Post-Wedding Review: The Gown Warehouse (TGW)

Hello all! Hope the week has been kind to you. It's T.G.I.F! Yay!

For my first post of proper content, I’ll be introducing and reviewing to you guys the bridal studio I engaged for my wedding. There are just too many bridal studios out there in recent years. I hope this post will help you in your decision making. This will be a very thorough one so be prepared for a looooong post!!

For my wedding, I took up a package with The Gown Warehouse (TGW). And a disclaimer before I proceed. This post is entirely about what I feel and what I experienced with The Gown Warehouse, nothing is guaranteed. I am not affiliated to any vendors mentioned in my blog and extra perks are not entitlements but out of kindness from The Gown Warehouse.

Do also remember that packages can change and prices mentioned here is what we experienced and only serves as a guide.

Logo of The Gown Warehouse

We first did our research online for no-frills and low cost bridal studio and found The Gown Warehouse. Their website is very helpful as they have a price guide that is pretty accurate so you could use it to gauge if their services fit your budget.

We sent in an enquiry to make an appointment online at night and Annabelle, who I believe is one of the owner of The Gown Warehouse (just my guess don’t quote me haha), got back to us the next day. We made an appointment to go down to their studio for further discussion and to look around.  

First Impression

The Gown Warehouse is located on Loewen Road, Dempsey Hill. To be honest this location is not the easiest to get to. There are shuttlebuses to bring you there but their timing might not fit your schedule. So most of the time we took a cab over. This is the only negative point we have of The Gown Warehouse. But if you are coming from town, then it’s pretty near.

And their building is quite beautiful, I bet you could just take photos there and it will look good enough for your pre-wedding shoot. Take a look at the photos featured here on Hitcheed, they are all taken in and just along the corridor of The Gown Warehouse. So pretty!

Photos belong to The Gown Warehouse, taken from Hitcheed

The Gown Warehouse had simple, but yet lux and gorgeous interior. It was totally my aesthetics as I like things simple and clean. We are usually served pretty promptly as we mostly meet them on weekdays but do take note that on weekends and PHs they are crazily busy. And if you happen to reach early, like we always do, then there can be some waiting. But The Gown Warehouse is pretty casual and the staff are easy-going, so you could browse gowns on your own during that waiting time and think of what you would like to try etc.



Simple but Lux. TGW has a very spacious studio.

Our main consultant was Charie. A very sweet and efficient girl. She listened to what we are looking for and then explained to us what they could offer. She then offered to let me try on some gowns and even allowed me to snap pictures even before we signed a package.

I heard from many fellow brides that most bridal studios do not allow customers to take pictures before they sign a package. So that was very generous of The Gown Warehouse.

Some gowns I got to try out.
Wasn't expecting to try on any gowns so was surprised and looked so stiff in photos! Haha!

The Gown Warehouse has a finely curated collection of gowns. Maybe not as extensive as some studios but I feel that it was more than enough. You can check them out here. They have all sorts of styles, from chic to cute to bohemian and more! In the studio they are sorted by styles for white gowns...

My heart flutters looking at these pretty dresses even after my wedding!

And colours for evening gowns!

Blues



Reds

Oranges & Greys

Dusty and Pastel Blues. The Frozen vibes.

Creams and Pastel Pinks & Purples! So pwetty!

And more!

Just looking at them make my heart flutters even after my wedding.

There are of course also the men suits and traditional wear!

There are more in the opposite racks!

Pretty Kua.

To be honest after my wedding, I realised a huge, extensive collection of gowns does not mean anything. You are not going to try on everything, and there are only certain cutting that suits you, so no point if the collection is extensive if they are not for you. It will only confuse you because there are too many to choose from, and upset you because “omg the pretty ones don’t look nice on me!!”.

Stick to styles that suits you and you are comfortable in and select from there, it will not go wrong and makes your life much easier. And remember, all brides are beautiful!

The Gown Warehouse consultants are also very experienced so they can help you pick out gowns that suits you well. For both pre-wedding shoot and actual wedding day gowns, I let Charie and Eunice do the picking and they let me tried all sorts of styles, from Mermaid to ball gowns, so I could find my preferred style. Below are some that I tried!

Off-Shoulder, Pink, Sweetheart Bustier, another Off-Shoulder (because I thought I'll look good in it).

Top and bottom left were both very light weight gowns with a little train.
I love the ruffles on the bottom right one too!
But I ended up choosing the sweetheart bustier with long train which you've seen in the beginning of this post.

