A woman from Essex County was arrested and charged Thursday afternoon for allegedly scamming brides-to-be out of their wedding dress purchases from a now-abandoned bridal shop in Maplewood, authorities said.
Nidelka Nikkie Mayers, 53, of East Orange, allegedly sold bridal gowns, taking payments but never delivering the dresses to customers. She pleaded not guilty to five counts of theft by deception and was released pending a court date, Essex County Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Robert Florida said.
Attorney information for Mayers was not available as of Friday. Efforts to reach Mayers for comment were not successful.
ABC7 in New York first reported the arrest. Women told ABC7 they found and got fitted for their dresses at Maplewood Bridal, after putting down a deposit or paying the full price. They paid between $775 and $2,600 for their dresses, ABC7 reported.
Brides as far as back as 2020 were allegedly scammed by Mayers, women told NJ Advance Media.
“I can’t believe that she’s still doing this. I really thought in 2020 that it was a fluke,” said 2020 bride Keyana Jones-Nikaamen. “I did not believe at that time that she was scamming. I just thought it was something that happened, especially during the pandemic.”
East Orange resident Jones-Nikaamen had a quick timeline to find a dress — she got engaged in May and set a wedding date for that September. She found a dress at Mayers’ store in July and put down a deposit of $550 the following month.
But when she inquired about picking up the dress, Jones-Nikaamen said her emails, texts and phone calls to Mayers went unanswered, and when she tried visiting in person, the store was locked. (She said her mother’s dress and two of her bridesmaids’ dresses were also ordered at Mayers’ shop and were never delivered.)
She had to get a last-minute dress from David’s Bridal just days before her wedding. Jones-Nikaamen said her deposit was fully refunded, after she reported the fraud to her bank. Mayers only responded to one of Jones-Nikaamen’s bridesmaids and told her she got into a car accident, the customer said.
Jones-Nikaamen said she and her friends have since posted about their experience with Mayers on Instagram and Facebook, and also through Google reviews, but Mayers deleted the comments from her platforms.
Mayers suddenly closed the store and said she was moving it to the Art Factory venue in Paterson, it was reported. A few weeks ago she then emptied the space the Art Factory landlord gave her, one customer told ABC7.
“I had a line of distraught brides crying — some of them were crying how this girl took their money,” landlord David Garsia told ABC7.
“A few days after that a U-Haul pulls up, Nikki piles her dresses and takes off,” he told the news outlet. A message left at a number listed for Garsia was not immediately returned.
The news outlet followed three brides to the Maplewood Police Department’s station to file reports about their missing wedding dresses, including receipts and photos. Shortly afterward, Mayers was arrested, ABC7 reported.
Lorraine Snodgrass was one of the brides who reached out to the police, along with ABC7. Snodgrass told NJ Advance Media she purchased her dress last August and by December, she started inquiring about it.
She said she received a general email announcing the shop’s move to the Art Factory and after unanswered texts, phone calls and emails, Snodgrass showed up at the venue. Mayers told her there was a delay with a certain type of designer, brides who had purchased Allure gowns.
Mayers told her “she was trying to get it all done,” Snodgrass told NJ Advance Media, “and in the meantime, she got cancer, and she hired an assistant who didn’t really do her job, and on and on and on.”
Snodgrass said Mayers kept stalling. Eventually Snodgrass was told Mayers was kicked out of the Art Factory, and lawyers were now involved. She finally connected with the distribution center that does have her dress with the correct alterations, but the center told her they prefer that she works with another bridal salon, she said.
Snodgrass, a Whippany resident, said she’s now looking at her options because she was already spending more than she originally wanted to on her wedding dress. Her deposit is also still paid — she spent $775 for half of the wedding dress and half of the alterations, and she’s waiting to hear back from her bank after she disputed the charge.
Mayers previously owned a bridal shop in Arizona, called AZ Wedding Affair, according to her Maplewood website. The Arizona shop is now closed, the website said.
Jones-Nikaamen, the 2020 bride, said she watched Mayers’ court appearance on Thursday, “because I had not seen or heard from this woman since before she ghosted me.”
“I had to see her on the screen, and to see her in an orange jumpsuit,” she added. “That really made my day.”
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Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com.
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