LAKE ELMO, Minn. — Several women who have tried to sell their wedding dresses and items at a consignment store in Lake Elmo say they've not heard from the shop ever since it closed.
They say their wedding dresses are still inside the store, and they have no way of getting them back at this point.
Nichole Clarke said she brought her wedding dress into Bride To Be consignment shop in April to be resold. She said now, six months later, the dress and a few of her other wedding-related items that she had been looking to sell sit behind locked doors.
"You could've then picked up your phone to tell me, 'hey, we're going out of business, come pick up your items,'" Clarke said referring to the store owners. "I never was given that opportunity."
She said she was still in touch with the store up until a few weeks ago. She also said she signed a contract in April with the store and said she kept up her part of the job when it came to the selling of the dress.
"[It's] our job to follow up with them, if the dress had sold or not by that end date," she explained. "If it hadn't sold, they donate the dress."
And then a few weeks back, a blue, hand-written sign was taped up on the door. It read: "Store closing, last day Sunday, Oct 6th. No consignments, no holds, no layaways. If you have stuff please pick up by Sunday!"
The phone number to the store leads to a voicemail box that is full. Clarke said she has emailed them, messaged them and now has run out of ways to get in touch with them.
"They also have a blocked out schedule to when you could pick up your items," Clarke said referring to a section on the Bride To Be website. "But when you try to schedule a time, there's nothing there for you to schedule."
Clarke isn't alone in this issue. Katie Heller said she too left her dress with Bride To Be this past April.
"It was a very expensive dress that I'm not going to get anything for now," she said. She said she wanted to sell her dress so that other brides could wear a designer dress on their big day.
"None of the consignors including myself were notified about this so we are all out whatever we had in the store," she said.
The two women say at this point they want answers and their dresses back.
"How can those of us who lost money get something back for what was ours?" Heller said.
"I would just like my items back and an explanation you know?" Clarke said. "Closure. I feel we all deserve that. Why? We deserve an explanation at minimum."
KARE 11 has reached out to Bride To Be consignment store multiple times through multiple channels of communication throughout the day and have not heard back from them.
The women, along with dozens of others who have now created a Facebook page said they have contacted the attorney general's office about the issue.
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