Vera Wang Wedding Dress and Vivien of Holloway Bridesmaids {Includes Video}…

News Flash! Hi Guys 😉 Well do I have some exciting news to be smling about today! I've only gone and been nominated for a Cosmopolitan Magazine Blog Award! I can hardly believe it and only found out very last last night! The winner is determined by votes, and you can cast your vote here now! Simply enter your email, click on 'Wedding Blogs', then select 'Love My Dress'. It won't take 30 seconds I promise but would mean so much to me! Thank you millions !;)

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OK, on with the show! This wedding is of the lovely Emma and MIke whose 'afternoon tea' engagement shoot I featured back in May.  The couple's Photographer was the gorgeous Catherine of 'Lily & Frank' and the wedding took place on 30 June this year at The Most Holy Redeemer, Billericay – Mike's Catholic church when he was growing up. The ceremony was followed by a reception at Gaynes Park Barn in Epping. 

Emma was a frequent visitor to Love My Dress in the run up to her wedding…

"I was just not interested in any of the magazine articles when planning my wedding, and really was not interested at all in all the modern weddings! I first came across Peonies and Pearls and then somehow managed to get onto Love My Dress and felt like the blog just got me and I just got the blog. 

Everything on Love My Dress I loved – I got so many lovely ideas from this blog…" 

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Lily & Frank

Isn't that dress above just lovely? Lucky Emma wore a brand new and original Vera Wang wedding dress.

"I went shopping with my bridesmaid Carla on a whim one Friday after work after seeing that Vera Wang was having a sample sale in Selfridges.  I spotted the dress and fell in love with it as soon as I tried it on. The venue wasn’t even booked yet I had my dress! I was lucky enough to order a brand new dress which was made and came straight from New York! Swooooon!"

Clearly a lady who more than knows her own style and what to wear to best flatter that beautiful figure of hers.  She also knew just exactly how to dress her two Bridesmaid's {see above}, using full circle floral skirt dresses from the wonderful Vivien of Holloway {Oh how I love Vivien!}. 

"My Bridesmaids wore Vivien of Holloway dresses purchased in the sale.  I also bought the petticoats from  Vivien. I love their mustard colour shoes from Dune too!"

I have to say, I just ADORE the florals involved in this wedding! Every single floral bit of pretty was provided by Emma's good friend Stephen, at Scent {more about Scent a little further down….}

"Mike and I really did not fancy the usual morning suit for our wedding. Mike got a beautiful blue Hugo Boss suit to wear for the day…."

 

 "The dress fitted me perfectly!  It has beautiful white velvet roses in the nape of the neck and a tulle back which I fell in love with. The tulle gave the dress a romantic feel and the silvery/white material made me feel so glamorous! The back of the dress is stunning and I fell in love with it.

Funnily, when we came home from honeymoon, I was feeling really gloomy and someone had posted on my facebook wall, that  Beyonce was wearing my dress in her latest video. It made me so happy – it instantly brought the wedding magic back to life again! The video {see 3 minutes 19 seconds in} was released seven days after the wedding…"

"I had trouble trying to find some shoes that would suit the style of the dress.  Louboutin’s were just too modern!  I then came across Emmy shoes at a wedding fair in London. I booked up an appointment with my mum and had such fun! Emmy was like a  breath of fresh air. 

We customised the shoes so I had the front of one shoes and the back of another. We chose a  silver shoe and used my dress sample to match the material on my shoes. Emmy even double lacquered the beads on my shoes in hope they wouldn’t catch on my dress.  We had such a pleasant experience that my mum also ordered a pair of shoes and also a handbag designed my Emmy…"

"While at my shoes appointment, I also fell in love with one of Emmy’s hairbands.  The hair band had the vintage look I wanted and we had the hairband made with white pearls again to match my dress. I also bought some jewelled hair pins…"

"My father gave me away. We walked down the aisle to the traditional Wagner’s Bridal March.  It was beautiful (and emotional)…"

"This venue was the third venue we saw and ticked every box. A beautiful barn with rustic features and beautiful wooden beams. It also had a delightful orangery so we could have canapés in there in case we were unlucky enough to have rain and the gardens were lovely.  The venue was surrounded with sheep! From the moment we arrived at Gaynes Park we knew it was the venue for us.  Very professional, clean, stunning setting and with beautiful chairs. We had heard the food here was also amazing and we wanted our guests to enjoy the day as much as us. 

Gaynes Park also said they would accommodate my tea party – a must! We really wanted to have the wedding in Essex as we both grew up here and wanted to show off the Essex countryside!"

"Stephen is one of my closest friends and also happens to be the most talented Florist in the whole of Essex – yes, I may be biased but it is true! We wanted a vintage mash up and decided that the vases and flowers should match. 

