Good afternoon lovers. Now this wedding is coming at you from a place called 'fun' and 'originality'. Amy and Josh tied the knot on 30th December 2012, to reflect their love of Christmas. The couple chose Ripley Castle on the outskirts of Harrogate in North Yorkshire as glamorous backdrop for the day and there were more than a few glamorous designer touches along the way.
The lovely photographers James and Lianne sent in these images by the way.
"My dress was from the Vivienne Westwood SS12 collection; it wasn’t specifically a wedding dress, more a beautiful evening gown which I preferred – I’d never really dreamed of a big white wedding dress!
I was a regular visitor to the Mayfair boutique and had my eye on the dress, but wasn’t sure if it would suit me. Then I took my Mum in to try it on, and when I walked out of the changing room we all agreed that it was an impossible dress to top!"
Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2013, James and Lianne
"The staff in the Vivienne Westwood store were fantastic – they even kept the dress in their office for me until I could safely transport it to Yorkshire, as I had nowhere to hide it from Josh in our London flat! I loved the print on the dress; deep purple and dusky pink roses, and the cut was amazing, plus it was the perfect dancing dress! For the ceremony and drinks reception I wore the dusky pink shrug pictured above over the dress."
"We worked with the in-house florist Sheila at Ripley Castle who was fantastic. I wanted flowers with a vintage feel, and she showed me Amnesia roses which are dusky pink with a touch of green at the ends of the petals – they looked beautiful against my dress. I had pink and ivory roses in my bouquet, and Josh had a pink rose for his buttonhole.
Sheila created a gorgeous long and low arrangement for our ceremony room, and then we wanted maximum impact on our dining table as we had all 30 guests around one oval table, so she did five huge candelabras with our chosen flowers weaved around them."
"I chose a hand-crafted flower crown from Whichgoose, a gorgeous bridal store on Etsy which had ivory flowers and an elegant side veil. Emily the designer was lovely, she had actually created the headpiece for her own wedding but decided it wasn’t her style – and luckily I got in first when she listed it for sale! I wore the Whichgoose headpiece from the ceremony until the first dance, and then switched to a Butler and Wilson pearl bow headband – a little change for the dancefloor!"
"My bridal jewellery came from Kate Spade; I’m a huge fan of the New York brand and was thrilled to discover they had a wedding range in the collection! My necklace was gold and had a very subtle ‘Mrs’ word on the chain, the earrings were gold bows with a little pearl drop, and the bracelet was a gold bow with diamantes. Very subtle – I thought that my dress was enough of a statement!"
"We first met at University and got together when Josh had graduated and I was in my final year. When I finished Uni we moved to New York for three months and completely fell in love with the city - seven years later we went back for a city break and Josh popped the question on our final night!
We got engaged in November 2011; we weren’t in a rush to get married but when we visited Ripley the following Easter we knew we had found our perfect venue, and luckily they had availability over the Christmas period. We had eight months to plan and organise the big day and it was just right; long enough to get everything right, but not too long to wait!"
"We lived in Harrogate in our early twenties and always loved the area, plus it was a good distance between my (Amy’s) family and friends in Carlisle, and London where we live now. We loved the idea of having a cosy wedding which started in the late afternoon, so that guests could wear glamorous evening outfits.
We literally planned every element of the wedding ourselves; it was important to us that every little detail reflected our personal style! We also asked our family to get involved in areas that they enjoyed – my Dad helped me choose all the classical music for our String trio, my Stepmum is really crafty and created festive centrepieces and little favours, Josh’s Mum was in charge of flowers, and my Mum and Stepdad brewed their own brandy specially for the event!"
"I was driven from my hotel to the Castle in a white Cadillac by my Stepfather – luckily it was a very short drive as the vintage car was quite temperamental! It was a gorgeous car and looked great in the photos – my parents even tied purple and silver ribbon to it to match the colour scheme."
"Josh’s suit was inspired by a stunning Tom Ford purple velvet jacket we came across in Selfridges. We both fell in love with it, but the pricetag was slightly out of budget! Josh’s Dad was recommended a tailor in Shoreditch, Gresham Blakes, and they crafted a custom-fit purple velvet jacket for him and even embroidered our names and the date of the wedding in the inside pocket. Josh always wanted to stand out on his wedding day, and I think he managed it! IN fact, the velvet jacket trend was so popular that he persuaded most of the male guests to don velvet too – and his sister Sophie!
Josh’s best man Rich wore a burgundy Topman velvet jacket, with the same black bow tie as Josh. He topped off his outfit with black ‘moustache’ cufflinks from Tatty Devine."
"Josh’s little extras were more extravagant than mine! Starting from the bottom, he wore Jimmy Choo black glittery loafers, with Vivienne Westwood socks that I gave him as a little wedding morning gift. For jewellery, he wore a navy Hermes bracelet which was a wedding present from his parents, and his cuff links were Marc Jacobs – another little treat from me!"