Some of the colour dinner gowns I tried and liked.
The middle is more of a dreamy pastel green. Really sorry my photo don't do it justice but I swear it was so pretty.
Was torn between that and the navy blue, so got the Hubs to choose for me between two.
My final choice was the navy blue gown. It was returned the day I went for gown selection so lucky me!

After all these Charie left me and my husband to do some discussion and calculations. I observed that The Gown Warehouse gives customers a lot of privacy, space and time to digest information and make decisions.

The whole process was very relaxed and stress free! Both my husband and I were very impressed with their services and attracted to their prices so we signed up a package with them on the spot. Oh and they have many partners collaborating with them and one of them is the photographer we wanted to engage for our actual day so it was a great plus!

There were couples who left after trying and stuff, but The Gown Warehouse did not try to hard sell and respected their decision, sending them off with a smile. Love that!

The Package

Our package was a very complete one which includes the following:

Pre-Wedding Photography

• Hours Personalized Pre-Wedding Photography at 2 Locations
• 1 Rental Off-the-Rack Wedding Gown
• 1 Rental Off-the-Rack Men Suit
• Accessories
• Consultation of Casual Outfits by Creative Team for Casual Shoot
• Makeup and Hairstyling (1 Look)
• 30 Edited Photos
• 1 Customized 11” by 14” Photo Album
• Selected Photos Return in High-Resolution JPEG

Actual Day

• 1 Rental Off-the-Rack Wedding Gown
• 1 Rental Off-the-Rack Evening Gown
• 1 Rental Off-the-Rack Traditional Kua
• 2 Rental Off-the-Rack Men Suits
• Bridal Makeup and Hairstyling (2 Looks)
• 1 Fresh Flower Bridal Bouquet
• 6 Boutonnieres
• 1 Bridal Car Décor
• Accompanying Bridal Car Entourage Ribbons
• Complimentary:
• Loan of Accessories (Necklace, Earrings, Hair Pieces, Veil, Bow Ties etc)
• Alterations on all Gowns and Men Suits
• Dry Cleaning on all Gowns and Men Suits
• Eyelashes for Wedding Day Styling
• 1 Makeup Trial at MUA location
• 1 Hour Wedding Dance Class by Dancer’s Dream Studio (Valid for Couple’s First Dance or Bridal’s Entourage Group Dance)

This package itself is $4688 NETT. As mentioned we wanted to engage Ryan for actual day photography so we added on 10 hours of actual day wedding photography for $1688 (cheaper than his usual rates) and also a Full Day Car Rental (Mercs E200) with Chauffeur for $438.

Altogether the package is $6814. However lucky us, we paid them a visit during their National Day Promotion period in 2018 and was given a $530 discount! Yay! So in the end we got everything mentioned above at $6284.

With this package, we actually settled a huge part of our wedding prep and it saved us a lot of headache. All we needed was to find a videographer which at that point of time we have yet to decide if we wanted one.

There are also smaller packages like gowns only, or Pre-Wedding Shoot only etc.

Now, I shall go into details the items listed above!

Pre-Wedding Photography

As mentioned above, we had a 5 Hours Personalized Pre-Wedding Photography at 2 Locations. Before the shoot they sent us a link to complete a survey so they can create an idea and colour board for us to approve. It includes the style, colours and suggested locations and casual outfits we can wear.

The positive thing we loved about The Gown Warehouse is that they are flexible and willing to go the extra mile. Although our package stated that the shoot will only be at 2 locations, we ended up going to 5-ish spots out of the photographer’s suggestion. Even though the locations are really nearby and within walking distance, I believe The Gown Warehouse and the photographer, Jeremy, could have just stuck to 2. But in the end we had photos with 5 different sceneries! 

My Pre-Wedding shoot wedding gown was one of the gown selected by Eunice, who again, I believed is the owner of The Gown Warehouse together with Annabelle. So honoured. My husband liked it a lot and said it suits me very well. I was skeptical at first but the gown grew on me a lot! Thank you Eunice!

Photo cropped so I could better show you the lovely dress. So fluffeh! ♥


It was a cream coloured, cup-sleeves ball gown with ruffles. When the photoshoot ended I was really glad I chose it yet sad that I’m going to part ways with it. I even had the thought of choosing the same gown for my actual wedding day! Haha! That’s how much I loved it. ♥

Silly me forgot sunscreen and ended up with V-shaped tan lines after the shoot.  For more Pre-Wedding shoot thoughts and tips & tricks, check this post out!

