Warning! Long essay!

So as many of you already know I have had a horrendous ordeal with a wedding dress company that has dragged on for almost a year.

I'm posting this because I am one of MANY who have fallen victim to the company World of Nektaria. The experience of buying a wedding dress and planning your wedding is supposed to be one of the most exciting times in a girls life and because of this company that exciting experience has been completely shattered for me and I would hate for this to happen to anyone else.

In April 2016 I paid a deposit to World of Nektaria for a wedding dress to be made. In the months following this I could not get in contact with the company regarding queries I had. Phone calls were never answered and emails weren't replied to. It was at this stage that I was made aware of the Facebook page 'Experiences with World of Nektaria'

This is the only place that you can find any reviews about this company. And it's all from brides who shared similar experiences to mine (and worse) This company has managed to remove ANY online reviews about them. And they threaten legal action to anyone who dares to share their experience.

At this point I decided to cancel my dress as I didn't want to risk paying them any more money. The companies reply was that I could not cancel my dress as the fabric had been ordered and arrived the previous week. I had never been measured or had ANY fittings and I hadn't chosen the fabric colour.

After not getting any resolution I took the matter to VCAT. The company had no evidence of purchasing the fabric or receipts. However unbelievably the mediator ordered that World of Nektaria keep my full deposit and send me the fabric as he did not believe any young woman would go wedding dress shopping without a wedding date and he believed they had indeed ordered my fabric..

The company asked the mediator if he could make me sign a confidentiality agreement which would say I could not speak about my experience to which he declined.

Following that I have been threatened by a 'lawyer' representing World of Nektaria that if I shared my experience I would be taken to court. Any consumer who is paying a company for a service has the right to share their factual experience on an online platform.

In March this year I was sent the 'fabric' that was apparently ordered for me.. this is what was sent to me. I opened the parcel which was completely stapled shut THROUGH the fabric. To my disgust the fabric sent is not even close to the sample dress I had tried on (and I have evidence of this) it appears to be someone else's off-cuts off the floor, in fact I found whose dress it appears to be from while looking on Still white. A girl was selling her custom Nektaria world dress and funnily enough the lace on her dress matched part of the offcuts sent to me. Some pieces are beige, some are white and none of them are big enough to cover one half of a dress.. the photos show the entire amount sent to me, one roll of cheap veil material that was ever so gently shoved in the bag and stapled through, and several small pieces of lace. And all this for $3.5K!! juniors short length formal prom wears

No one should have to stand next to their future husband and pull what was supposed to be their wedding dress out of a paper bag covered in staples only to realise that the Company have sent you scraps. And what makes it worse is that they had the chance to at least do ONE good thing and that would have been to send $3,500 worth of fabric that is owed to me so I could at least have the dress made from it elsewhere.

I apologise for the essay, there is so many more things that this company has done but I am trying to keep it short (ish)
I see wedding inspiration instagrams reposting Nektaria World dresses frequently and without being able to find reviews on them (due to them threatening every former client with legal action and IVOs) I just want to get this out there in the hopes I can alert other brides to be vigilant when searching for a wedding dress.

Thanks in advance to anyone who helps to share my experience, if it can save one bride the heartache of having an experience like mine and if it can save them from losing thousands of dollars then at least my loss wasn't for nothing.