Bridal shop flubs leave wedding parties scrambling

Alisha Poncy of Ankeny panicked when she discovered in June that the bridal gown she bought last January was sold to another bride.

And Witni Kilworth of Council Bluffs said she couldn't believe it when the wrong bridesmaids dresses arrived at the last minute for her best friend Jeni Reed's wedding.

Poncy, Kilworth and other brides and bridesmaids have been left scrambling to find alternatives for bridal wear they purchased from Selina’s Bridal Boutique in West Des Moines’ Valley Junction.

“I was very disappointed because I liked the dress I picked out,” said Poncy, a 24-year-old nurse at Mercy Medical Center.

She picked a different gown from Selina's selection, but took it elsewhere to be altered after the experience. She'll walk down the aisle in her alternate dress Oct. 3.

The shop came up short on delivering some orders and it now appears to be closed.

The telephone has been disconnected and the store is locked. Selina’s sister store, Posh Affair, which is down the street from the bridal shop, also is closed, said Jim Miller, executive director of the Historic Valley Junction Foundation.

“There is still merchandise and inventory in the stores and the rent is paid, but we don’t know when or if they are going to reopen,” he said.

Owner Selina Orman couldn’t be reached for comment. A message posted Tuesday on the store’s Facebook page reads: “To all our clients out there, very sad and sorry about how things have gone down. We are reaching out to each individual customers to make sure they get their product and or refunds. We are working very hard on this.”

The post encouraged people to email the store.

Selina's, 228 Fifth St., first opened in 2011 at 3708 Ingersoll Ave. Orman moved the shop to Valley Junction a year later.

Kilworth, 21, said she and two other women ordered and paid for $170 floor-length peach-colored bridesmaid dresses from Selina’s last October. That was 11 months in advance of the Sept. 12 wedding. They were told the dresses would be in the store in the middle of April, but they weren’t.

“I started checking again and in the middle of July and they kept saying ‘two more weeks,’” Kilworth said. She drove to the bridal shop twice from Elk Horn, where she was living at the time, when she was told the dresses would be there. The first time she was told it would be a couple more weeks. The second time she sat in her car for six hours waiting for a promised 6 p.m. delivery that didn’t happen.

“Selina was never there. We always had to talk to the seamstress,” Kilworth said.

The dresses arrived two days later. Bride Jeni Reed, who bought her bridal gown at the shop without incident, picked up the bridesmaid dresses. The gowns were the wrong color, size and style. Frustrated, the women instead went to David’s Bridal in Clive and found other dresses.

The day after the wedding Kilworth went to the bridal salon and Orman wrote them a check for the dresses. The check bounced, Kilworth said.

“It’s been very stressful,” she said.