Queen Bee Bridal

22/07/2024

SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER! Anna and I will be taking a much needed rest with our families over the coming weeks (if such thing exists with children!), so Queen Bee and Bee Bridesmaids are now closed and opening again on 8th August (other than bookings on 3rd August).

Emails will be checked every few days and any urgent enquiries responded too. For any general enquiries please head over to the website and check out our FAQ’s. For all booking enquiries please complete the Make An Appointment form also found on both websites.

We wish you happy holidays if you’re heading off on your adventures too, and thank you for your patience whilst we have a re-charge.

Kate & Anna x

✔️

19/07/2024

Our Amazing Anna- introducing our absolute diamond level stylist Anna…or Annaliese if we’re being fancy.

Many of our lovely brides will have met Anna who joined us just before we made the big move to our new boutique in Pangbourne, she was excited to join Queen Bee at such a pivotal point in our growth.

Anna has a background in PR and luxury sales, most recently flogging posh bespoke wine cellars to the rich and famous 🍷

Asked for her favorite dress, she said she couldn’t possibly pick just one, but makes no secret of her love for the simplicity and elegance of a ‘plain’ fabric, creating a timeless and chic look. Add an off the shoulder neckline and a sparkly veil, and she’s anyone’s!

Her favorite part of the job? Working creatively with her brides, adding tweaks or personalizations to bring to life a design totally unique to each lady.

Quick Fire Anna Facts:
*Favourite drink- will say yes to most things, but Champagne hits the top spot
*Favourite literary character- anyone one of Jilly Cooper’s fabulous heroines
*She’s half Dutch which brought friction to her home during the recent Euro’s semi-final!
*When not drinking Champagne, her other down-time love is walking her four legged bestie Wilbur along the Thames Path.

We love Ann and so do our Queen Bee brides! x

28/06/2024

Yes, that’s right, a mega FLASH SALE bringing you 50 gorgeous off the peg sample dresses each priced at £500. What a bargain!

Sizes UK10-UK18, but don’t forget that bridal sizing usually comes up small which means they are closer to UK8-UK14/16.

Everything else you need to know:
*For two days on 9th & 10th July, 3pm-8pm ONLY, please do not come outside of these hours.
*No appointment necessary, but you may need to be patient and wait for a fitting room and consultant to come free if we are busy.
*You are welcome to try a maximum of three dresses on at a time.
*These are all stunning designer dresses, mostly in as new condition. However, some may not be perfect (we’re talking missing buttons or faulty zips) or from current collections, they are £500 for a reason!
*Sample sales are not recommended if you haven’t already narrowed down what you want, they are pretty fast paced, so be prepared to be decisive! Not suitable if you’re just looking to see what styles suit you.
*All sales are pay in full and take away on the day, we cannot hold or reserve gowns…first come first serve!
*Please only bring a maximum of 1 special guest with you and no children under 12 please.
*You will only be able to try sale dresses, not gowns from our full priced collections.
*There is no parking at the boutique, please visit our website for directions and details on public car parks.
*Designers include: Madi Lane, Stella York, Martina Lianna, Maggie Sottero, Elysee, Pronovias, Justin Alexander, Allure Romance, Watters

And for extra bonus points…everyone who buys a dress in the sale will be automatically entered into a prize draw…more on this to follow!

Please feel free to comment with any questions below….and share share share!

Kate x

27/06/2024

How lovely to get a surprise feature from Guides for Brides, THE best platform to find your team of industry leading wedding suppliers 🌟

01/05/2024

Love this feature from Guides for Brides ❤️

01/05/2024

After months and months of hard work and planning, we have finally moved Queen Bee Bridal to her new home in Pangbourne! Yipppee! Professional photos coming soon, but here’s a few sneak peeks for you! Oh, and not forgetting we have now also opened our brand new bridesmaids dress boutique in our original premises in Mapledurham, check out over on Insta x

20/04/2024

Thanks so much to The Reading Chronicle for this great article about our Guides for Brides win last month! Still buzzing! X

A bridal shop in Berkshire has been crowned the best bridalwear supplier in a national award.

20/04/2024

Welcoming today’s lovely ladies in our Englefield suite for their appointments. What do you all think of our gold bee wallpaper 🤩?

23/03/2024

That’s a wrap! What a fabulous day we had with some gorgeous ladies and their families, the sun shone for us (apart from a random downpour at lunchtime), we couldn’t have asked for anything more. Cheers to us, to Queen Bee, our old girl Dons Yard, all our much loved Queen Bee brides, and to our wonderful husbands and children who brought the bubbles and did some expert back-patting through the tears.

Thank you for all your lovely messages, I promise to reply to everyone once aboard the train to Harrogate in the morning.

