NORFOLK — Kayla LeRoy is getting married in ten days, but she still doesn’t have her wedding dress.
The 24-year-old bride ordered and paid for her nearly $3,000 House of Maya wedding dress and veil in December. She was told that the dress would be in the store in May, but she wasn’t able to see it again until Aug. 24 — one day before shop owner Maya Holihan suddenly locked the doors of her bridal shop.
While LeRoy still doesn’t have her dress in hand, she is scheduled for her final fitting at the Granby Street store on Thursday afternoon. The appointment comes after months of the bride calling and leaving messages for House of Maya only to find her questions largely unanswered.
LeRoy is one of more than 35 people who contacted Southside Daily Wednesday in regards to bridal dresses purchased from House of Maya. The emails, Facebook messages and phone calls came after Southside Daily uncovered that Holihan turned over the assets of her bridal shop business to Old Point National Bank on Aug. 25.
“Ms. Holihan voluntarily turned over the business assets,” Old Point spokeswoman Erin Black wrote in an email on Wednesday afternoon. “The seamstresses are continuing to work on alterations and customers are being contacted as we speak.”
Black added that Holihan still retains ownership of the business.
Still, many House of Maya brides, like LeRoy, say the store’s closing — without a call or email to customers — was unsettling and that their experiences with the bridal store weren’t what they’d dreamed they would be.
“I know it sounds silly, but you do have those moments when you put yourself in a dress and you say, ‘Oh my god, this is the one,'” LeRoy said. “I just bought my shoes yesterday because I had literally almost forgotten what the dress looked like because it had been so long.”
Another bride, 26-year-old Emily Sylvester, said her experience with House of Maya was largely good until she learned about the business’ closing from Southside Daily’s article instead of the shop’s staff.
Sylvester is also supposed to get married in ten days, and like LeRoy, doesn’t have her dress in hand. Her final fitting is also scheduled on Thursday afternoon.
Sylvester said she was at the bridal store on Aug. 18 — just a week before it closed. The visit was supposed to be her final fitting and she was supposed to be able to take her dress home, but it still needed to be taken in another inch.
She said that while she was in the store there were other brides having fittings and getting alterations. Staff members didn’t say a word about the fact that the store was closing.
Sylvester ordered her dress in November and was part of House of Maya’s “Operation Wedding Gown.” The program is sponsored by a non-profit organization called Brides Across America, and aims to provide dresses for the brides of U.S. military members across America for free.
Sylvester’s fiance, John, is a U.S. Navy sailor and was deployed when she tried on the dress. She said the dress shopping — which eventually cost her about $580 in registration and alteration fees — gave her something to look forward to while he was gone.
“I’ve been looking forward to showing him this dress for almost a year, and to think that he might not get to see it crushes me,” she said.
Other people who don’t have alteration appointments are less sure about the fate of their merchandise.
Amelia Lawrence, a 25-year-old bride, said she ordered and paid for her dress at House of Maya in April. She was extremely happy the day she bought the $1,900 dress, but hasn’t heard from the bridal shop since that day.
Lawrence’s voice began to crack as she spoke about the lace fit-and-flair dress she bought for her January 2018 wedding at the Chrysler Museum.
She said that she tried to call the company on Wednesday after she’d learned of its closing, but got a voicemail box that was full.
“I’m shocked,” she said. “I thought it was the premier place to get your dress in Norfolk.”
A groom, 27-year-old Nick Taylor, said that he and his bride, Erica, spent about $5,000 in January when they bought her wedding dress, a flower girl dress and two dresses for their mothers.
Although the store told the couple that their merchandise would be in on June 14, as of Wednesday Taylor hadn’t gotten confirmation that the dresses were ordered or that they are at the store.
Taylor, who is getting married in November, called House of Maya on Wednesday and was able to talk to someone who identified herself as part of the “transition team.”
“Their first priority is brides getting married this weekend or next weekend,” he said. “Our biggest fear is that the dress hasn’t been ordered and that’s the one thing we need to get to the bottom of.”
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