A former bridal shop assistant, Tasha, has recounted how a bride's mother collapsed to the floor after her dogs destroyed the matching veil that was meant to complete the wedding dress.
Tasha, who spent 13 years selling wedding dresses, described the bride as a "bridezilla" who had tried on many dresses before settling on one with a matching veil, which was the main selling point. The mother collected the gown and veil, signing the release form to confirm everything was in order.
Phone call reveals disaster
That same evening, Tasha stayed late at the shop to catch up on paperwork when the telephone rang. It was the bride's mother, who was "wailing down the phone, crying her eyes out" and was barely able to string a sentence together, leaving Tasha no choice but to calm her down before she could make any sense of what was being said.
"She was crying as if someone had died," Tasha recalled, adding: "I'd instructed her to get it out of the bag, let it hang, don't let it sit in the bag, creasing, and same with the veil, because she had a full-length veil, which matched the dress. It was a veil that had been made by the company to match her wedding dress."
Dogs shred the veil
The mother had followed instructions to the letter regarding the gown, carefully hanging it in a wardrobe. However, rather than hanging the veil similarly, she had left it lying flat across the bed.
"Somehow her dogs had gone into the room and run all over the bed where the veil was, ripping holes in the veil, all over it, chewing it," Tasha said. The panicked woman enquired whether they had another one in stock, but Tasha explained this wasn't possible, as they order the veil "at the same time as the dress".
The distraught mum then pleaded with Tasha to see if anything could be done to salvage the situation, and Tasha admitted she couldn't be certain without inspecting the damage herself, urging her to get to the shop immediately. She initially suspected they were "quite a dramatic family", so perhaps the situation wouldn't be as catastrophic as described.
She couldn't have been more mistaken. It "didn't even resemble a veil". The entire piece had "been completely destroyed", Tasha revealed, and when the distressed mum questioned whether repairs were possible, Tasha responded "no".
No solution for the ruined veil
"This woman literally collapsed to the floor and bawled her eyes out again, as though someone had died," Tasha recounted, admitting she felt helpless while the woman kept insisting she was certain she'd secured the door. Fortunately, the gown itself remained intact as it had been stored in the wardrobe, though the coordinating veil was "beyond repair" having been "shredded" by the dogs.
The sole solution Tasha could propose was for the mother of the bride to purchase an alternative veil her daughter had previously admired, hoping it might work, as it was "the right length". Astonishingly, the mother also enquired about a possible discount on the veil, to which Tasha declined, though she did offer that should the bride-to-be not wish to keep it, the mother could return it for a full refund — something that would not ordinarily fall within their usual policy.
"Anyway, she ended up leaving, and we never heard from them again," she said. "I have no idea if she wore the veil, she didn't wear the veil [...] I have no idea."
