Brides picket bankrupt Millburn wedding shop
Thursday, November 20th, 2008by Julie O’Connor/The Star-Ledger
Sunday November 02, 2008, 4:52 PM
Melissa Garcia stood outside a bridal shop in Millburn for more than two hours Saturday, backed by contingent of pickets carrying makeshift signs.
The bride-to-be was outraged. After paying $3,700 for a designer gown, Garcia said she’d never received the dress from Calvary Bridal House for her wedding in June.
She later learned the business had filed for bankruptcy but said she got no refund from its owner. Garcia ended up having to buy her dress again, elsewhere.
Danielle Cakagno picketed Saturday to support her friend, Laura DeCarolis at Calvary Bridal House, Millburn. Laura DeCarolis, who got married in September, never received the wedding dress she ordered from Calvary Bridal House, and got no refund. The shop filed for bankruptcy in August.
“I want my money back,” Garcia, 28, said. “She didn’t order my dress. She took my money, and God knows what she did with it. She probably paid off her debt.”
Inside the store on Essex Street, owner Elga Koehler was helping a bridal group with a 1 p.m. appointment try on dresses. Yes, her business had filed for bankruptcy in August, she said. But she is not required to notify her customers, and bankruptcy protection allows her to continue to do business until she files a repayment plan, Koehler said.
“We could have disappeared into the night like Celebration Studios,” she said, referring to a wedding photography outfit that went belly-up this year without delivering photos to newlyweds.
“We opted to keep our doors open so we could service the other brides. We’ve tried to just do business so that a repayment plan can be formulated and these people will not immediately — but eventually — get their money back.”
A store expansion in 2007 led her to rent more space and hire more help, a “recipe for disaster” in the current economy, she said. About five or six brides have not received their dresses, according to Koehler, who said she understands they feel upset but she had no other recourse than to file for bankruptcy.
Saturday, a handful of women — some just married, others soon to be — protested outside her shop, saying they paid thousands of dollars for wedding dresses that never materialized.
They were joined by friends, fiances and husbands, and said they’d paid in full, up to $4,000, after being promised discounts on veils and alterations. With no refunds, the group of about 10 pickets said their only recourse was to take to the sidewalks.
“Bride in stress, where’s my dress?” read one sign. “Feel for the groom,” another implored, “I didn’t sign up for this.”
New customer Emily Ball, 28, made an appointment to try on dresses because the store was recommended, but said the picketing outside “certainly makes you think.” Her fiance, Peter Jabbour, called it “a little disconcerting.”
Passing out fliers, the women outside argued it’s deceitful for the store to continue taking orders for dresses and said they were determined to warn others.
This store is “lying to the brides,” agreed Jane Wang, a New York-based designer listed as a vendor on Calvary’s website. “They take their order, give them a very good deal and get the cash, and they’re not paying any designer or ordering from the designer … they owe us over $30,000.”
Koehler said Wang is listed as one of her creditors and was notified by law the day she filed for bankruptcy, Aug. 4.
Michelle Barrera, who worked at Calvary briefly, said she quit after fielding angry calls from creditors, vendors and brides still waiting for their dresses.
“I was unknowingly lying to people about where their money was going,” Barrera said. “Once I figured out what was going on, it was the last week I was there.”
Koehler said she did not recall any angry callers.