A nervous bride at Kleinfeld Bridal. A true story.

It's all a perfect advertising campaign. You make the place magical, a store that you have to travel if you are getting married. You sort of hear the stories of people traveling with their friends or family, you might have heard about the sales or the extravagant prices. You have seen tv commercials about the TLC show. You might be just like me, a bride to be, who has watched the show enough to be curious to see what it was all about.

I fell for the advertising, hook, line and sinker. But what I forgot about our job was a very important thing: while we work our ass off to make people get to that door and open it... it's the job of the sales department to seal the deal. And at Kleinfelds, they mean business.

I might have to backtrack a bit to make you understand this post. Ok, so I'm a nervous bride. Not because I don't love my hubby to be - I do, with all my heart. I just am famous for being afraid of getting married. I have always regarded myself as a "status quo" kind of chick who was ok with just sharing a house. But, like any other couple, my boyfriend wanted us to... well, be normal, I guess. And he knew that it was going to be a new experience for me - one that I embraced with joy. And sort of nervousness. A little.

So here I am. I'm opening the door to the place that will start it all. Nope, I had not purchased one single item of wedding related materials at that point in time. So opening the doors to Kleinfeld was the start of the journey for me. I took a deep breath and walked in.

What happened next is a blur. Why? Because at the end of the appointment, I felt drained, nervous, emotional, pushed. But it's the nature of advertising, I should have thought. They make you want to go there, so why not would the dudette in the store make EVERY EFFORT POSSIBLE to make the sale? Hm. Because for some products, I guess the hard sale is ok. But for emotional purchases, I felt that it needed to be done with style, class and sensibility. For the first time in my life, I felt what the second part of an advertising campaign looks like: once we get them in, it's their job to make them buy.

The thing is... not all customers are the same. I was a very nervous bride to be. So it would be totally logic that the person who takes care of me notices it and treats me with kindness, slowly. Not so. Come on, baby, let's show you what we got. Oh this costs 500 dollars. This costs 800 dollars. No, you read wrong. The price is 3,000 dollars, not 300. Are we getting this in white or in ivory? Oh, but why do you need to think about it? Come on, look how beautiful you look. You know, we can ship it in 6 weeks, FedEx. It'll cost you about 200 bucks more, but hey... don't you love how it looks? You look so tall/cute/lovely!

It was like an avalanche of selling lines, one after the other. And there I am. Still trembling, still talking about how nervous I am, how I don't know what I need to get, how I need to make things simple... To no avail. Let's get this estimate, honey. Let's go to my office and get the quote, ok?

It was all about the sale, plain and simple. It was not about me, the customer. It was all advertising.

But hey, the story ends with a twist. At the end of the night, I partied with my friends, had a lot of wine, laughed about my weird bridal story and decided: online shopping is the best. I'm happy to report that I already bought loads of wedding thingies without someone pushing me over the edge... at home... with my hubby to be nearby. And yes, I didn't get nervous.

My love from the soon to get hitched Me.