A wedding dress mess in Olympia leaves dozens of soon-to-be brides scrambling

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Dozens of South Sound brides are in a panic.

They paid for their dresses but a dispute between the store`s current and former owner may mean the gowns aren`t going to make it in time.

Brittany Smith envisioned a picture-perfect wedding the second she got engaged.
She chose a shop in Olympia -- Weddings With Joy -- to order her bridesmaids dresses. She paid for all three in May.



Now about a month before her wedding, the dresses are in limbo as the shop has suddenly changed hands.

“I called my fiancé just in tears,” Smith said. “You are ruining 36 other brides weddings."

The shop’s current owner, Angela Bossard, says the dress drama is the previous owner’s responsibility.

Bossard says she sold the bridal store to an employee last year, but when the woman started missing lease payments, Bossard reclaimed the store last week.

Bossard now says the financial mess left behind is even worse than she originally thought. Bossard says up to $20,000 paid-to-order dresses could be unaccounted for.

“I didn’t collect the money and I didn’t run away with the money. I have the integrity to come back and try to help people,” Bossard said.

Now the brides are being asked to pay hundreds of dollars more to get the manufacturers to ship their dresses.

Smith says she’s tried to track down the previous owner.

On Thursday, we found the previous owner, Jennifer Garwick, at her home.

We asked Garwick about the missing funds. Garwick sayid she didn’t pocket any money.

“I don’t have the money,” Garwick said.

Garwick said she signed a legal document handing over the keys to the store to Bossard in the belief that she would take care of all the dress orders.

“I didn’t abandon the brides, I didn’t want this to happen. Angela said she was going to take care of the brides,” Garwick said.

Smith is now out about $600 for her previous dress orders and is now scrambling to make that perfect wedding come true. Her maid of honor spent more than $200 for a dress as well and is stressing to find a replacement.

“We are going to try searching for cheaper dresses and hope that we find something,” Smith said.

The current owner says most of the dresses have been ordered but manufacturers will not ship them without a payment.

She say many of the affected brides have agreed to pay more to get their dresses in time.