the embarrassment).
At any rate, ok fine… shoes off, you want to keep the place clean. I walk in with my maid of honor and see a pregnant woman sitting in the main room and no one else to be found. After a minute or two of waiting, the pregnant woman finally asked us if SHE could help us and went into the back to get the person working. Like Emily M., a little old lady came out and asked us what we wanted… really??? So I explained that I had spoken with someone on the phone, confirmed that they had a sample of a bridesmaid dress that I was interested in and wanted my maid of honor to try it on. She directed us into the back room and told us to look thru several tightly packed racks of dresses. We went thru the dresses and did not find the one that I had requested. We went back to her and told her and she insisted that it was there, that we did not look good enough and to take our time going thru one by one looking again. As annoyed as we were, we went thru every dress one by one… to no avail.
I pulled my iphone out and went to pull up a picture of the dress to show the little old woman, thinking that maybe she would recognize it. When she came into the back room and saw me with my phone out, she started yelling at me that they do not permit pictures to be taken. I tried to explain to her that I was pulling up a picture of the dress to show her and she restated, several times, «no pictures, no pictures». I got the picture to come up of the dress and put it in front of her yapping face to look at. She said that maybe the dress was downstairs, she asked if we could take a look there to see if we could find it. She then told us to come back another day with all of my girls w/​a scheduled appointment. I told her to forget it, that I would bring my business elsewhere, grabbed my shoes and hightailed it outta that place.
My maid of honor was visiting from out of town. I was told that the dress was in the store and I got the little old woman with a hunch back being nasty, telling me to look harder and then yelling at me before I finally ran out of the store scared for my well being (she very well could have put some crazy curse on me…)
Other point of note — We realized that the place does not have a computer. There is no way for them to check inventory, and whomever I spoke with on the phone who said that they had the dress was obviously lying.
I am fairly new to the Albany area. I had no point of reference about this place, but I certainly will never recommend Annettes to anyone I meet who has bridal wear needs.
They are AWFUL!!!

I, too, would give zero stars if I could.
I found 2 possible dresses after a good few hours at Annette’s (the little old lady is VERY slow but I was being optimistic and trying to help myself in and out of most of the dresses as she was also not remembering which ones I had and had not tried on). At the end of the appointment, the woman who owns the business wrote down the dresses and style numbers on a card for when I was ready to return and purchase a dress. I had every intention of returning to purchase one of the dresses.
I live in Rochester, NY and was at the time in town visiting my father when I ended up at Annette’s with my sisters and step-​mother. I wanted to show the dresses to my mother here in Rochester so I called back for the information that had been written down for me.
The man who answered the phone was incredibly rude from «Hello.» When I tried to explain to him that my mother would be unable to travel to Albany with me to see the dresses he told me that they don’t give away the information b/​c their inventory costs them thousands of dollars and people will come in and waste their time and purchase the dress elsewhere. First, I assured him I was not «wasting» his time and that I did plan on purchasing the dress with them and what he had told me was completely understandable but it was simply not the case.
He suggested I come back in, try the dresses on and «take cell phone pictures or something,» for my mother. I then told him again that I intend to purchase the dress with them but would like for my mother to see them in person before I do. He then decided I didn’t hear him the first time and began to SCREAM at me the same information he previously stated. When I politely asked him to please stop yelling at me, he continued to yell even louder that I wasn’t listening and that I just don’t understand and people do this all of the time.
I hung up on him.
Purchasing the dress elsewhere was NOT my intent and I am completely appalled at the way he handled the situation as I told him again and again that I had planned on purchasing the dress there.
So I say, go here, waste their time, write down the dresses you like on your own paper and pen (you’ll have plenty of time as they are quite slow and you’ll do plenty of standing around) then head somewhere where they understand what customer service is b/​c this is NOT your place.