A Sweet Day with Roses at Babington House…

Good morning lovely people :)  I've one of those weddings that I've
been really looking forward to sharing with you today :)  This is
the wedding of Jane and Andy, that took place back in August 2008 at Babington
House in Somerset.

This
particular wedding is quite special to me not only because I'm a huge
fan of the Lovegroves, who
photographed this wedding (Damien Lovegrove is even nicer than his name
sounds – really!), but the Bride Jane here is also one of my new
blogging acquaintances, and so very lovely she is too.  Jane is a Wedding Planner and the lady behind Sweet Days & Roses, a bespoke wedding planning company in Cheshire…

Jane's extremely chic
wedding dress was from Sharon Bowen Couture…

"I just love Carrie Bradshaw
out of Sex in the City and just love her style. When I saw this dress it
reminded me of the gorgeous one she had on in series 6 when she was in
paris and the minute I tried the prototype on I just knew it was for me.
I had the design slightly altered so that it would suit me even better
and it is just gorgeous.  It is a beautiful silk,pearl and tiny
sequined gown which has a ripped netting skirt which just floats when
you walk. The back of the gown is just stunning and the corset has the
most beautiful tiny silk covered buttons up the back. The gown is in a
gorgeous oyster colour silk. The detail on the dress is just
wonderful…"

Love My
Dress Wedding Blog ~ Photography Copyright (c) 2010, Lovegrove
Weddings

A few gorgeous shots of the wedding venue, Babington House…

"I love all that is vintage and the gorgeous Georgian House and Old Church and grounds with lake were perfect for us. The old Church is just gorgeous and we were able to put all of our guests up in the Coach House and stable block as well as the main house. There is also the Cowshed spa which is just wonderful."

'Nestled
in the midst of rolling Somerset hills,
Babington House and its 18-acre early Georgian estate offers the perfect
setting for a traditional country wedding party…' – with
a slightly bohemian twist. (reference, www.babbingtonhouse.co.uk)

"Andy and I were
introduced through my sister and I was described as
a “Flowery Welly wearing hippy chick who loves to potter in my garden
all day”…..Andy emailed me and we met 4 weeks later after emailing
constantly and after 1 week of knowing me he told me I was the girl he
was going to marry…he proposed 4 months later.

The night before
the wedding I stayed at Babington on my own with my Sex And The City
DVDs, and had the most fabulous room. I had a number of spa treatments
and just lounged around in my big white fluffy bath robe and just felt
relaxed and fabulous. On the morning of the wedding I had an early
morning swim in the wonderful infinity pool at Babington and it was the
most glorious sunny day….it was the perfect start to a perfect wedding
day…"

Jane's gorgeous shoes were Moda In Pelle;
"…these were gorgeous ivory open-toed, high heeled vintage style
pair of shoes and were a bargain at £75…I love a bargain!!"

"The
week before the wedding Andy was cooking dinner for me and told me to
go and sit in the lounge with a glass of bubbly. In the lounge were two
little beautifully wrapped parcels and in them were a gorgeous diamond 5
drop necklace and a pair of gorgeous diamond 5 drop earrings. These
were from Beards
in Cheltenham which is a stunning jewellery shop.  I also had
a pretty little bag from Accessorize which I customised by sewing on
some of the vintage fabric roses which went really well with my dress as
they were in such lovely pretty faded colours."

I love how Jane kept her overall look totally natural…

Flowers by Passion…

I
utterly adore this photograph of Jane's bouquet…

"Our
florist was Joanna Shipp from Flowers by
Passion.  I
just love faded roses and Peonies in antique creams and pinks and we
also had in the bouquet sage which is one of my favourite herbs and I
just love the soft gentle leaves. Sage green is my favourite colour. I
am a real flower and garden lover and the flowers were so important to
me…..I had my bouquet tied with a piece of material that my dress was
made out of."

.

Jane
designed the classicly pretty Bridesmaids dresses herself…

"I had them made by Dragonfly Contemporary Designs in Cheltenham. The dresses were ivory raw silk. The sashes are a
James Brindley raw silk fabric in the most gorgeous sage green colour
called Celadon and the little roses I had in my studio at home where we
make our vintage fabric gifts and favours. These were in fact from a
gorgeous antique shop and were silk flowers. I got Dragonfly
to sew three each on the girls sashes.

The same antique
roses were made into hairlides for the girls which we now sell on our Sweet
Days and Roses website. They looked really lovely in the girls
hair.  Two of the 
flower girls had lovely little wicker baskets which had ivy around the
handles and filled with real rose petals. The other two bridesmaids had
smaller versions of my peony and rose bouquet…"

The
Bridesmaids wore beautiful ballet pumps from Monsoon, that came in an
antique ivory colour and matched their dresses perfectly..

