kernella's blog of random: Review of Mei Mei Alterations and Dry Cleaners (aka Fit Me Alterations)

Mei Mei Alterations and Dry Cleaners is located at Crystal Mall in Burnaby.

Warning to all: Do NOT go here. It was a nightmarish experience. These people do NOT know what they are doing. My friend and I needed our bridesmaids' dresses altered. We went there SIX times before our alterations were done, and it took almost a month. They are disorganized and the quality of their work is poor.

This is my story...

My best friend, E, was getting married and had chosen me and her niece, V, to be her bridesmaids. We had ordered dresses from Lightinthebox.com and needed them altered. More specifically, we both needed them shortened and taken in a bit at the sides. CC had a full length gown that she wanted to be knee length. She offered her excess material to me so that I could add straps to my dress.

E went to get her wedding dress altered at Mei Mei's. She had it taken in at the sides, hemmed, and a bustle added. She had no problems at all during that process and it all came to $60 only including tax. So she suggested that V and I go there to get our dresses done too. I decided to go get a price estimate first and brought my dress with me. I showed it to Mei Mei (the owner) and she quoted me $35 just for hemming). I considered that quite expensive and told E and her fiance J what Mei Mei quoted me. They agreed that that was expensive considering a wedding dress only cost $60. They figured that Mei Mei was quoting me a more expensive price because I was non-Mandarin speaking, whereas J was Taiwanese and spoke to her in Mandarin.
E and J decided to go with me and V so that they could bargain for us. Unfortunately, when we got there, the owner was on vacation and someone else was filling in for her. The lady quoted us $35 for hemming the first layer, $10 for each extra layer (there were 2 other layers underneath), $35 for taking it in on the sides, and $10 for my straps - that wasn't even including tax. J told her that E only paid $60 and that was for a wedding gown, which is much more complicated, considering she had beading all along the sides and much more material to hem. The lady said that she was going according to the price list that the owner left her and she couldn't do anything about that.

And so we decided that we would go somewhere else. As we were walking out the door, the lady goes (in Cantonese), "Ok, ok, $60 then! And I'm just taking your word for it! I wouldn't even know if that's really what you paid or not!"

V and I pondered this for a minute. We figured that we would save ourselves the trouble of finding another alterations place by just getting it done here. Mistake #1.

We proceeded to get measured and pinned. The lady agreed to charge us $120 total for both dresses, including tax. She said Mei Mei would do the alterations when she returns from vacation. She said she couldn't do these alterations herself because she was afraid of doing it wrong and she didn't know how to take it in at the sides - she claimed to only do the simple stuff. We were worried that we wouldn't get the dresses back in time for the wedding, which was in a little bit over a month. The lady insisted that they would be done in time. She said the owner is very good at what she does and that it would take her a week at most to finish our dresses. We believed her. Mistake #2.

This was June 3.

The next day, I was shopping in Richmond and got a phone call from the alterations place. The lady asked me to come back because she needed me to try the dress on again today, she forgot which measurements belonged to who. This made no sense to me since she had pinned the dresses to mark the spots. Regardless, I went all the way from Richmond to Burnaby.

When I got there, I tried on the dress and I couldn't zip it up! Turns out, she had decided to take the dress in on the sides (even though she said she wasn't going to touch the dresses). When I showed her that I couldn't zip it up, she asked if I had gained weight overnight because she had taken it in exactly 1 inch on each side (I later find out that it was supposed to be 1 inch total - 1/2 inch on each side...).

She complains that all her hard wok was wasted. I got worried and asked her if she had cut any of the material. She responded, "No, I'm not that stupid. Thank goodness I didn't!" I was like, "I thought you said you were going to leave it for the owner to do?" She responded, "I only said that because I was being lazy and didn't want to do it, but I thought I'd give it a try today."

My own stupidity really. This is when I should have just taken my dress and run.

Anyways, she told me that V needed to come back too to try on her dress. V was out of town that day, and wouldn't be able to go in until a couple days later.

