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Bridal shop discrimination?

Jun 22 05:59

Stephanie Nash, a wheelchair-user from Kentwood, Michigan, and a bridesmaid in her friend's upcoming wedding, recently encountered a controversial sign while shopping for her friend's wedding dress: Attention Customers: Our store is not wheelchair accessible.

She and her bridal party couldn‘t believe their eyes when they first read it, actually thinking it was a joke until they went inside and saw the narrow aisles, the inaccessible dressing rooms and ultimately the resistant attitudes towards wheelchairs. Wheelchairs can possibly ruin dresses, so the shop owners believe, so no one who uses a wheelchair is allowed in the dressing rooms, which ultimately bars wheelchair-users from trying on dresses.

While Stephanie and her party were livid about the sign, calling it discriminatory as if it actually read, “No wheelchairs allowed” (a line of reasoning I respectfully disagree with. The shop was only alerting people coming in that they weren‘t accessible), I’d personally be more offended if I were told I couldn’t try on dresses because of my wheelchair. You can stop customers from bringing in food or drink to protect your dresses, you can even ban kids under 5, but barring wheelchair-users from trying on wedding dresses is 100% pure discrimination. We can't just drop off our wheelchairs at the front door before coming in. Ever heard of wheel covers?

What the shop owners SHOULD’VE done is put up a sign that read, Try on our dresses at your own risk. Customers are responsible for any damage incurred to the dress, which would’ve taken care of their fear of their expensive gowns being ruined, and covered their bums too. But no, they opted for more offensive, less thought-out route, and now they‘re being called out on it (yay).

I can’t imagine what I would've done if this had happened to me while shopping for my wedding dress. Hopefully Stephanie was smart and hoofed it to a bridal store that DOES want her and her friend's business. There are too many accessible wedding dress shops in this country to waste your time with the non-accessible, offensive, ones.

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1. Josh R. | Jun 22 08:33

I really struggle with this one... Intellectually, I say, "You don't want my business? Fine. I'll spend my good money somewhere else!" But in my heart, it just really hurts. I would rather the sign said, "We don't give a damn about people in wheelchairs." That way I could give them some credit for just being honest.

2. cheryl | Jul 25 05:21

I have a bridal business called enchanted gowns we offer a mobile servise so we come to you you can view our dresses in the comfort of your own home and all dresses are made to measure so you are gettong a dress no one has worn of try on you can contact us on enchantedgowns@hotmail.co.uk or call cheryl on 07999491446

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By Tiffiny Carlson

Tiffiny Carlson Disability buzz, travel, fashion and dating — fun things to amp up everyday wheeling life.

Tiffiny Carlson is freelance writer and writes the “SCI Life” column for New Mobility. She's also a C6 quad from a diving accident that occurred when she was 14 years old. A lifelong resident of Minneapolis, Tiffiny has been a writer in the disability community for over 10 years and writes for several publications and blogs, as well as her personal blog BeautyAbility. Her work has also appeared in mainstream publications such as Nerve.com and Playgirl.