Jane Austen Meets Vintage Chic ~ A Lace Enzoani Dress For a Relaxed Summer Wedding…

Good afternoon 🙂 I've prepared a double-dose of wedding day inspiration for you today, and this afternoon it's all about Adam & Hannah, who's wedding took place on 11 June last year at Bartle Hall in Preston, Lancashire.

I adore everything about this wedding – from Hannah's obvious passion for her big day that oozes through her words, to her beautiful Enzoani Fatima dress, a purchase from Emma Hartley Bridal, that she customised with a pretty floral belt to the dreamy photography and all those pretty details!

"We wanted a day with a relaxed feel, fun, lots of laughter and smiles. I also wanted my day to have a vintage feel to it with regency detailing.

Think Jane Austen meets vintage chic and you're pretty much there! I wanted my colour scheme to be muted antique tones with dusky pinks, pewter, mink and antique gold…"

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Lawson Photography

Suzanne Neville lace jacket 

"I found my shoes in the first wedding magazine a bought, before I even had a dress! They were Diana Hassall – Buttercup, again from Emma Hartley Bridal…"

Jane Austen wedding style flowers Diane Hassall wedding shoes
 

"I'd love to say, my wedding dress was the first dress I tried on and when I looked in the mirror I just knew, but I'm far to pragmatic for that! Over the year I spent trying on dresses, there must have been hundreds (not only am I fickle, I'm also picky!  I nearly put a deposit on one dress and tried it on six times!}. But I'm glad I waited,  as just as I was reaching the end of my tether (dress shopping was now emotional for all the wrong reasons!) I found 'the' dress.

I'd seen it in a magazine and found a similar one in a store one hours drive from me.  I tried this one and liked it but didn't love it. I still had a good feeling about the other one though so I paid to order in a sample. I loved it!  Apart from the belt. It came with a white one, a completely different white to the dress! and was covered in sparkle, something I knew I didn't want, but I loved the dress. It was then that I noticed another belt on a different dress and it was love at first sight, 'the Diana belt'…"

Black wedding belt

"It turned out you could buy the belts separately so I tried it on, it was EXACTLY what I wanted, apart from one thing…

Everyone has their own personal body hang ups and I am no exception. Here it is ladies… I hate my arms, yes I know it could be a lot worse but I have keratosis pilaris which flares up when I'm stressed and nervous and to top it off, rather flabby underarms.  So I had to add a jacket.

I saw a stunning Suzanne Neville jacket which felt like I didn't have a jacket on it was so light. Not wanting to look anymore I hate to say I splurged and got that too.

The outcome after all that pickiness?  My own perfect weddding dress!"

Enzoani wedding dress and Suzanne Neville lace jacket

Vintage postcards

Enzoani wedding dress and Suzanne Neville lace jacket Enzoani wedding dress and Suzanne Neville lace jacket

Florals were by Flower Design Events

"The flowers used were peonies, lily of the valley, sweet avalanche, metalina and amnesia Roses, Sweet peas, David Austin patience roses, hydrangeas, eucalyptus and champagne grass.    

From my early planning I knew I wanted my flowers to have a hand gather english garden style. I only wanted to use flowers in season at the time as well. For my bouquet I also wanted it to be as blousy as possible!"

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"A guest book always seemed like something you couldn't do anything different with, it is what it is, a book. But during my research I started to see a trend emerging with brides using suitcases and postcards.  I loved the postcard idea but a suitcase didn't really fit in with anything else I had. While looking for the photographs for the table plan in my parents attic some months later I found an old wooden box full of keepsakes. I noticed on the lid the name of my great grandfather and the words "made by" and my mum confirmed it had been made by him to keep his bits and pieces safe while in the army in france. Perfect.

 It still did look like a battered old army ditty box so I lined it with the same pattern as my stationery and added a lace hinge to the lid to keep it open. I then made a sign to explain what it was, and what I needed guests to do and bought vintage style postcards to match. I finished the final setup with some postcard bunting, photo of the man himself and a small vase of flowers from my lovely Florist…"

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"I knew I didn't want a tiara, I felt stupid in them and no bride should feel like a laughing stock on her big day, but I did quite like the look of a side band.  The problem I had was that everything I found was either very sparkly or pale pearls and I'd gone and bought a non sparkly dress and a dark belt – brilliant!