Kate & Anna ###

14/02/2024

💛Happy Valentine’s Day from us and the bees! 🐝
Congratulations to all you lucky ladies that might receive and extra special gift this year 💍 🤩👏

Kate x

💍

29/01/2024

With the prettiest side cutouts and delicate lace illusion back, we cannot get enough of this new lady who’s just landed in the boutique. have outdone themselves again 👌

Book your appointment now to be one of the first lucky ladies to give her a try.

26/01/2024

In the beginning……here she is, our new girl who will eventually become new home to Queen Bee. She’s basically a two up two down, with a couple of hallways thrown in between.

I said before that she was one half of a pair of Georgian semi’s, that’s not strictly true. Originally the building was one detached house, we have half of that with a bit extra on the side 😃

As you can see our Landlords kindly gave her a fresh lick of paint and put new carpets in throughout….but of course we ripping all that up and staring again 🤦‍♀️😂. Lots of people asking when she’ll be ready, would love to get in as soon as possible, ideally some time mid-March to early April. But I’ve purposely not put an exact date on it, it’s already pretty hectic here right now, so I don’t want to add to that by stressing over a date that we might not meet exactly. I’ll let you know though!

Keep an eye on our stories where I’ll post most of the updates, I won’t post too much on the grid. Any thoughts, comments or questions?

Kate x

20/01/2024

I (just me this time, not we) just wanted to say thank you for all the likes, comments, shares and private messages of love and support that you’ve been sending all week.

I’ve been overwhelmed by all the positivity and encouragement i’ve received, some of the decisions i’ve been making for the growth of Queen Bee have been a little daunting to say the least. Some nights i wake up so excited and buzzing with ideas that i can barely keep myself in bed (anyone who know me knows how much i love my bed!)! But some nights i wake up really worried about making the right choices, searching around the room for a real life qualified grown up to help me!

The love you’ve shown has given me the confidence and reassurance that it’s all going to be fine….deep down of course i know it will be, but it’s always nice to hear it from someone else.

And extra big thanks to my friends and family (particularly my husband and children who never see me) who are putting up with a constant steam of questions, from paint colours and hangers, to spreadsheets and accounting! Much much more to come i’m afraid!

Kate x

19/01/2024

Our final (but no less exciting) piece of big news for the week is that we have a brand new designer landing at the boutique!

With a collection of utterly gorgeous gowns, we are so excited to welcome Australian based award winning designer Wendy Makin Bridal to Queen Bee, swipe for just a few of the stunning dresses that are on their way to us as we speak.

Using only the best quality fabrics and laces from around the world, we know this collection is going to fit right in, and that our brides are going to LOVE this new addition to the boutique.

18/01/2024

Join our Queen Bee Bridal & Bee Bridesmaids teams!

Queen Bee Bridal- Stylist- Saturdays & One Evening Per Week (more weekday hours available to the right candidate as the role grows)- Pangbourne

Bee Bridesmaids- Stylist- Saturdays And/Or Sundays & One Evening Per Week (more weekday hours available to the right candidate as the role grows)- Mapledurham Village

With all this exciting growth we’re seeking out our next part-time superstar stylists. We have one role at Queen Bee Bridal when she moves to Pangbourne, and one role at our current site in Mapledurham which will become home to Bee Bridesmaids.

The roles require similar candidate qualities, and both positions require the applicant to be available to work every Saturday and one evening during the week. There is the possibility of extra flexible weekday hours for the right people as the positions grow. Please do not apply if you are not available to work Saturdays.

-Are you wedding obsessed?
-Are you passionate about outstanding customer service and over-delivering in a luxury environment?
-Have you got a sharp eye for detail?
-Can you think on your feet and read between the lines?
-Are you fun and positive with a confident attitude?
-Are you reliable and on-time?
-Are you an all-round lovely person?
-Do you want to help dreams come true and make magical memories?

No previous experience necessary, full on the job training will be given. A willingness to model wedding or bridesmaid’s dresses, confidence in front of the camera, and experience creating social media content is a huge advantage (these hours could be more flexible to suit you), but not essential.

If this sounds like you, please email us at [email protected] to receive a job description for either or both of the roles.

To apply we will ask for your CV, covering letter and a short video (one or two minutes) telling us why you are the perfect gal for the job. Minimum age 18.

17/01/2024

You asked and asked and asked…..so we have listened and delivered! We are delighted and excited to announce, that from this Spring our brand new sister business to Queen Bee Bridal, Bee Bridesmaids, will be moving into our current premises in Mapledurham! We have holding pages in place for now until we get everything perfect for you, but please head over to our Insta page and follow for updates, fabulous imagery and all things bridesmaids inspo to come.

With bridal moving to its new home, and Dons Yard looking potentially empty and sad, what better way of giving such a gorgeous building new purpose than by filling it with the vibrancy and energy that fabulous bridesmaids and their bridesmaids dresses bring with them. Our brides and their bridal besties deserve just as much magic and luxury as when brides are searching for their dress, Bee Bridesmaids will be a haven of loveliness, perfect for creating those special memories with your most special ladies.

