Greta’s Bridal & Formalwear Shoppe

I love love this business!!! Awesome experience! Greta and the girls were so helpful. Left with both my sister and mother very happy with dresses.

Pretty good selection but terrible customer service and alterations. Caused plenty of stress during wedding planning.

Wonderful bridal shop in the area. Large selection of dresses to fit every budget and style. I was impressed with how many gowns they had that fit was I was looking for. The lady who helped us was very kind and knew their inventory very well. She was very quick to pull things that I would like. I had a pleasant experience here.

I contacted Greta’s on the phone looking for a bridesmaid’s dress. She didn’t carry the dress I was interested in, but after we hung up she did a bunch of digging and found me a list of names of places that carry my dress! Plus she found locations closer to me than even her store! What a helpful, classy lady. She went above and beyond for me, a complete stranger, just for the sake of being nice. I would definitely do business with her, and I would absolutely recommend that others contact Greta for their bridal needs!

Pat and Greta were so wonderful to work with. They were the only shop that I could find in the area that sold Alfred Angelo Disney line dresses. I felt like a princess and fell in love with the dresses they had to offer. They spent a lot of time with my mother and i and even allowed me to come back a few days after to show my bridesmaids my decision!

I recently purchased my wedding dress from Greta’s and I could not have been more impressed with Pat, a wonderful, very experienced and helpful bridal consultant, and Faith, one of the seamstresses! I actually wouldn’t have found my dress without Pat, as it wasn’t one I would have choosen to try on just seeing it on the hanger, but she listened carefully to my feedback on the dresses I had been trying on, and then said she knew of one she wanted to show me and low and behold I put it on and fell in LOVE instantly!!! Pat you are amazing!
Faith not only was very patient and also willing to offer advice, but she also allowed me to make the final decision about how I wanted my dresses to fit. In the end, my ceremony dress and evening dress fit wonderfully and looked really great! Faith you are so talented!!!
Thanks a bunch ladies!!!

I have had an all around bad experience here every time I have been in. I am in a friend’s wedding, and we went in as a group to try on dresses. They were all pretty ugly/​very out dated, but I knew the bride was overwhelmed and didn’t want to have to go elsewhere so I picked the one I hated the least. We all chose our dresses in very little time, then waited over an hour for Greta to remember we were there and needed to be measured. Finally she came in, was rude the whole time and took forever, and then insisted I order a size 2 instead of a 4, which is my actual size. She didn’t even give me the option really, because she was holding the pen and the order sheet. So when I came to do my fitting, no surprise, it was too small in the bust and I was pretty much popping out. Taking a dress out is both more difficult and more expensive, which made me feel taken advantage of as I would now need to get it altered.
She really needs to work on her customer service skills. i came in to try on the dress and was waiting at the counter, she finally acknowledged me by saying, «what are you here for?» When I told her I needed to try on my dress and be fitted, she gave me a ton if attitude saying, «you can try it on but you have to make an appointment to be fitted, our seamstress isn’t in today.» This would have been fair, except I called ahead to make sure I didn’t need an appointment, and the girl I talked to assured me I didn’t (poor training/​new girl I imagine, so I’ll give that a half-​pass I guess). I decided not to get alterations done there, because I didn’t want to give her any more of my money. I have to wear a special adhesive bra to pin my bad girls down so I (hopefully) don’t pop out at my friend’s wedding. Greta insisted I would look fine, even though the girl helping me try it on seemed overwhelmed with making the obviously too small dress work.
I will only speak for myself in detail, but every bridesmaid in our party has agreed that we will never go back.
Way over priced, terrible service, ugly dresses. Take your money elsewhere. It is worth any extra hassle or drive time.

The staff was friendly and helpful. It was hard to look through dresses and try things on since the place is so small and always very busy. Reasonable prices but not the cheapest.