So V goes back to try her dress on a couple days later. She also brings in a tank top to get the straps shorted and the bottom hemmed a bit. After her visit, V tells me that the lady wants me to go in again... So at the end of the week, I go back in. Mei Mei was back and she didn't know what was going on, so she remeasured me. She told me that both dresses would be ready next Saturday.

Come next Monday (we couldn't go on Saturday so we gave her 2 extra days)...

V and I returned to the store and we saw our dresses hanging in the exact same place and they didn't look like they had been touched (V's dress was still full length, rather than the desired knee-length). Mei Mei told us that she meant the next next Saturday (as in she needed one more week).
Mei Mei also told us that she can't do the original stitching for the dress hem because she doesn't have the sewing machine for that. She showed us this other stitching she could do instead. We weren't thrilled about the alternative option, but we didn't really have a choice since she said she couldn't do the original stitching.

V then tried to pick up the tank top she had dropped off previously. Mei Mei found it on a rack, and V noticed that the straps were shortened, but the length was never hemmed shorter – job half done. Mei Mei apologized and claimed she didn’t even know it was sitting there.
So we had made the trip there, paid bus fare, and walked away with nothing.

We returned the next Saturday (June 25th), along with E and J - in case there were any communication problems. We tried the dresses on again, and V's was still too long, and my straps were too loose. My straps were supposed to be in a v-shape (please see photos below), which she did, but the stitches where she attached the straps to the dress were very visible and in the most awkward place. She had sewn the middle of the straps on top of the folds in the bodice, rather than hide the stitches under the folds. I asked if she could fix this and she said ok. We thought we were picking the dresses up today, but nope... She tells us that she needs a few more days to finish our dresses...

We got a little worried since the wedding was quickly approaching and we wanted to have the dresses in our hands with time to spare just in case. V tells Mei Mei that she could return on Wednesday (June 29th). Unfortunately I was busy all week and wouldn't be able to pick the dress up until Sunday, July 3rd. I ended up changing my schedule around a bit so that I could pick the dress up earlier. I phoned Mei Mei and told her that I could come in earlier to pick it up. I said that I would come in on Thursday (June 30th) after work. She asked me which customer I was - the one with the originally short purple dress or the one with the originally long purple dress. I told her I had the short purple dress. And she asked when the other girl (V) was coming in. I told her Wednesday. She asked me three times if V was coming in on Wednesday to pick it up. I confirmed three times that V was coming in on Wednesday to pick it up.

So Wednesday rolled around...

V went to the store to pick up her dress. When she got there, the dress was still unfinished. Mei Mei tells her that she thought she was coming in on Thursday. She tells V that if she can wait 2 hours, she'll work on the dress now. V didn't have 2 hours to wait around for the dress so she said she'd return the next day, along with me, to pick up the dresses.
So we returned again the next day, along with E and J. V tried hers on and the inside layer was uneven. Mei Mei claimed this was the fault of the original dress. Apparently it was poorly made. I tried mine on too and the straps looked uneven. One strap was wider than the other and the middle of the v-shape was visible above the neckline. So she hand-sewed the straps deeper into the dress and folded the strap a little more to hide that it was wider than the other. I posted a picture below of her “handy-work.” The threads are actually coming loose already…

J tried to bargain with her for a lower price, since we had gone back 6 times and it took almost a month to complete. She said no at first, but then she contemplated it, making it seem like a hardship on her. She said that $50 for each dress was the lowest she could go. Suffice to say, V and I were exhausted from the situation and we just wanted to take our dresses – we gave up. We paid her $50 each, thanked her, and got out of there.

We are NEVER going back there ever again. And I suggest no one else go there either.

Other things that should have raised alarm bells for us:

1. Their lack of organization.

2. Mei Mei’s nails: She had 3D nail art on her long painted nails. Pearls, jewels, and all. How does she sew with those things? She had trouble picking the dress up off the table…

3. No steamer. We asked Mei Mei if she could steam our dress since it was quite wrinkly by the end, and she said she doesn’t have a steamer. How does an alterations/dry cleaning place not have a steamer?