From day one up ‘til now, read the Birdcage story so far
Birdcage Bridal Boutique certainly has a unique story. Family run by my mum Anne-Marie, step-dad Ian (who works behind the scenes) and myself, Bethany, a local wedding dress shop went up for sale so we saw the opportunity to turn it into our very own bridal shop.
With no previous experience, Anne-Marie coming from a dental background and myself from mainly social media and marketing, it was going to be a challenge but we were ready and so excited.
It’s fair to say the shop needed a little spruce up and a fair bit of modernising, so we got to work straight away in December 2017. Collecting all of our ideas we had seen online, we knew we wanted a big desk and catwalk, a huge changing room and large mirrors. We spent plenty of time knocking walls down, building our catwalk and desk, putting flooring down and painting. Lots of purple painting.
Officially opened on 13th January 2018, We’ve gone from strength to strength, even through a global pandemic.
We were lucky enough to have Eastenders come and film three scenes in our shop, and Jess from Married and First Sight 2022 found her dream dress with us too. Not to mention speaking on BBC Three Counties Radio a few times and being featured in the local newspaper, on the front cover no less!
Most importantly, we’ve seen hundreds of happy brides, some with years until their big day and others with only a few weeks to go! We even had one bride who visited us in the morning and was getting married in the afternoon!
Safe to say the pandemic was a huge bombshell. Our worry was, as our dresses are made overseas, that weddings would be happening and brides wouldn’t have their dresses they had fallen in love with. Turns out the very opposite happened. Dresses were arriving that had been ordered but weddings had been cancelled. Even now, in 2023, we are starting to see the last of our ‘covid brides’ finally get married!
All of the time we had off during lockdowns meant new ideas were sprouted. A week before we opened up again, we decided to create a flower halo above our catwalk. Why we didn’t come up with this idea at the start of lockdown is beyond me, but we did it and we were so happy with our work. It made such a difference to how our shop looked.
In August 2021, as our shop (and family) grew, our small team of two grew to four with Dani and Marisa joining our little work family. The pair have been complete assets to our business and we love working with them both.
We got busier still so it was time for Elena and Claire to join us and we have the best time together, helping brides find their dream dress in our lovely, little boutique.
It is always a laugh, friendly and never serious. Wedding dress shopping can be so stressful so we aim to take the stress out of the process as much as possible.
In June 2022, the opportunity arose to take over the reputable Fleur de Lys in Saffron Walden, Essex. The perfect expansion and perfect timing for us, we seized the moment and got to work straight away. We cleared out the rubbish, sorted through the dresses and made it a bit more “Birdcage” with purple paint and flowers. We kept some of the same designers and introduced a few new ones. The idea being that, although we stock two of the same designers in each shop, we would have different dresses so brides could go between each shop and we could even move some dresses and keep it fresh.
We opened officially on the 16th July and we’ve had a fabulous time since, meeting a whole bunch of new brides in a whole different area. Our lovely Elena who was in our Welwyn shop was ready to take on the next level and become our Senior Consultant in Saffron Walden, along with Jade B, Carole and Jade E.
5 years into one shop and (almost) 1 year into two, we can’t wait to see what the future brings us. So, to those who have found their perfect dress with us, or even just helped spread the word about us, we thank you.
