Bridezilla: Was the salesperson at fault?

[Audrey Quest]

You know people personally who are more motivated by something other than the money, so why is it so hard to believe that the letter writer might be?  If 90% of her brides are looking for what she's selling, it isn't going to hurt her that much to go on her little crusade to win this bride over to what she considers appropriate.

I don't believe that she refused to show the bride low cut gowns.

How would she ferret out which of the 90% of her brides are the ones who aren't her crusade?
 
As I said:  I think the bride asked for low cut, she gave her low cut--according to her experience with other brides of the same shape and size whatever that may have been.
 
The bride wanted lower.  It's even possible that instead of one dress being pulled at first, it was several.  None of them were low enough.
 
I don't believe the LW was on a crusade to do anything other than find an appropriate dress for the bride.  In general, I think that most dress shops cater to the middle--meaning, they don't offer the extremes whether that is a very daring style or a granny style.  And the salesperson tries to get you to buy what's in your shop.
 
You seem to think that she gets a kick out of trying make fat brides wear bags--hence, her "crusade."

[RainhaDoTexugo]

Actually, Audrey, I posted earlier that I could read the ample size comments a couple different ways, and I wasn't convinced at all that she was judging the bride based on being overweight.  I lean more towards the bride having a very shapely figure.  I also don't think she wants any brides wearing bags, I just think that she wants brides, especially those with ample cleavage, to wear dresses that fit her minimum standards of modesty.  I'm sure that when the bride first asked for a lowcut dress, she brought one that she thought of as being relatively low cut, but I also think that once it because "obvious" (her words, not mine) that the bride wanted something lowcut and "bawdy" (again, her words), she instead tried to lead the bride towards dresses that she, the letter writer, approved of.

You still haven't quoted any part of the OP that suggests that any of this was in hindsight, whereas several of us have quoted parts of the OP that suggest that she was well aware of what the bride wanted.

[Audrey Quest]

You're probably right there, but that doesn't mean it's the only important part of the story.  The letter writer was horrified, and wrote in to gossip about this horrible bawdy bride and her horrible crass mother, but that doesn't mean it's the only relevant thing to us.  Plenty of people write in with stories about rude behavior, and we determine that the OP was just as rude, if not moreso.

Here though the LW is not an OP and I see that as an essential difference.

You have to make so many assumptions that there is really no way that one can say with certainty that anyone was rude in the situation except for the MOG.  Everything else relies completely on missing and/or subjective observations and information.
 
And in forming my opinion, I try to look at ALL the information provided in the order in which it occurs.
 
The description of what the LW was pulling for the bride: that were very lovely and feminine without being bawdy

is so subjective as to be useless to a deeper dissection of the story.  We really have to go by our own biases and that is why there is so much disagreement.

[PeasNCues]

"that were very lovely and feminine without being bawdy"

But that's only part of the quote -

it ends in "which she was obviously craving" (i think - doing it from memory).

So, if we MUST make a judgement on the LW's words based ONLY on the information given to us, then we must also take the whole thing into account and not chop it up.

[Audrey Quest]

You still haven't quoted any part of the OP that suggests that any of this was in hindsight, whereas several of us have quoted parts of the OP that suggest that she was well aware of what the bride wanted.

I didn't mean that the hindsight was on the part of the OP but of posters.  I think she was aware that the bride wanted low cut, just not how low cut.
 
The Monday morning QBing is where people decide on the basis of what the LW knows later on that she should have known it from the beginning.
 
In other words, she knows the bride wants a low cut dress.  But, what she doesn't know is how low cut.  That begins to reveal itself as they go along.  Because I don't believe that the bride went in there asking for the most revealing low cut dress that they had in her size.
 
But, people assume that because it ended badly that it must have started that way and that the LW should have done this or that along the way to avoid the rude statement that was made to her.  How is she supposed to know what the situation is at the beginning--she doesn't.
 
She thinks this is just another bride coming into her store and treats her the same as she treated those brides.
 
I don't think her statements at the end are indicative of her being on a crusade to make her dress a certain way at the beginning.

[Audrey Quest]

"that were very lovely and feminine without being bawdy"

But that's only part of the quote -

it ends in "which she was obviously craving" (i think - doing it from memory).

So, if we MUST make a judgement on the LW's words based ONLY on the information given to us, then we must also take the whole thing into account and not chop it up.

It doesn't matter--its still a statement being made by the LW.  The part I quoted has only to do with the style of the dress.  Whether or not the bride was craving something doesn't add to the point.  Obviously, the bride was craving the bawdy that the LW was describing--it still doesn't give us any more insight into what that actually means.

[RainhaDoTexugo]

I don't think anybody has suggested that the bride walked in, and within two minutes, without even talking to her, she decided she knew better about what the bride should wear.  I think we'd all expect some communication problems, and a few failed dresses, before they were both on the same page.  The key thing here, though, is that the letter writer states herself that even when she knew what the bride wanted (she said it was obvious), she continued to bring her dresses that she thought were more appropriate.  When she figured out what the bride obviously wanted, it was her job to either provide it, or let the bride know that she's very sorry, but dresses like that aren't available at her shop, not give her the runaround and waste her time with a bunch of dresses that she knows aren't what the bride asked for.

[whatsanenigma]

I am wondering if all this really comes down to the LW needing to know more about her stock of dresses and how they will fit various body types.

I am speaking from the standpoint of someone who has more than the average amount to put in the top of a dress, just for the record. And I will say, it's a little challenging sometimes to find clothes, and the proper underpinnings to put under them, that make me look "sexy" but don't leave me constantly worrying about a "wardrobe malfunction".

From my experience with both myself and with friends and family shopping for dresses and other clothes, it's a lot easier for a thin person, or a person who is not disproportionately larger on top, to find lower cut shirts that can be more comfortably worn without hovering on the brink of disaster. No matter how sexy you want to look, even if you want to look "sleazy" or "sl*tty", you really don't want to suddenly be totally exposed, KWIM? You want to feel in control of your own clothing.

So maybe the LW did not understand her merchandise well enough, and was afraid to bring out anything as low cut as what the BTB seemed to want, because she didn't know which of the lowest-cut dresses could be worn with the least risk of wardrobe malfunction by a larger person (just up top or all over) and what underpinnings to advise the BTB to wear to make the dress fit properly and show maximum cleavage without letting the dress fall off or reveal more than intended.

And that's not even taking into account the fact that many bridal stores don't actually carry gowns in plus sizes. You have to hold up an unzipped size 8 (or whatever) while the saleslady holds the dress up in the back and try your best to get an idea of how you'll actually look if you buy the dress in your size. If you are not small and you are going for maximum cleavage, "trying on" dresses this way, especially without the proper underpinnings, could be a real challenge-a challenge that maybe the LW was not up for.

So, bottom line to me is that maybe the LW was not "rude" in the sense of it being deliberate, but she could have done a better job with this BTB had she had more knowledge of her stock and more confidence to try to help someone in a non-average size find a dress. IMHO of course.

And BTW, that's a great point somebody had about how maybe the GTB/BM scrabble occurred before the GTB and BTB got together. But it doesn't make the MOG's comment any less rude. I would have been so embarrassed if I were the BTB.