I had a wonderful experience here. I brought a dress in that I had ordered from another boutique out on the east coast with my mother since I am in South Bend for school and had no family here to pick out a dress with. The shop was very accomodating and set me up with a seamstress to do my alterations with only a very small fee for bringing an outside dress.
The dress turned out not to fit and was a huge disaster. One of Greta’s seamstresses tried everything to make the dress work and didn’t charge me a cent for all of her trouble. When finally, with me in tears, we realized that there was nothing to be done just 2 months before my wedding, a sales associate at Greta’s dropped everything and spent hours with me picking out a new dress from their rack. She was so knowledgeable about the gowns, so kind, made me feel so special even though I was shopping alone, and was very honest about the fit and style of each gown and how it would be altered and listened carefully to my requests about the kind of dress I was looking for.
I found a wonderful dress which I wore to my wedding last month and got so many complements on– for HALF the price of my original, ill-​fitting gown. The seamstress who wound up helping me was very young but she was incredibly helpful and hemmed it EXACTLY to my specifications even though I asked for it to be longer than was traditional. I’d recommend this store to anyone. Greta herself even tried to help me negotiate with the east coast store that sold me the dress that didn’t fit, it was very kind of her.

Greta and her staff saved the day ! Two hours before my daughters best friends wedding the zipper on my daughters bridesmaid dress broke … Additionally, the top of the dress was way too small ! We are from Pittsburgh and the dress was purchased from J Crew. I googled. Bridal salons and picked the first one that came up ! Lucky for us it was Greta’s ! When I called and explained the situation she told us to come right over. When we arrived Greta calmed us down, had 2 of her staff work on the dress, and told me to go to the hotel and get ready. My daughter stayed at the salon so they could fit her. When I returned 45 minutes later Greta and her staff had put in a new zipper and added fabric to the top of the dress so that the dress fit perfectly ! We arrived at St Mary’s with 19 minutes to spare and my daughter was able to be in her best friends wedding ! Greta could not have kinder or more professional especially since we had not even bought the dress from her salon! Without her help there would have been one less bridesmaid in the wedding and several disappointed young women ! Thank you Greta and your wonderful staff!

I would give zero stars if I could. Stay far away from this place. Greta is not a good person to have to work with and she made my life hell a WEEK before my wedding. She has some major issues that no bride should ever have to deal with. She is supposed to be selling dreams (as cheesy as that sounds) and she doesn’t care about you, once the dress is paid off the claws come out. If you are unhappy with alterations she won’t hear it and won’t even consider cutting you a break on the cost of the alterations even though as a customer you are very displeased and have already spent over 1,000 on a dress. She will try to hold your dress hostage, a dress YOU already own and will make your life miserable and cause you to have a breakdown the week before your wedding. It is not worth the trouble. I feel awful for the people that work there, they all seem like abused puppies. I would never step foot in her store again and would never recommend it to anyone… it’s a shame for her because I know quite a few newly engaged people that have asked me for a recommendation… I will be sure to tell them my entire horror story to ensure she doesn’t get their business.
Greta’s Bridal, don’t do it! Go anywhere, but here!

Truly wish I didn’t have to even give one star. I have NEVER left Greta’s happy. I had gone previously to look for a prom dress years ago, and was truly unsatisfied with both the selection as wen as the service. I felt that I wasn’t taken seriously. Last year I went to Greta’s along with a friend who’s wedding I was in as a bridesmaid. We worked with Greta looking for both wedding gowns and a bridesmaid dress. Greta was rude, did not listen to the needs or wants of the bride, and would not allow us, the mother of the bride and the bridesmaids, to look at the selections on the floor. Recently, I went back as a bride, with my younger sister, a bridesmaid, to be measured for a bridesmaid dress. We were not intending on ordering the dresses from Greta’s as I have moved and was ordering them from an online retailer. I was very upfront about this and told Greta, again I worked with her directly, that I was happy to pay a fee for the measurements and the sizing for the bridesmaid dress. Greta charged me $ 20.00 for the measuring (which I was happy to pay) but refused to give me the accurate translation to the sizing for that brand of bridesmaid dress. I explained I know how to take the measurements but was really paying for that sizing chart since the designer does not display that information online. She was completely rude and refused me. she asked about the retailer I was ordering through because she thought she might be able to offer me a competitive price, and again, I happily gave her the information. She came back with a quote that was much more expensive quote than any other bridal shop had given me. When I told her the even larger discounted price I was paying from the online retailer (which was a site I had used for many other weddings successfully, who also had great reviews), she told me I had to be getting scammed.
While I waited by the checkout I also noticed the disorganized jumble of dirty cheap jewelry they have strewn across the display case. Much of it was on pick cardboard strips with no designer name or original packaging. it looked like consignment jewelry that needed a good polish.
I will NEVER return there and will drive the extra miles every time I’m in the area to go to a boutique in Elkhart or other neighboring cities.
The only positive note I have is that the only money I supported that company with was a mere $ 20.00. I ended up calling another boutique in Elkhart who helped me translate the measurements for my sister free of charge without harassing me. I wish I never wasted my time or money there.

