A Bridgetown couple says a dressmaker spoiled their wedding day when she failed to deliver the bride’s dress and groom’s suit.
Sharna and Randall Abrahams are demanding a refund after paying the woman over R12000, but say the dressmaker, Desiree Marthinus, is refusing to reimburse them.
Sharna, 30, says they ordered five dresses, including her wedding dress and Randall’s suit, four bridesmaids dresses, as well as 75 masks, four ties and three flower hoops.
Bank statements provided show they paid Desiree the money in January 2021, nine months prior to their wedding.
The couple got married on 24 September 2021 and their reception was held at La Ferme Derick in Paarl.
Randall, 47, says on the eve of the wedding, they learnt with shock that nothing was ready for collection.
Desiree somehow managed, at 5am the next morning, to bring the clothing, but the designs and sizes were all wrong.
Sharna says her R5500 wedding dress was the wrong colour, too long and the shoulders kept slipping off.
“It was supposed to be a purple ombré with the colours going from light to dark purple. It looked like the dress was just lightly dipped in lilac dye with no ombré effect. The veil was supposed to cover my face but it did not,” she says.
The pants of Randall’s suit, which cost R1700, were too short and baggy and kept falling down because there were no belt loops.
The shoulder pads on his jacket started in the collar, pulling the jacket up and the waistcoat could not open as the buttons could not pull through the small buttonholes.
“He had to pull it over his head, which resulted in it tearing on the sides and he could not take his jacket off for the whole wedding because of this,” says the angry bride.
Sharna says Desiree, from Ottery, was recommended to them by friends.
“On 24 January 2021, she started sending us pictures of previous wedding attire she had made, which we were happy about.
“She then asked for deposits to secure the materials for all of our attire, which we paid.”
“We went for three fittings and seeing a lot of people coming to her for fittings, I thought she must be very good at her job.
“But on 23 September, my husband WhatsApped me saying she was not done with our attire. On the day of the wedding, she came with half of the things and left.
“All of our clothes didn’t fit but we forced them on and I just broke down during the day. It was so embarrassing because our guests were fixing our outfits all the time.
“I did not enjoy my wedding at all and I want a refund.”
When the Daily Voice contacted Desiree to ask about the Abrahams couple, she denied doing business with them.
“Who are these people? I don’t know who you are talking about,” she claimed.
However, Sharna said Desiree later sent her a WhatsApp message asking for a meeting, as she was not prepared to speak to the Daily Voice.