Swoozies

Edit 5÷27÷08:
Yet another update to my ⁵⁄₁₇ review:
The manager did end up refunding my mom for the invitation disaster. I still had a negative experience with them, but appreciate that the manager took care of the financial part of the situation.
Edit 5÷17÷08:
If you read my review below you’ll see I was a big fan of Swoozies… I recently gave them a 4 star review. However, that was before I had the chance to work with them and now I’m so NOT a fan!
I’m a big believer in saving time so when it came time to print out a letter to send to the guests attending my wedding I headed to Swoozies to pick up some palm beach stationary and had them print it for me. They assured me it would be ready in 5 – 7 days (probably even before that) and my mom paid for the entire thing before they even started production. It came to about $ 150, which we thought was a bit expensive for just sending out letters, but with so much going on we wanted to save the time.
Mallory, the printer, called me a few days later to say the format of the letter didn’t look great on the paper we had chosen so she suggested we use another palm beach paper. And so we switched papers… and she never mentioned there would be an additional charge for this. Mallory kept promising it would be done the very next day, but every time I called her there was some sort of excuse (they didn’t order enough stationary, they didn’t order enough envelopes, etc). Finally 2 weeks later our letter was printed… FINALLY! For the amount of time I had to spend time emailing/​calling Mallory I could have printed it myself at home!
My stepdad went to pick up the letters today and they told him we owed them an additional $ 150 because we hadn’t paid for all sorts of things (all sorts of things we actually had paid for just weeks before). They totally scammed us and while it’s our bad for not being able to find the receipt it’s definitely Swoozie’s bad for running a shady business.
My mom and I have worked with so many wedding vendors for my upcoming wedding and who would have thought it was a little cheerful looking store like Swoozies that would give us the most trouble. My mom was a big customer, but doesn’t look like she’ll be shopping there in the future… and I wouldn’t recommend for anyone else to shop here either (especially if you’re looking to get invitations or something printed). $ 300 and 2 weeks just to print a letter… go to kinkos!
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Original review: 3÷27÷2008
My mom loves it here. I’ve been back home in Florida just about a week now and everyday she says «let’s go to swoozies– it’s so much fun there!» After our trip there my mom mentioned to her friend that we had just left Swoozies and her friend’s response, «Isn’t that just the happiest place on earth?» And I gotta agree… I could use a Swoozies in downtown Chicago to cheer me up on those cold, dreary winter days!
For those of you who don’t know what Swoozies is (it’s OK, I didn’t know either!) …it’s pretty much a one stop shop for all sorts of little gifts, invitations, stationary, and other knick knacks. Everything is very bright and cheerful looking and while I didn’t find the need to buy anything here today I could see myself shopping here for party favors and/​or invitations.
By the looks of their web site they are popping up all over the country… and I even see 2 Swoozies in the Chicago burbs. C’mon Swoozies– bring a little happiness to downtown Chicago next!