I’ve had an excellent experience with Greta with my dress. She went above and beyond to help me find it and followed up each step of the way. I went from being stressed about the whole experience to at ease. I came on here to thank her and I can’t believe there was even one negative review. Talk with her and you would understand my surprise. Definitely reccommend!

We went to Greta’s without an appointment and were welcomed to look at the dresses and told they would help us if they had time to try on dresses. I had no idea how time consuming it was to get in and out of dresses. My daughter wanted to try a few dresses on and Pat came to our assistance. She was helpful, considerate, and knew the inventory well. She listened to what my daughter said and proceeded to bring in many, many dresses with no pressure. She knew we were interested in any dress that was liked even if it was very expensive. In the end a dress was picked that was much less then anyone expected. The attitude stayed very positive and centered on what my daughter felt the best wearing. She looked fabulous in what she picked and we all left happy.
Greta did a good job measuring my daughter and recommending what size we should buy. She stressed that her job was to advise and we should decide. We followed her advise because it was obviously correct.

Being recently engaged, I am excited to start dress shopping and I have driven past Greta’s before so I figured that might be a good place to start.
I decided to go on Unilocal and read some reviews. Thank you fellow Unilocalers for helping me dodge this place! It sounds like an absolute nightmare and that’s the last thing any bride needs to deal with.
Bullet = dodged. :)

I don’t know what everyone was so upset about, I love Gretta’s they’ve treated me wonderfully. I bought my wedding dress somewhere else that closed down, but they let me store it there for months for free and they did the alterations for a very reasonable price. Everything was on time, they have very large dressing rooms, their staff is friendly and helpful. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Gretta’s I would recommend it to everyone. My mom also bought her mother of the bride dress there because of the exceptional service and my sister bought her wedding dress there. They’ve always treated everyone of us fairly.

Rude, rude, rude! Let’s just say I would NEVER recommend this place to anyone. They were absolutely horrible to deal with. They never even returned our phone calls.

I’ve read the previous reviews, and maybe it’s because I’m a guy– but I don’t think Greta was that bad… In fact, she turned what originally was a confusing, overwhelming process of sizes, colors, options, and other jargon i was less than familiar with, into the most fun, cost effective, memorable experience I’ve ever had! She helped us figure out side-​by-​side with my wife, what we looked good in, what we could have to fit the budget for tuxes, and even did our alterations free. Everything came in on time. There were no hidden «oh i forgot to tell you» charges. She treated all my guys and me (the groom) like we were her only customers — even though there was clearly a stressful amount of other customers in the store. That can be hard to do! But she delivered. She also took care of my wife and her girls without a complaint– but I’m reviewing my personal experince. My 2cents is: a positive word of mouth, 5star review, and a Facebook Like. Just sayin! :)

The prices are great, but ordering my wedding dress through Greta was a nightmare. I ordered in July and it did not arrive until February. Every phone call for updates was initiated by me and she blames everything from China, Obama, customs, computer systems and the weather for the delays. She is unorganized and extremely unprofessional. Greta went as far as to blame me for not understanding that she orders the dresses in order of when they are needed. If you order from her, lie about your wedding date by at least four months and call for an update weekly after your promised delivery date comes and goes. If she go in to complain, go on a Saturday when the shop is full so she cannot highjack you with an hour of meandering complaining to blame others for her shop’s poor organization and lack of communication. Be sure to get your dress altered somewhere different. I have heard of astronomical alterations costs.
Beautiful dress, terrible experience. I never would have placed this review (assuming my experience was uniquely terrible), except I just heard of another bride having the same experience and it is completely unfair.

I would never recommend. I was greatly dissappointed with the attitudes of the staff. I was incorrectly measured for my dress. I was treated like old news as they (Greta) sluffed off my complaints. I was left to pay extra for having the dress shipped to me in my state, and now I must find an alterations place to take in the 2 inches in the waste and the 8 inches in the bust line. I am just hoping it doesn’t ruin the dress, gets done in time, and doesn’t cost me a fortune.
The whole experience of dealing with Greta’s takes all the enjoyment of dress purchasing for a grand event. What a waste of time.