It was then that I remembered that I'd won a voucher for £50 off a Jo Barnes Vintage purchase from a competition on Love My Dress. I'd looked at her designs before and loved them but felt they still wouldn't match my belt, then I noticed her 'bespoke service'. I explained my problem to Jo, showed her my dress and mentioned that I'd still love pearls and 'pewter' coloured jewellery if possible. Jo showed me a selection of marcasite brooches and I picked 3 which I thought best match what I was looking for. She laid them out and showed me what it could look like with some grey pearls and grey crystals.

I loved how it looked and a week later the little beauty arrive in the post…"

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"Favors caused me the biggest headache of the whole process. I knew I wanted something different but I didn't want something gimmicky which people might not want like an olive dish or some salt and pepper shakers. 

When I was just about to tear my hair out Adam's dad jokingly suggested he make homemade limoncello (family recipe) That's it I thought. That would be a lovely way of tying in Adam's Italian roots and it would be something a little different! My only problem was that limoncello is well, lemon, and this wasn't going to tie in with the styling of the rest of the wedding and I was quite disappointed I wasn't getting to MAKE anything yet! I then saw a tutorial on making corsages for bridesmaids on an american wedding blog. They reminded me of the bridesmaids shoes and it got me thinking.  What if I tied one to each bottle and attached a label to it?  I experimented with lots of different fabrics and adapted the tutorial to fit the sort of flower I wanted to make.

For the label I'd seen these on etsy while looking for card and thought these would work really well.  I made my own version and thought they looked quite cute! I added a further tag and used them as place names too!"

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"I knew I really didn't want to do my own hair and make up, although I'm not completely awful at it I knew I didn't want the stress on the morning in case it all went wrong. Lots of people had recommended
Sarah Louise Elliot and so I booked her. I'm glad I did, she really know how to make you look natural on the day…"

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"Adam wore traditional tails from Moss Bros. As Adam is tall and slim morning suits just didn't look right but in tail he looked extremely dapper! 

I put together a little 'Grooms Box' for him which his Best Man gave to him on the morning. Inside it I included some socks (in case he got cold feet) A little miniature and hip flask (for nerves) some cufflinks from his favourite football team and a little photobook with photos running from our first date all the way to our last holiday together…"

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"We visited five venues in total and all had their good and bad points. Some had beautiful ceremony rooms but no gardens, others had fantastic grounds but with very modern interiors which would cost a small fortune to decorate.

Eventually we came across Bartle Hall near Preston and that really fitted the bill, The grounds were stunning and the interior was neutral but it fitted my theme perfectly…"

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"I've always loved the movie Ever After and there's a part in the film where she arrives at the ball and everyone gasps as the prince runs to greet her. I get goosebumps every time I hear it so I decided to use that exact piece of music. There's a big crescendo in the middle to make an entrance too…"

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"I'd seen lots of table plans at fairs but I didn't think the 'paper stuck to boards' could work. I looked at putting these into a big frame but again this was very expensive, so what if I used lots of smaller frames instead.  For the next 8 months I started to buy up 20+ pictures frames from charity shops and ebay until I had a good selection. Once I was happy that I had enough I started to ask around for photos. I managed to get lots and narrowed it down to close family going back as far as my great great maternal grand parents! 

The originals were all different sizes so after working out which picture would go in which frame my Dad kindly scanned the originals and reprinted them at the correct size.

I had 4 spares so I found baby photos of Adam and I and also two of the cats as kittens and included those at the front.  As the seating plan inserts were so simple I only printed these a few days before!

I'm really glad I did this, during the day and even in the evening it provided a talking point for guests who spent time looking for pictures of the family and themselves and trying to work out who everyone was from the other side of the family!"

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"I'd seen lots of stunning sweetie tables over my two years of planning and although it was a little overdone I knew it was something I simply had to have.