The hubs chose a very dark blue suit which appeared black. For some reason he prefers bowties to normal ties. But then again if you don’t wear a bowtie for wedding, then when right? Haha!

The Gown Warehouse also provided me with accessories like earrings and hairpieces. You can also ask for a veil if you want it in your photoshoot. Our consultant Charie and makeup artist Rayce was with us throughout the whole shoot. Charie brought over a bouquet of artificial flowers in case we needed one as prop. The bouquet was simple but fit our colour story and style perfectly!





Photo cropped so I could better show you the bouquet!



Rayce helped the hubs to put on light makeup and changed my hairstyle for the casual shoot even though I should only have one look. All these were not listed in our package so we were very pleasantly surprised. Thank you Charie and Rayce!

Hair for formal shoot.

I actually don't have a good photo of my casual shoot hairstyle. Oops. But I requested for a high ponytail. I'm regretting slightly because I did not realise then both are ponytails. Ahh, silly me. But oh well, it suits me so all is good.

Apart from all these extra “perks” we received, one of the best thing about The Gown Warehouse’s photoshoot is that they return you the photos! Even though they are not really HDHDHD kind of HD but it was more than enough to print some for our personal use. Most local bridal studio do not return photos and only let you have the 20-30 you selected.

What The Gown Warehouse did was sent us the 423 unedited photos and 10 sample edited photos in High-Res, and gave us a week to slowly select the 30 which we want edited and in High-Res. So actually before selection, we already have 10 very pretty photos!

And as we have a whole week to work with, both me and the hubs were able to do many rounds of thinking and discussion to come out with the 30 we truly liked and wanted. And with all the photos returned we did not have to buy any extra photos. In fact, The Gown Warehouse did not even mention anything about extra photos until we asked. It costs $80, which is the common price for extra photo in Singapore, but all they did was tell us the price and no hard sell at all!

I was horrified when I heard most local bridal studio make you sit in their studio and look at their PC for photo selection. There is no way you can think rationally and do a good selection within that short time span and under large pressure. That is why many couples end up paying more for extra photos, some only in printed form! Which end up collecting dusts after the wedding day.

The album came in a 11” by 14”, nice synthetic leather hard cover and lock clasps. Very lux feel to it. I heard some brides complaining about dents in their album, especially the edges of the cover, because their album covers are wrapped cupboards.

Anyway after the wedding, the album is sitting quietly in a corner of my room. Poor album. Forgotten before the wedding, forgotten after the wedding.

But most important point about this photoshoot is that we are really satisfied with it and we paid no extra cost at all! Jeremy, the photographer, even declined our Ang Pao. The shoot was from morning till around 3pm, he was busy taking candid photos of us even during lunch break and declined our offer to buy him lunch. Very nice guy to work with.

Partner Vendors 

The Gown Warehouse has a whole list of partners they are collaborating with for their packages. From Photographers/Videographers  (for actual day) to MUAs  to Florists!

We engaged Ryan Chia from Stories with Ryan for 10 hours photography, and Rayce as our MUA.

Ryan was the photographer we wanted to engage even before we signed a package with The Gown Warehouse. When we saw that The Gown Warehouse had Ryan as one of their partners we were so excited and felt really lucky.

Both our parents and senior relatives LOVED Ryan. He is very patient with the seniors and always with a smile. Plus point! Oh and I was pretty sure he worked more than 10 hours, but without extra charge. Although it was just a matter of maybe an hour or two, but I believe in normal circumstances photographers will incur extra charges. It was very nice of him!

Rayce, who was also our MUA for Pre-Wedding Photoshoot, is under BeBlushInc, which I believe operates under The Gown Warehouse. She is also working on her portfolio and very easy-going. Therefore we were able to receive extra services at no cost (I ended up with a total of 2 looks, 1 touch up and 3 hairstyles).

Rayce is actually new to BeBlush Make Up Inc because the previous MUA left. But rest assured that her skills are great! She is also very dedicated and stayed throughout my wedding dinner even though she didn’t have to. She even got her husband’s help and together they recorded and edited short videos of both of my march-in. Too cute!

It was a very pleasant surprise as we did not engage any videographer for the night.

Before the wedding, I had my makeup and hair trial at The Gown Warehouse.