 

Sex And The City Femininity…

Such an exquisite shot of Jane in her
wedding dress…

"I just love cottage garden plants like
peonies, Delphiniums and I love
roses and faded antique colours so I knew that this particular colour
scheme was what I wanted. I also love Carrie Bradshaws style in Sex and
the City, especially her dresses in the last series 6 when she was in
Paris…very feminine and sexy so I wanted a dress that was all these
things…"

This lovely pooch is taking a rest
before making an all-important appearance later on 🙂 …

Andy wore a
morning suit from Horace Barton in Cheltenham and we had the same
gorgeous sage green silk from James Brindley made into cravat ties for
Andy and his best man and ushers.

"We had a wonderful Rose and Peony arch around
the old Church door and antique urns on the Church window sills. We also
had these urns dotted around the house with roses and peonies and other
gorgeous cottage garden plants in them. Also on the Church windows we
had Jasmine smelling Diptyque candles which we got from spacenk.co.uk
and these were also dotted around the venue which made the whole place
smell heavenly."

 

Jane chose to walk down the aisle to the traditional Bridal March, by Wagner… 

"Our
gorgeous wedding rings were made by Beards in Cheltenham by their top
jewellery designer Hannah Hughes. My engagement ring is a beautiful 3
carat solitaire round diamond in a square set on a platinum band.  The
set of my engagement ring is quite high so my wedding ring was designed
so that the engagement ring would sit and fit into the wedding ring. I
have a platinum band with tiny diamonds going all the way around the
band. Andy’s fab ring is a platinum band with cognac coloured diamonds
in the band."

"Our
reading in the church was the Love at First sight reading from
one of the Sex and the City episodes:

'His Hello was the end of her endings
Her laugh was their first step down the aisle
His hand would be hers to hold forever
His forever was as simple as her smile
he said she was what was missing
She said instantly she knew
He was a question to be answered
And her answer was “I do'

I just love this…"

"We had our Flower Dog 'Ruby' at the
wedding and she wore a collar made from James Brindley silk band and
faux silk roses. She looked wonderful!!"

Decor…

"Our cake
was made by Wow Cakes in Cheltenham and the lady who makes the cakes is
called Wendy Broadhead. I knew the colours and design that I wanted and
Wendy did a wonderful job for us. Our cake was a  beautiful four tiered
stacked square wedding cake. Stunning blushed pink, cream and pale
green sugar Roses nestle between the tiers with rose buds and crystals. A
delicate posy of sugar roses sits on the top tier…"

On the tables at the reception we had the most gorgeous
glass candleabra’s which the florist decorated around the base with
roses, peonies, hydrangea’s and sweet peas and up the stem of the
candleabra we had ivy which was wrapped around the stem and these looked
wonderful.  The Lovegroves also had done a pre-wedding shoot with  us
which was part of the wedding package and we had a wonderful photograph
of us both. They put this in a wonderful cream mount and in a frame. We
had this at the reception surrounded by lovely flowers and our guests
were able to sign the mount (A great alternative to a wedding
book)…this is now hanging in our cottage on the wall and it is lovely
to read all of the quotes that our guests wrote on the day and makes us
smile everytime we look at it."

"On the table for table numbers I had sourced some
lovely vintage inspired white painted frames which looked slightly old
but were in fact new. In these I had photocopied a gorgeous piece of
Vintage French fabric which was of full bloom roses onto tracing paper
and then imposed the wording “Table 1” Table 2” etc onto the photocopy
of the rose fabric. I then put these into the frames which just looked
lovely.

I also had little vintage tea cups
and saucers decorate the ladies rooms and these had tiny roses and
sweet peas in them and I sourced the cups and saucers from antique and
charity shops over the year before the wedding…"

Fabric Favours…

"Sweet Days and
Roses made all of our gorgeous vintage fabric ladies favours. They were
vintage linen Lavender pouches, which had old vintage lace, vintage
mother of pearl buttons, faux pearls and rhinestones as faux pale pink
or ivory roses on. On the reverse was a cotton label with Andy and Jane
21st August sewn on. The Gentlemen each received a half bottle of claret
which had a ruby red linen cuff attached with the Andy and Janey 21st
August label sewn on."

First Dance…

"Our
first dance was sung by the band and was “She’s always a Woman”…we
love this song and all our friends and family just lined the walls of
the room while we danced on our own which was really special."

Words of Wisdom?

"Give
yourself time…..and choose a wedding planner like Sweet Days and
Roses to help you if you find it all too much….and on the day just
relax and enjoy yourself and take in every moment as it goes so
quickly….have fun and smile. Also take yourself off in the evening
just the two of you…go for a stroll and look back at your fabulous
party and listen to all your love ones having fun and enjoy this little
moment on your own together. We did this, it was a beautiful sunset and
we just went for a walk by the lake and it is a memory I will have
forever…"

Wow.

Thank you so much Jane for suppying all this incredible detail! Do be sure to visit Jane's Sweet Days & Roses website for lots of inspiration and ideas on how to style your own wedding day.

Thank you also to Damian and Julie Lovegrove for suppling these beautiful images.

More beautiful weddings coming up this week 🙂

Much love,

Annabel xXx

♥