Rosemary Designs By Mary Felix

My husband and I were engaged March 18^th 2012. I had tried on some beautiful wedding gowns at bridal boutiques, but none of them felt like me. I decided to ask my mom if I could wear her gown somehow. She was beyond ecstatic that I asked and told me that I could do anything I wanted to it since it was 30 years old. I did some research online and found Mary at Rosemary Designs. My mom and I were able to meet with her together with the dress at the end on March 2012. Our wedding date was set for Nov. 2, 2012. After the initial meeting, Mary said for me to take the dress and bring it back around July when I was absolutely sure what I wanted to do with it. I decided that I wanted to re-​design my moms dress. Over the next couple of months I came up with a design and bought all of the fabric I wanted to add to the dress. I dropped the dress off on July 1, 2012. That day, I also gave Mary my design sketches and fabric. She said she would start on the dress mid-​august. Mid-​August rolled around and Mary hadn’t started. She was extremely hard to get a hold of. I had emailed her for 2 weeks with no response. Finally, she answered her phone and told me she was moving. She said she had my project on her calendar to begin in September. I had sent an email saying that I wanted the dress done the first week of October to be safe… no response. Mary didn’t actually start my dress until end of September/​beginning of October. Since she really hadn’t looked at the fabric that I purchased until this point, she informed me that I didn’t have enough of the lace. Of course, when I went back to the fabric store I bought it at, they were out and it would have taken over a month to get more. So I had to go buy a different kind of lace last minute wasting over $ 300 on unusable fabric.
I was panicked at this point because I felt that it was too late to find someone else, but wasn’t sure that Mary would have enough time either. She assured me that she did. Two weeks before our wedding, I told her that the whole week before our wedding we had family flying in town and events planned throughout that whole week and that I had to have the dress by Friday October 26^th. She said that wouldn’t be a problem… That did not happen. On monday October 29^th the week of our wedding (family in town) I did not leave with my wedding dress until 10:30pm, and I was very unhappy with how the front turned out. It still didn’t have some of the necessary finishing touches either. I did not want to leave my dress with Mary any longer, in fear that I would not get it back in time and because we had too many events planned to be driving back and forth to Huntington Beach from LAX. The front of the dress was thrown together and had too much fabric layered, which made my flat stomach look like it had a bulge. Thank God my mom and mother-​in-​law both had sewing experience. On tuesday morning, both moms helped to remove the excess fabric and do the finishing touches that Mary failed to do (About 4 hours of work).
I thought the back of my dress turned out absolutely beautiful, but I wish that I would have had more time to figure out how to make the front look the same. Because Mary did not start on my dress when promised, she caused so much unnecessary stress for me, my husband and family. If she had any personal issues that were keeping her from delivering on her promises, or if she took on too much work, she should have given myself and any other clients the respect and professionalism by referring us to someone else.
Working with Mary was an absolute nightmare and if I would have known she was going to start my dress a month before our wedding day, I would have never decided to do business with her. For someone that has been in the business for well over 30 years, I cannot believe that this is the kind of treatment I received. I paid Mary what she had initially quoted me, which would have been totally reasonable if she would have delivered on any of her promises and finished her work, instead of my moms having to do some of it.
That said, I think Mary is a nice lady with the capability of doing beautiful work. She did have personal issues going on, but she allowed her personal issues to effect her business and should have offered me the courtesy of finding someone else who could deliver on time and with completed work with complete customer satisfaction.

Mary has continued to be such a great lady! I took my dress to her to be pressed for my wedding next weekend! I was so glad that I did! There is a delicate beaded lace overlay over satin all over the dress and she knew exactly what to do! It AGAIN turned out perfectly! She reminds me of the fairy Godmother in the Cinderella movie from back in the day! Her rosy cheeks and ‘Im happy to do it for you’ attitude means the world to me! These kind of people are a dying breed and it is extremely difficult to find a seamstress period let alone one that treats you like her own daughter. She knows what she’s doing and is worth her weight in gold! Mary — thank you for your kindness from the bottom of my heart! You were another part of how perfectly everything has fallen together for our wedding! God Bless you Mary! You are an amazing lady!