We sourced the vintage Dartmouth vases from everywhere!  Ebay, bootsales, charity shops, even Stephen’s friends and customers lent us vases.  Our first vase was bought on a day out to Columbia Road and this was where the obsession first started!  We decided to go for ice cream shades of flowers: beautiful peach roses, fluffy milkshake pink peonies, retro mint green carnations (this is now one of my favourite flowers!) and raspberry red sweet peas to name but a few…"

The containers and the overall styling of the day was just as important as the flowers themselves and dotted around the reception grounds we had clusters of battered old milk churns, watering cans and stacked old picnic hampers crammed full of seasonal blooms including antique hydrangeas and stately delphiniums.

The personal flowers were dominated by roses in every pastel shade possible to co-ordinate with the 50's print bridesmaids' dresses. Even the groomsmen's ties were a perfect colour match with the Quicksand rose button-holes – my favourite flower of the moment! We wanted to make Mike’s button-hole a bit special so his was larger than the groomsmen had an extra peach bow…"

"Well, I had my heart set on an afternoon tea party.  For those that know me, they know I love cake and especially afternoon tea! If I could have afternoon tea every day, then I would!  We wanted all our guests to have fun at our wedding and instead of having canapés we had a mini afternoon tea…"

"To compliment the afternoon tea and vintage, theme, we had our heart set on a gramophone DJ.  We love the sound of the gramophones and love all the old 78s! Steve let our guests go through his records and played Mike’s nan’s favourite!"

"We used ice cream and muted colour pom poms!  My bridesmaid Jenny spent the whole day before the wedding puffing them up and decorating the venue! The pom poms were put in the trees, in the orangery, throughout the barns and also on the mezzanine level!"

 

"I also love vintage china! We hired in vintage china from Jean at All The Tea In China. For our menus, we sourced vintage postcards from ebay which we were going to write the menu details!"

"They postcards are the cutest, all to do with love and marriage. To our pleasant surprise the majority of the postcards had messages from loved to ones to each other! What a lovely touch. We thought it would be nice for our guests to read the messages so instead pegged the menu’s onto the postcards…" 

"The cake I had previously seen from a Miss Pickering link and fell in love with the shape of the cake straight away! Something different!  I really wanted the wedding cake to be a bit quirky like me and Mike and this cake really did the trick.

The cake was absolutely stunning and yummy! I loved that it was a bit different. We chose all white layers with one of peach to go with the wedding and had three different  flavours. One layer of fruit to keep with the tradition and this is also Mike’s favourite (got to keep the boys happy!), two chocolate orange, my favourite and one Madeira…"         

"The wedding favours were made my Mike’s mum.  She made homemade strawberry jam with every jam having containing at least 5 strawberries! Every pot of jam was covered by hessian and was tied with a name tag so doubled up as the place name . She also made a surprise bride and groom for the top of mine and Mike’s pots of jam! We put each pot of jam into the vintage tea cups…"

Words of wisdom would be to start planning the day well in advance!  Even if you have over a year to go don’t let yourself be fooled that you have plenty of time. There really is so much to do.  The guest list is always a nightmare!  Spend a long time making such you have included everyone that you wish to be at your wedding.  It is your wedding and you need the people that mean the most to you there.

 I honestly believe our wedding was perfect for us!  We could not have achieved this wedding without our closest friends and florist, Stephen and James.  They helped to source all the vintage items and Stephen lent me half his shop! The flowers were out of this world. I have ever seen any other flowers as beautiful as our flowers were.  Stephen is the most talented and modest florist.  His ideas are original and he is a gem.  I cannot speak highly enough of him…"  

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Videography Copyright (c) 2011, TMW Film

Oh Emma! Big love and congratulatiosn to you my lovely lady! Thank you so much for sharing so much with my readers, may you and Mike have a very long and happy life together 😉

HUGE thanks to lovely Catherine from Lily & Frank Photography too…

"I could not be more happy with our wedding photos or speak more highly of Catherine. The photos are simply stunning. One of the reasons we picked Catherine of  Lily & Frank was because she really captures the emotions of the day. When we visited Catherine for our initial meeting, I remember seeing an absolutely beautiful shot of a bride and groom that made me have a lump in my throat! I later found out that the same thing happened to Mike and I knew she was the perfect photographer for us.

Catherine was so professional on the day and took time to photograph all my friends and family. Catherine also stayed in the evening did a photobooth!  The photobooth was also so much fun and our guests had a fab time dressing up in our dressing up bits!       

Seeing the beautiful photos that had been taken really brought back the emtions on the day." 

Remember you can see Emma and Mike's Engagement Shoot here, and more form Lily & Frank here.

Also check out the other Vivien of Holloway dresses on Love My Dress and Emmy shoes features too 🙂

Back soon folks, more good stuff on the way later 😉

Annabel xXx

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Style Guide 

Photographer – Lily & Frank
Venue – The Most Holy Redeemer, Billericay + Gaynes Park Barn in Epping.
Brides dress – Vera Wang
Brides shoes + Accessories – Emmy {shoes & headpiece} + Charlotte Rose Earrings
Groom – Hugo Boss
Bridesmaids – Viven of Holloway + Dune shoes
Flowers – Personal Friend
Vintage China Hire – All The Tea In China
Entertainment – Gramophone DJ
Flowers – Scent