Felicia Bridal Review
Felicia Bridal is located at 601 College St. Their dresses range from $1500 - $4000. They do not allow photographs.
Of all the bridal boutiques I have visited while dress shopping in Toronto, Felicia Bridal was by far my least favourite. I visited Felicia's toward the end of a Saturday in October. When I arrived there were 2 other brides in the store trying on dresses. I was greeted by a man who handed me some dress clips and told me to browse while they got ready for my appointment.
My bridesmaids and I clipped several dresses and waited. 30 minutes passed. When we asked if we could get started the man asked, "You're not in a hurry are you?" He did laughed when I responded that I did not want to spend all day waiting. I was not joking. Now, to their credit (I suppose), from the perspective of the girls that got to go over their appointment time and continue to try on dresses, it could be seen as a good thing that they selectively give certain brides so much attention that they ignore other ones. To me, it was rude. It was rude of their staff and it was also kind of rude of the other brides. Maybe it's because I have worked in the service industry for so long that I am hyper conscious of other people, but I truly believe that when your turn is over you need let the other kids play.
Needless to say the appointment did not get off to a good start. When they finally set me up with a fitting room we noticed that none of the dresses I had previously selected were still clipped. The man asked me where my clips were, as if I were holding out on him. The sales staff had actually pulled dresses I clipped for myself for the two other brides in the store and lost track of my selections. I chocked it up to it being the end of the day, when everyone is tired and it's easy to lose track. We tracked down a couple of the dresses, the others were "lost". Although I got the sense later based on their sizing that those dresses probably just weren't going to fit me and instead of telling me so, they just told me they were "lost".
The saleslady helped me into dress #1. Before I could react she chirpped, "You don't want to show this to your friends do you? Nooo. You know? It's too boring!" So I took it off and put on dress #2, "Ohhhhhhh kayyyy, so this is too plain right?" Not once did she ever wait to see my reaction. Why in the world would they carry dresses that their own staff consider boring and plain?
This was the type of bridal appointment that I was dreading. She made me feel absolutely wretched. At one point she left me in the fitting room to go tend to her previous bride who had returned to the store for something, leaving the man to help me out of a dress. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but there was no heads up given when the man opened the curtain to let himself in.
I do not recommend Felicia's. Their selection was not good enough to warrent the type of treatment I recieved. Also worth noting was that they do not carry larger sample sizes. Most were bridal 6-8. Which means street size 4-6. I became hyper aware of this when one dress did not adequately cover my chest and the sales lady giggled. "This is only size 6, never gonna do up." She then grabbed the next dress I was to try on and said, "This one no too, you have too much..." Too much what? I'm not skinny, but at a size 8 I am certainly not fat. At that point I was finished. The staff, seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that they were being rude did nothing to help me get out of the last dress. I suppose once you know someone isn't giving you their business you don't owe them any courtesy.
I understand that Felicia Bridal is trying to create a boutique bridal experience and can appreciate that they do in fact give some brides a lot of attention. Unfortunately I was not one of those brides.