We have collaborated with three of the most on-trend and sought after designers of bridesmaids styling in the industry, all female led and all utterly fabulous, we are just in love with them and their incredible designs already, and can’t wait to share with you their sublime collections.

Thank you for making this happen:

16/01/2024

We’re cockahoop to announce that Queen Bee is spreading her wings, today we picked up the keys to this gorgeous Georgian gem in Pangbourne (swipe for photo) which from the Spring will be our new home! We have a couple of months work to do to make sure the interiors are the bees-knees, but we’re so excited to show you how she looks after her facelift!

It’s taken us a year of searching and two other properties that fell through, but everything happens for a reason, and this perfect lady came along at just the right time. It was meant to bee 🐝!

Okay, okay, so let’s discuss the elephant in the room. I know there will be a few people feeling quite sad about our move away from our current building Dons Yard, there’s a lot of love for the beauty that has been home since we launched Queen Bee, no one loves her and appreciates her more than we do……

……..which is why we’re keeping her! Of course we are, how could we possibly let her go! More on this in BIG NEWS No.2 coming tomorrow, i know all you lovely brides are going to be as excited as we are when you hear about our amazing new service which will be moving in.

So, why are we moving Queen Bee? Simply, to be able to offer more appointment flexibility, in our busiest months some brides are waiting up to 6 weeks to secure a Saturday appointment and we don’t think this is right, you shouldn’t have to wait that long. Our new home will offer two completely private and beautiful appointment rooms meaning we can offer double the number of appointment slots…..hooray!

We’re so excited about this new chapter in the life of Queen Bee, we hope you are too, and please feel free to ask any questions you have below.

Kate x

14/01/2024

Our first exciting announcement is coming on Tuesday, with a another piece of BIG NEWS every day all week! Keep tuned in to our socials where everything will be revealed…you won’t want to miss this!

14/01/2024

Wedding fair ready 🩶

12/01/2024

We’ve had so many appointment requests through this week from brides getting married this summer, we’re cockahoop about that, but please get in contact a little sooner if you can.

We advise an ideal time to look for your dress is around 12 months before your wedding, with 9-10 months as a minimum to have the choice of all the designers, and enough time for ordering and alterations.

Dresses are taking 4-6 months to arrive right now, and then you need to add on around 3 months for your alterations, so you can see how we easily get to that minimum timeframe of 9-10 months ahead of your wedding.

Some dresses take less than that, many designers offer a rushed order service (but at a fee, which we’d rather you didn’t have to pay), and of course we have a large selection of off the peg dresses to buy and take away on the day.

BUT, if you want the choice of ALL the dresses and as little stress as possible, give yourself plenty of time. Please ask in the comments below if you have any questions on this.

If you’d like to make an appointment please click the link in our bio.

Kate x

11/01/2024

Loving this shout out from Nieve Couture who supply us with our gorgeous veils x

21/12/2023

🐝 Real Bride🐝 - PART 2
Following on from yesterday’s post, we’re so excited to be sharing more wonderful details from Caroline & Gareth’s family farm wedding.

This second instalment is all about the details, and we’re just loving the clever combination of fresh and dried flowers, particularly the creative wall hangings and cutest table displays. We honestly could have done a third post!

Thank you once again to .hoggeston for allowing us to share so many gorgeous images from your magical day xx

Dress from
Photos
Flowers
Hair & Makeup
Dress alterations .e
Rings
Catering
Bridesmaids dresses

20/12/2023

🐝 Real Bride🐝 - When the wedding takes place on the bride’s family farm, you know the photos are going to be amazing, and we just couldn’t narrow it down to 10 photos to show you. So, for this reason, we’re going to do a first for Queen Bee and share TWO posts of Caroline & Gareth’s special day!

First up, the ceremony and bridal party, we are totally in love with Caroline’s colour pop bouquet, and as for combines and Collie’s…..well, any English country wedding wouldn’t be complete without them!

Thank you .hoggeston for allowing us to share so many gorgeous images from your magical day xx

Dress from
Photos
Flowers
Hair & Makeup
Dress alterations .e
Rings
Catering
Bridesmaids dresses

28/11/2023

🐝Real Bride🐝 - i know, i know….we’re always going on about how brides can personalise their wedding dress, but we LOVE it! And when ladies like our Karen do it so beautifully we just couldn’t wait to share the stunning results.

Karen had the creative vision to take her gorgeous dress and add the most fabulous bell sleeves, which were beautifully crafted by our recommended seamstress .oxon. They also fashioned together the sweetest little matching hat which Karen wore on her hair in place of a veil. So clever!

With the help of one of our talented seamstresses, there are no limits to the changes you can make to your dress to ensure it’s 100% perfect for you. From raising low cut necklines to adding straps, or even de-poofing a dress with volume….the options are endless.

