Hoankathy Bridal

My rating and review were based on the overall experience I had with this business.
Funny how she said my review is inaccurate yet didn’t denial our conflict on that day. Many of the set up was agreed by the owner prior to the wedding day, yet she refused to do it on the day of because for one they showed up later than the time we requested and had to rush off to another job. Centerpiece didn’t have all that was listed in contract. I did gave her credit for the decent backdrop but I guess that opinion is not accurate either.

I knew my mom really wanted to see me wear a traditional ao dai at my wedding. The problem was finding one. I didn’t have time to go back to my native state of California… and as an American-​born transplant from the bay area who speaks little Vietnamese, I knew very little about the Vietnamese community in Seattle, how to find an ao dai store, or even what the wedding ao dai was supposed to look like!
I browsed a few stores that sold ready-​made ao dai, but nothing looked «special enough» for a wedding. Then, I saw Kathy’s page on Unilocal.
At first, the ao dai that she showed me wasn’t really appealing to me. I could tell that they were very modern styles, and I thought it probably wasn’t what my mom had envisioned. At this point, she pulled out her laptop and showed me lots of photos and said that if there was anything else I liked, she could make it happen — and so she did!
There wasn’t that much communication between the time I requested the dress and the time that she called to say it was done, so I was a little nervous at how it would turn out. She made me a custom red ao dai, with a beautiful flowing overcoat, full of yellow «mai» flowers that I had requested to honor my late sister. It was better than I imagined. My Korean-​American fiancé was also very happy with his own tailored ao dai!
I stupidly forgot the traditional hat, but that aside… I truly felt beautiful in my áo dài on my wedding day and wouldn’t have changed anything about it. It fit me well and the «mai» flowers made it that much more meaningful. I loved it more than the western style dress that I paid twice as much for. Kathy was very sweet, down-​to-​earth, and even helped explain some traditional Vietnamese customs to me when I admitted I didn’t know much. I probably would have leveraged more of her services had my wedding not been out of state.
One thing is that I do think her prices are a little more $ for ao dai, but I think it was worth the special «design consultation» than to order my ao dai off the internet so I was happy with what I paid for. If you go with her, make sure you budget a lot of extra time to give her time to make it and for any last-​minute adjustments.