Abbey Wedding Warehouse came highly recommended to me by two recent Leeds brides, my soon to be sister in law and one of my friends sister. They both looked stunning on their big day so I trusted their reviews.
I have heard horror stories, boutiques ordering dresses made cheaply in China and charging thousands, pushing brides into expensive decisions on the spot. Boutiques that are making incredible profits on dresses you could order online yourself. Abbey Wedding Warehouse was described as a no frills, down to earth wedding dress shop where the staff knew their stuff and the price was pretty low. As the venue isn’t a polished boutique there are no expensive overheads to cover, so your price isn’t hiked up.
I arrived last Saturday morning with my Mum, sister, maid of honour and soon to be Mother in law to begin my hunt for a wedding dress. Abbey Wedding Warehouse is absolutely packed full of dresses and as soon as we were in the door were told, ‘Shoes off, get rummaging!’.
There are around 400 dresses to look through, in an amazing range of styles. I knew roughly what I wanted and we soon had a collection of dresses to try on. One dress had come in just that morning and caught my eye but I was told unfortunately it was a size 6, no way! My maid of honour also spotted the same dress and was told, sorry its a size 6. Finally my sister went over to the dress and the assistant said we could probably work with it by adding in a corset.
We tried on a few of the dresses, from an elegant, formal Jenny Packham to a quirky Hong Kong designer. Then it came to trying on the dreaded size 6 stunner. To everyones surprise, and more myself to be honest, the dress went on perfectly. The fit looked like it was made for me, the fabric beautiful and I knew it was the dress for me when a few of my bridal team cried.
My dress as it turns out was a unique prototype made for a catwalk. The dress is actually one of a kind as it was never put into production. It’s quite exciting having a one off dress design! What is great about Abbey Wedding Warehouse is that the dresses are sold off the peg so I didn’t have to wait to take it home. Unfortunately they only accept cash, no card, so we left a cash deposit and came back on the Tuesday to collect the dress and bring it home!
I know I was lucky to find my dress in an hour and a half but I would definitely recommend Abbey Wedding Warehouse if you are a soon to be bride in the Leeds area. They were straight with me, knew their stock inside out and were so helpful with their knowledge on alterations etc. Their dresses are heavily discounted, between £299 to £999, as they buy liquidation stock and designer samples. They stock many designers, styles, have a plus size collection and they also have plenty of accessories to add the finishing touches.
I’m not going to give too much away about the dress now, especially as my HTB helps with my blog, so you will have to check back at the end of August if you want to see what I was wearing on my special day.