Bravo! to Karen for having that vision, but also we thank her for having the faith and trust in us and her seamstress that the results were not only achievable…..but would be totally fabulous!!

Photography

16/11/2023

Just so delighted to be waking up this morning as the Highly Commended (runner up) for best bridal boutique less than 4 years old in our region, a incredible honor in an awards that is held in such high regards throughout the industry and received thousands of entries. Thanks to for running such a fabulous awards and regional events celebrations, it was great to be in a room with so many hugely talented people and businesses, what a special bunch of people wedding industry folks are!!

But why does this award matter so much to us? Firstly, because a team of judges who are all experienced experts in their field have decided they like what we do, they’ve looked at all the information and evidence at hand, and have given us a big thumbs up. For such a new small business, this is a massive confidence boost that confirms we’re doing okay!

And secondly, but more importantly, it means our lovely family of Queen Bee brides likes what we’re doing. All eligible brides were invited to score us in a range of performance areas and leave additional feedback. Not only is this an invaluable opportunity for us to learn, improve and grow, but to know our ladies are happy is all we can really hope for, and means absolutely everything to us.

Thank you to all our brides who decided to put your trust in our hands and came to us to find your dream dress, it’s all for you, we love our Queen Bee family. And an extra special thanks to those ladies that took a few minutes of their time to get involved in that scoring process, our gratitude to you is huge.

We have exciting things coming in 2024…..watch this space!!!

Kate x

15/11/2023

🐝Real Bride🐝 - here at Queen Bee we’re always banging on about personalising your wedding dress to take it from a 9 to a 10, and our gorgous Naomi here did just that, adding a sexy deep plunge neckline detailing to her dress to make it perfect and unique to her. Wow!

We’re also loving the classic deep red tones for her Autumn wedding back in Ocotber, and never fails to provide stunning locations to caputure such timeless photos.

Congratulation to you both and thank you for sharing x

Photography
Flowers
Hair & Makeup
Dress Alterations

03/11/2023

I just can’t believe where this week has gone, we spent a glorious morning on Monday visiting our friends over in their impressive studio, and have been desperately trying to report back since!

Jennifer and her lovely team really have created a hive of beauty and creativity, their skill, talent and love of what they do is very clear to see. And what do they do? Really the question should be what don’t they do!

From skilfully ensuring your wedding dress is the perfect fit, to creating bespoke veils, capes, trains, sleeves….if you can dream it, they can create it!

But pop over to their socials and you will see so much more that they specialise in, including bespoke mother of the bride design and creation for that totally unique look, and remote bridesmaids dress alterations.

And not forgetting Modify, their cutting edge movement offering creative ways to re-use your dress after the big day, including their famous miniature wedding dress (a scaled down mini version of your dress using fabric offcuts), lingerie creation using spare lace from your dress, dress redesign, or the classic Christening gown design.

We’re just loving it all! Pop over to their socials or website to be inspired. Thanks for having us ladies! X

18/10/2023

Just in case you missed me making a bit of a tit of myself in the reel last week (the shame), four weeks today and we’ll be glamming up and heading off to the regional finals of the awards to find out if we’ve won our boutique category for the South Central region.

I know i’ve said it before, but i really am so delighted, excited and grateful, even just to reach the finals. Queen Bee is just a tiny part of an wonderful industry with some very successful and inspirational boutiques, so to have got this far in an awards that is considered ‘the best of the best’ still hasn’t really sunk in. To say i feel a little out of my depth would be the honest truth!

I’m so happy that our very special family of Queen Bees love what we’re doing enough to put us through, thank you to each and every one of you who voted.

Kate x

12/10/2023

But we should get a couple of things straight first.

Most importantly, none of this advice is about making you look smaller, we love you all just the way you are. But we also want to make sure you look and feel fabulous on your big day, and sometimes this means making sure you don’t have any VPL’s, or giving your pair an extra perk if that’s what you feel is right for you.

Also, quick disclaimer, we haven’t test run any of the products featured, or endorse any brand over another. There, boring bit done.

So, you don’t need any fancy underwear when you come to see us at your appointment, until you know what your dress will look like there’s no point guessing what you’ll need or investing in the right un**es. But, you will need whatever you’re going to wear on your wedding day with you at your fittings, giving you the time from when you order your dress until the first meeting with your seamstress to research and decide on this.

And, not all dresses will require bra for example, some may have enough support already, and others may be designed in a way that it’s just not possible to wear one.

At the minimum you will need a pair of n**e seam free pants, this is particularly important if you choose a plain crepe or satin fitted dress to smooth over and contour your silhouette.

Scroll through the slides for a few underwear suggestions for individual dress styles, and please pop any questions in the comments below. Details on each dress and underwear supplier below x

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