"We hired James and Lianne to capture our big day, and it was one of the most important and best decisions we made. We didn’t want stiff and posed wedding photos, and searched for a long time to find photographers who did something a little different. We found James and Lianne through their brilliant website, and their service was amazing from start to finish.
We had a fun morning with them at Betty’s Tearooms for our engagement shoot and they were brilliant on the wedding day, James came to me and captured all the girly gossip and the hair and makeup, and Lianne took fantastic shots of Josh getting ready in the family home. All our guests loved them and the wedding photographs completely blew us away – they captured every little detail of the day. It was also so nice of them to blog about our wedding and feature a selection of the photos from start to finish – we sent the link to all our guests and it gives a great rundown of the day."
"One of my favourite parts was getting ready with my bridesmaid and my Mum; everyone said I was unnaturally calm but I was just enjoying every moment! We drank champagne, had our hair and makeup done and listened to Michael Buble’s Christmas album. I loved it!
Then my Dad and brother arrived and that was lovely too, I’ll never forget my Dad’s face when I walked in wearing my wedding dress."
"One of my oldest friends Jill was my bridesmaid, and we know each other’s style so well that it was really easy to choose her dress! We picked a lovely Reiss evening dress in dusky pink which matched well with my dress.
My father gave me away, wearing a lovely kilt! I walked down the aisle to Kylie Minogue ‘I Believe in You’ – the String Trio arranged this specially at our request as we both love the song."
"Another favourite part of the day for me was seeing Josh for the first time at the end of the aisle; after all the build up it was reassuring to see he was as nervous as me! Then the two drinks receptions were great fun – the first after the ceremony was lovely to catch up with everyone and talk about the ceremony, and then at night the room filled up with even more of our favourite people!"
"We had two readings, given my one of our best friends Tim and Josh’s sister Verity. The first reading was an extract from the film Love Actually – we love this film and as it’s set at Christmas, it was a nice fit:
"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion is starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.
We are walking down the street, holding hands. There’s a playground at the end of the block and I run to the swings and climb on, and Henry takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in sync and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seems like we’re going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.”
"Josh and I have always been big fans of Betty’s Tearooms in Harrogate, in particular their fondant fancies. So when we found out that they created a fondant fancy wedding cake, we looked no further! The top layer of the cake was chocolate, and then we had 40 fondant fancies each iced with a purple and silver crown. Betty’s were brilliant to work with, we were amazed at the level of detail – they even sent us four fondant fancy iced options by special delivery to choose from! And we had a custom made topper from Miss Cake created in the shape of ‘Mr and Mrs Tarrant’."
"Our first dance was to ‘Read My Mind’ by The Killers. It’s a favourite of ours and the lyrics are quite meaningful."
Words of Wedded Wisdom...
"Have fun during the planning and don’t see it as a chore! Divide up the jobs between you and your fiancée and set aside time each week to work through the jobs list – Josh and I would sit down with a coffee on a Saturday morning and do our ‘wedmin’ (wedding admin) and it became a fun way to start the weekend. Also, don’t feel that you have to go down certain routes because it’s what people expect.
A huge wedding didn’t appeal to us, so from the start we made it clear that we were having a very small ceremony (only 30 guests) and that the evening ‘do would be the main party. We worried that people wouldn’t travel just for a night-time party, especially the day before New Year’s Eve, but we were amazed that almost everyone did and they all had a brilliant time.
Also, I love everything about your Love My Dress! It’s got such varied content and your archives are really good to trawl through for inspiration. Love your listings too – I found lots of potential suppliers on there. Keep up the good work!
I love seeing a couple let go and have so much fun on their wedding day - and the Groom knows how to dress in style! I love every aspect of his outfit!
Huge congratulations Amy and Josh, and many thanks for so happily sharing your wedding day details with our readers. You both looked like you had an absolute ball.
Big thanks also to photographers James and Lianne and for so kindly submitting these images.
Are any of our readers going for a less traditional bridal outfit like Amy did? Something they could easily wear again? I'd love to hear from you.
With much love,
Annabel
Photographer - James and Lianne
Venue - Ripley Castle
Wedding Dress - Vivienne Westwood SS12 collection
Veil/Headpiece - Whichgoose
Brides' shoes - Rachel Simpson shoes
Bride's accessories - Kate Spade;
Groom's Attire - Gresham Blakes purple
velvet jacket via Selfridges + black glittery loafers via Jimmy Choo + Vivienne
Westwood socks + Hermes bracelet + Marc Jacobs cufflinks
Bridesmaids - Reiss
Flowers - In-house Florist at Ripley Castle
Cake - Betty’s Tearooms in Harrogate
Transport - Cadillac
Entertainment - Simply Strings + Scott Bramley
