American disaster, British tragedy

On Monday night, Jenn invited all us girls (me, Christie and Brandi, the maid of honor) over to her flat for a look at her wedding dress. We ooohed and aahed at her gorgeous dress and the exquisite full-length flowing veil. Afterwards, we carefully zipped up the dress and veil in the also beautiful garment bag, and then went out for a walk on the town.

Our group has three flats in this building. On Tuesday morning, housekeeping came in and cleaned all of our flats.

That afternoon, Jenn and Ed were relaxing after a busy morning, and Jenn looks over and notices her wedding dress garment bag was slightly open. She then rushes over to see why, and then notices that the zipper is unzipped up to the shoulder area of the bag. She also notices that the zipper itself is broken and even worse is snagged. Snagged in the veil.

She quickly examines the rest of the inner contents that she can see and thinks the dress looks okay, but the veil is definitely bunched up into the zipper. With horror, she realizes that in all likelihood, housekeeping came in and was curious as to the contents of the bag, and tried to sneak a peak. In the process, it appears they snagged the zipper in the veil and in their efforts even managed to break the zipper.

Jenn calls the management office and immediately recounts the events. The management office says they will try to get a hold of their customer service manager for further direction. It is already 6pm on Tuesday. The customer service manager does not work Wednesdays. Jenn gets married Saturday and needs to resolve this situation definitively. So then the management office appoints someone else to act in her authority.

Jenn, in the meanwhile, will not touch the garment bag or dress. She wants someone from the management office to visually witness the garment bag so they can see how the zipper is snagged and broken. She wants this complete before trying to recover the veil in case further damage is done.

Louis and I mention our trip to Harrod's and seeing Jenn's dress maker with a large display area there. Ed and Jenn think perhaps they may be able to get the exact (ideal) or similar (tolerable) veil there. However, Jenn is somewhat upset because this veil was specially measured for her height and her dress and was obtained from the flagship store in Spain. Also, the housekeepers obviously had no right to rifle through her belongings.

Because Jenn is frantic and SHOULDN'T have to deal with any of this, Ed says he will handle the call. Plus, he is British, and the British like to talk to the British more than Americans, for sure.

His call went something like this:

"Hi, we are calling because we've had a tragedy of sorts. We've got a dress ... well, its not my dress, it's my fiancee's dress..."

Of course, Louis started giggling during this conversation. His handling of the British vernacular is expectedly mature.

In any case, Wednesday we learn that the management office is cleansing their hands of all this. They said the cleaners they hired have been working for them for 5 years. They will not send anyone over to look at the dress, nor will they claim any responsibility for the events. Case closed.

Of course, Jenn and Ed must proceed with their contingency plan. Jenn and Brandi take careful pictures of the garment bag and zipper. They then go out and buy small clippers with which to cut the garment bag and see how much of the veil is recoverable. The dress is fine - relief. However, on the veil there is a small patch that is now frayed and wrinkled and stretched due to the zipper. That patch of veil would fall right around Jenn's head. The veil just cannot be used.

Jenn and Brandi head over to Harrod's, which ends up not carrying Jenn's specific veil. Jenn calls the flagship store in hopes they may be able to overnight a replica of her veil by her wedding day. It ends up that the one and only other model of her veil anywhere is in Valencia. On Wednesday, the Valencia store will overnight the veil to Spain. In Spain, the exact person that altered Jenn's veil the first time remembers Jenn and has her specifications and will make the same alterations. Then, on Friday, Jenn and Ed's friends in Spain will pick up the veil for her before they fly to London for the wedding.

As for the management office, Ed and Jenn have decided to wait until after their wedding to pursue the matter further.

And that, is the resolution, for now. We are all keeping our fingers crossed.