There beats nothing on Friday on Love My Dress than finishing off the day with an absolutely beautiful wedding. John and Michelle tied the knot in September, at The Samling, Ambleside, The Lake District, and their photographer, Caro Hutchings, sent in these absolutely wonderful images of the couple and their stylish, relaxed, intimate day of celebrations...
"I found my dress whilst rummaging through my mum's wardrobe one day. I had already fallen in love with it before she told me that it was an Edwardian crepe silk nightgown and dressing gown that she had bought in a vintage shop at around my age.
If anything this made me like it all the more! It was far more my style than a traditional wedding dress and I never felt tempted to look for anything else. I wore it again on our honeymoon and can't wait to wear it again for other special occasions."
Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Caro Hutchings
"We knew that we wanted to get married at The Samling right from day one. We both definitely wanted to have a small wedding and were aware of the hotel as my parents had stayed their previously, John had spent a lot of his childhood in the Lakes too.
The hotel is a large, beautiful house with 11 suites, with the added bonus of a fabulous restaurant which was one of the main attractions. The hotel has a licence to perform ceremonies in the drawing room overlooking lake Windermere, and we knew we could have the exact type of wedding we wanted here – a stunning setting where our closest family and friends could join us for a fantastic dinner and slumber party!"
"Our Florist, Alex, of The Flower Shop in Ambleside was wonderful. I had sent her a flower Pinterest board I’d been compiling and when we went to meet her she had interpreted it perfectly with what we had in mind. We loved powder blue hydrangeas and seaholly and wanted freesia as they are my Mum’s favourites. Alex used those to create a lovely country garden feeling.
We collected mismatching vintage glass bottles throughout our engagement for the table flowers and used my bouquet as a centrepiece. Rather than a bouquet Janine had a wrist corsage, which suited her perfectly."
"John proposed in the Yorkshire Dales where we were spending New Year in a cosy cottage with our closest friends – it was perfect! We were engaged for two years before the wedding.
We wanted to avoid any particular themes or colour schemes as we didn't think it would appropriate for such a small gathering, but to set the tone and give some guidance for dress code we told people to imagine they were going to a party thrown by Jay Gatsby."
"John wore a bespoke suite from Cad & The Dandy on Saville Row. It had a maroon paisley lining inspired by Will Smith’s ‘Fresh Prince of Belair’ school blazer (when worn inside out). He also wore his Grandfather's 1940's wrist watch."
"We sourced our champagne coupes in London and brought them to the Lake District for the day. I think John thought I was mad for suggesting it, but I'm really glad we did as they were one of my favourite details of the décor."
"Our photographer, Caro Hutchings was wonderful, she blended seamlessly into the small group of guests and made everyone feel at ease. In fact one family member asked whether she was one of our university friends!"
"Janine my bridesmaid/assistant did my hair, which I preferred as we don’t live in the area so weren’t able to have trials anywhere local, and for the same reason I did my own make up. I went to a Benefit store before the wedding and had a make-up lesson and bought some products, which was great as I learned a few things and also ended up with lots of nice make-up to keep after the day! I also had eyelash extensions done at The Nail Salon in Windemere, which were great."
"We didn't ask our assistants to wear anything specific or fit in with any colour theme as we wanted everyone to just wear what they felt best in. Janine wore a black jumpsuit from Asos and Ben wore a Versace suit with an Hermes scarf – they both looked fabulous!"
"My Dad walked me down the aisle, to Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. We chose this because of John’s love of Hawaii and the ukulele, having lived there briefly with his sister when he was younger.
We had two readings at the wedding; the first was an extract from Wind, Sand and Stars (Terres des Hommes) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, read by John's sister Emma. This was combined with a short quotation from Hamlet. The second was the Walt Whitman poem 'When I heard at the Close of the Day' read by Michelle's bridesmaid Janine. We had spent a large proportion of our relationship before getting married living in different cities whilst at university or with our jobs, and this poem really captured particular feelings of being reunited after time apart, which felt very relevant to us."
"One of the main reasons we wanted to have a small wedding was so that we could make a real fuss of each guest and tailor to day towards them as well as us. There were 25 guests in total, and so we bought everybody an individual present, all of which we wrapped up in matching paper and ribbons and left on their chairs for the wedding breakfast. Lots of the presents were home-made, or sourced around markets in London such as Portobello and Greenwich markets. We also got a lot of good ideas and gifts from Pinterest and Etsy."
"Doing the individual presents was probably the most rewarding part of the whole preparation process – it was like the best Christmas morning to sit amongst our closest friends and family and see them all open surprise gifts we had spent so much time on."
"We both loved waiting outside the dining room peeking through the door watching our guests try to locate their silhouette place setting around the table and discover their presents. Everyone looked so excited, like a big game of musical chairs! It was wonderful to see everyone look as happy as were feeling, and such a treat to be able to surprise everyone with something nice after all of the kindness that they had shown to us."
"After dinner our guests all went back to their rooms to put on their pyjamas and we all met back in the drawing room to have tea and sit by the fire. We set up a projector screen and put on Dirty Dancing, and people drifted in and out to watch it; it really did feel like a slumber party!"
Words of Wedded Wisdom...
"My advice for the planning stages is to choose the thing that is most important to you and build the day around that - for us it was having really special food, but it might be the music, dress, location or whatever else particularly matters to you. Making compromises is inevitable and it's good to set out priorities from the outset.
Personally, I am so glad that we chose to spend the night before and morning of the wedding together rather than separately – we were both so nervous beforehand, I would have felt much worse to be apart from the only other person who knew how I felt!
And, as everyone says, enjoy it because it goes by so quickly, and don't worry about the small details!"
Exquisitly stylish, beautifully vintage, I kind of wish I had been a guest at this wedding.
Huge congratulations Michelle and John, and thank you so much for sharing your beautiful photographs too Caro, they really are wonderful.
Let's show some Friday afternoon love for this couple and sign off for the weekend on a high-note (don't think I'm going anywhere however, I have weekend goodies for you too!)
Annabel
Photographer - Caro Hutchings
Venue - The Samling, Ambleside, The
Lake District
Wedding Dress - An Edwardian crepe silk nightgown and dressing gown, via the bride's Mum
Brides Veil - Birdcage Veil, Gilded Shadows, Etsy
Bride's shoes - Kurt Geiger
Bride's accessories -
Grooms Suit - Cad & The Dandy + Grandfather’s 1940s wrist watch
Florist - The Flower Shop, Ambleside