So pwetty! I dyed and highlighted my hair after this and it turned out even better! 

Do note that there is early morning surcharge if you require Rayce to be at your location on your wedding day really early. I believe there is also extra charge for hair trial.

I will write again in details about Ryan and Rayce and show much more photos in my Actual Wedding Day Vendors post so stay tuned!

Last but not least, our package included florals (bouquet, boutonnieres and bridal car décor) and car with chauffeur. They have a catalogue for you to choose from and I am so happy when I saw that they had a round bouquet with blue hydrangea. I had lots of photos with bridal bouquets like this and it was my dream to hold one as the hydrangea is my favourite flower.

We chose orchid for the mens' boutonnieres even though they do not match our colour theme for the wedding (pastel pink, pastel blue and white). But the hubs prefers this and thinks my Father-in-Law would think the same too. So orchid we shall. But we did find a car decor that fits our colour theme so yay!

The catalogue.

Our chauffeur Reuben, picked up the bouquet, got the car decorated and picked the hubs up on our actual wedding day. So that was many tasks we didn’t have to worry about! Reuben was very professional and patient. He messaged both the hubs and I prior to the wedding and double checked locations and timing.

 

On the wedding day itself, he took in many instructions from the church and entourage and followed them perfectly even though the church had a complicated layout. He also repeatedly start his car and parked without complain even though it was just to drive me for a mere few metres just so I could walk less. We felt very comfortable with him as our chauffeur. Stress free! Thanks Reuben!

Happy us chilling in the car after a very smooth Church Wedding. Haha!

Unfortunately Reuben does not work for any company and does this on ad-hoc basis. So it’s not possible to contact him to contract his services. But if you are assigned him as your driver, rest assured that you are in good hands!

Actual Day Gown & More Pictures

Here are a few more pictures and info of The Gown Warehouse.

Firstly, this is one of The Gown Warehouse's changing area. It's huge! Plus you get the privacy of your own space.



And yep, those are heels you can use so you need not worry how you'll look or if the lengh is right if you didn't bring your wedding shoes along.

Some Bridal Studios are really cramped and you need to look at the mirror, discuss with your entourage etc around the gown racks where other couples are. I don't like that as I believe there are brides who end up not choosing certain gown they originally liked because they saw someone else browsing/trying it. Or worse, if you are insecure about your body, you wouldn't want to be out there with everyone else staring while you are still not in your perfect condition and dress.

Right in front of the changing "stage" there is a comfy couch so your fiance and entourage can wait comfortably and also see you clearly when you are done.

And these are some of the props they have:

Next are some pictures that feature my actual day wedding gown. And you know what? After I choose this gown, I realised it was the very first one that I tried in the studio and loved when I first came to The Gown Warehouse! Such coincidence!

In the morning I had a church ceremony. Although they did not restrict the gowns we wear, I felt it was better to have a bit of cover at my chest. That's why I got a halter neck add on from Taobao. It was so perfect! And I was having a headache between this dress and another halter neck dress, so this kind of created two dresses for me. Such a plus!

I LOVED this dress and the lacey train!

So lovely so timeless!

Removed the halter neck add-on for dinner:

See the details on the lace? SO PRETTY.

 

The beadings are so subtle yet elegant!

Absolutely beautiful dress... ahh, I miss the dress!

My blue dress! Poofy!

I'm so glad I chose this dress!

And my Kua!

Lastly and totally random but if you are wondering, yes there is a toilet in The Gown Warehouse so don't worry if you are indecisive and tend to spend a lot of time for decision making. Haha!

Conclusion

In conclusion I would say The Gown Warehouse was a great choice! We are really satisfied with their services and appreciate their thoughtfulness. You can really feel the passion that they love what they are doing and is not out there to scam all your money with the "once in a life time!!" brainwashing tactics.

Everytime I visit them I actually feel happy and at-home. The only stress I had was when I first tried the gowns and got insecure about my body. But hey that's my own problem and not The Gown Warehouse's. In fact, The Gown Warehouse helped me overcome my insecurities by choosing gowns that fit me so well! From the first day till now I have no regrets at all engaging them!

Of course, in the end you will have to make an appointment and check them out on your own to see if they fit your needs. But if anyone asks, I'll say The Gown Warehouse is worth checking out.

So that's it. 

Whew, what a long post!

I will post again in details about my actual wedding day so do stay tuned. And I really thank you for reading this till the end. I hope this post has helped you in a way. :)

See you!