While looking for frames for my table plan I also started the hunt for containers. I found them all in charity shops and I don't think I paid more than £4 for each one. My only splurge was the cake stand which I found on ebay…"

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"One of the examples I'd found had included the words 'love' as wooden letters on the table. I wanted to do something similar but instead I went for the italian 'Amore'. The letters I purchased were sanded MDF so I was able to paint them any colour I wanted. Some antique gold acrylic paint later and I had my letters

I bought all my sweets online and when they arrived I set the whole thing up to make sure I had bought enough sweets.  I had! I'm still eating them now!

I'd also seen some beautiful sweetie cones, boxes and bags on wedding blogs and I'd had a customer stamp made for my invites which I hadn't used to I bought some plain brown paper bags and made my own…"

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"The children I knew weren't going to be having the limoncello and one of my biggest wedding worries was making sure nobody was bored, so I set about making some boxes to keep them busy.  The box my headpiece had come in was beautiful so I found out from Jo where they came from and bought a few. In each I put:-

a Monsoon purse
a Monsoon necklace and bracelet
a sticker sheet
a bunch of colour pencils tied together with lace
…and a disposable camera

I wrapped this in some cute tissue paper so it didn't look so stark.  The pencils and camera might seem an odd choice but I also made colouring books for each of them. Personalising them to us with things like 'decorate Hannah and Adam's cake' and 'Design Hannah's bouquet'. As all the children were Girls I then googled some disney colouring sheets and used those with things like decorate cinderellas dress for the ball. I also found some mazes, word searches and dot to dot and included those as well.  The book wouldn't fit in the box so I tied it to the top instead.  The camera was for an eye spy game at the back of the colouring book which I adapted from an idea on martha stewarts weddings website."

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"My mum had always said she wanted to make my wedding cake, she'd been making my birthday cakes since I was four, and this was to be 'The UBER cake'

Just like my shoes I'd seen my dream cake in my first wedding magazine (beginners luck!) but there were no details to show what it was called or who made it! I later found out after hours of googling it was a Peggy Porschen cake from Fortnum and mason called tumbling roses.

Armed with these piccies I sat down with my mum to decide where to start. I pretty much left her to it. My only changes being that I didn't want the little purple flowers on it or the piped dots. I also wanted it to be TALL.  I'd seen too many wedding photos with beautiful cakes which were spoilt by being too small to see. There was no way we'd need all that cake so only the bottom two tiers were cake. The other two were foam and board. We even added further boards to the bottom of the real cake to make it taller…"

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"This was always something which worried me, the thought of an empty dance floor terrified me! I shouldn't have worried though Our wedding singer Paul Guard kept everyone moving until the early hours, something I really wasn't expecting!"

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Words of Wedded Wisdom…   

"Our wedding was two years in the making. I know this sounds cliché and everyone says it, but our day was perfect, for us, and I think that’s the most important thing! We did away with the things that didn’t matter like fancy transport and only invested in the things important to us both…"

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What a sensational collection of wedding photographs.  Huge thanks as always to Lawson Photography for sharing these wonderful celebratory images…

"I booked them before anything else, apart from the venue! The minute I saw their work I knew I had to have them to do my wedding justice!"

Well what do you think folks? Gorgeous, lovely, fun and love-filled day or what? Let me know if this wedding has inspired you 🙂

 

For more beautiful photography from The Lawsons, click here.  You can also browse through more pink colour scheme weddings and view all real weddings ever to be posted to Love My Dress {a feast for the eyes!} here.

Enjoy the rest of your day my lovelies,

Much love,

Annabel

Photographer – Lawson Photography
Venue – Bartle Hall in Preston, Lancashire
Brides dress – Enzoani Fatima dress from Emma Hartley Bridal + Suzanne Neville lace jacket
Brides veil – Cathedral Length, single tier Joyce Jackson Veil, again from Emma Hartley Bridal
Brides shoes – Buttercup by Diane Hassall, via Emma Hartley Bridal
Brides accessories -  necklace by Yarwood White
Groom – Moss Bros
Bridesmaids – Allure in Thyme from Coast
Flowergirls – Monsoon
Flowers – Flower Design Events
Cake – The Bride's Mum
Entertainment – wedding singer Paul Guard
Hair & Makeup Artist – Sarah Louise Elliot

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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