Hannah and Matt got married on 29 September 2012 at St Margaret's Church in Binsey, just outside of Oxford, followed by a reception at Wytham Village Hall.
When Hannah herself sent me these photographs to tell me how much Love My Dress inspired her wedding planning, I was just bowled over - that dress! The veil! In fact, her veil designer (Hannah had one created especially based on an original 1970s veil pattern) was a key find via these wedding blog pages...
"I wore a vintage Annabelinda dress, bought at the Annabelinda shop in Oxford. Sadly, Belinda retired after forty years in May 2012, closing the business. So I got in just in time! Dresses are still available online sometimes though and are well worth seeking out: they are so well made. And I think there may be a book about Annabelinda coming out soon."
Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2013, Rachelle Simoneau
"We met at Oxford as graduate students. Same college and even same course! Matt comes from Canada, and I come from New Zealand, so we wouldn’t have met without Oxford—which is why we chose to have the wedding in the UK, in Oxford, instead of in either of our home countries. And a nice excuse for people to visit, I hope. We got engaged in Paris on my birthday in April 2011. We went out for dinner with friends, and at the end of the night, once we were back at our hotel, Matt told me he had one more present for me, and proposed.
(Matt had told my family his plans beforehand, and they called me earlier on in the evening trying to scope out whether we were engaged yet. My dad jokes that he thought I’d done something to put Matt off). I then had a year and a half to obsess over all things wedding—and I enjoyed every second."
"I’d often ride my bike past Annabelinda and look at the dresses in the window, especially the incredibly romantic, extravagant vintage ones. For some reason I was too nervous to go into the shop at first, and had to send Matt in on a reconnaissance mission to see if brides had to make an appointment, etc. (Everyone was very nice to him!).
When I did work up the courage to go in, I tried on a few wedding dresses, as well as the dress that became my dress, which wasn’t a wedding dress in the traditional sense."
"Like most people I suppose I had assumed I’d wear white or cream as a bride, and that I wouldn’t wear a patterned fabric. So I didn’t buy the dress at first. It took dreaming about someone else buying it to convince me! I am so happy I did in the end. The material is gorgeous: a silk patterned with flowers and kingfishers, designed and made for Annabelinda by Liberty in the 1970's. I love that the dress was made in the place I live, by people I met, with the most careful attention to every detail. And I love that someone had worn it and enjoyed it before me.
I think people were often surprised by my choice of dress when I showed them pictures before the wedding—perhaps it didn’t look particularly bridal on the hanger?—but with flowers and/or a veil, you can’t help but look like a bride!"
"I had five bridesmaids (my two sisters, my new sister-in-law, and two of my best friends), and I LOVE the way each of them looks day to day so they chose their own dresses and cardigans within a broad set of colours (creams and pale pinks, peaches, nude, a little gold if they wanted). They wound up wearing a mix of things, from a mix of places: Elkin, Anthropologie and Alice McCall.
I was also (a bit funny to say) impressed at the range of tights they had! My sisters had nude ones with little hearts or polka dots, Josephine had lace—a lovely mix.
"The bridesmaids chose their own shoes from a range of places, but special mention has to be made of Antonia, who bought a pair of T-bar patent leather shoes at Office and spray-painted them gold herself!"
"My bridesmaids made up jam jars of flowers for the long trestle tables the day before. Antonia, one of the two maids of honour, is a florist so she had lots of good ideas! We also dotted some gourds and pumpkins around. And there was a pear at each place setting, which doubled as a little favour."
"We chose the date 29 September at random, so it was a happy coincidence that 29 September is Michaelmas and the start of autumn. We used lots of autumnal, harvest things on the day: wheat and corn dollies to decorate the church, rosehips and hypericum berries in the bouquets and on the tables, pears for the place settings, goose and blackberries for the food."
"My veil was made by Dream Veils (I found them through Love My Dress actually!). I bought an old Nina Ricci for Vogue veil pattern on etsy and emailed Margaret at Dream Veils in the hope that she would be able to make it as (unlike many of my friends) I am pathetically unable to sew.
Margaret did an amazing job, improving on the original pattern, sending me little videos of what the veil looked like as well as still pics, and was even lovely enough to name it ‘the Hannah Veil’ at the end of the process.
My only other accessory was a pair of pink freshwater pearl earrings, lent by my mum. (Something borrowed, although she very kindly gave them to me afterward."
"Mary Janes are my favourite shoe, so I just went with satin ones for the wedding: ‘Dolly’ by Rainbow Club."
"Danielle at Beautycall did a great job of make-up and hair. She didn’t mind me changing my mind a fair few times beforehand and being in something of a rush on the day, and she also let me choose my own lipstick—a very important decision; I tried about five different ones before deciding on Nars Heat Wave."
"Matt wore +J (Jil Sander for Uniqlo) suit and shes by Grenson. The groomsmen chose their own grey or black suits, and we gave them a tie and pocket square each as a present—selected from suggestions we made, though it has to be said that I don’t know if all of them would have worn pink, peach, and purple ties (or any bow tie) on a normal occasion! But they kindly agreed."
"I wanted a veil and a flower circlet (throwing caution and restraint to the wind), so Fabulous Flowers made me a fresh flower crown from the same roses as the bouquet. I wore it over my veil for the ceremony, and by itself at the reception."
"The ceremony was held at St. Margaret’s Church in Binsey, just outside Oxford: a beautiful old stone church, with no electricity, but with a holy well (a ‘treacle well’) in the graveyard outside. I gave Matt his wedding ring outside the church by the well, and then the priest took great delight in sprinkling everyone with the waters using a sprig of rosemary! Port Meadow is our favourite place in Oxford, and you cross it to get to the church, so it felt right to be married at St Margaret’s."
"Matt’s cousin Jamie is a letterpress printer, so he designed all our stationery and printed the invitations.
We assembled the orders of services ourselves with friends’ help, tying them with ribbon or raffia and using image of the church from an old print (found by another friend of mine in a second-hand print shop) as the cover image.
I wrote all the place cards, table plan, etc.—I have pretty small handwriting and I think upon seeing the traffic jam around the table plan that I might have made it slightly larger!"
"We (well, Matt really—I think I weighed some dried fruit, but not much else) made our own wedding cake from a Dan Lepard recipe. This resulted in something of a last-minute panic, with two friends (thanks Laurel and Sheena!) decorating it on the day after we ran out of time. But it tasted delicious—Matt is a great cook—and I loved the way it looked decorated with the cake topper (used at Matt’s parents’ wedding, and earlier his grandparents’ wedding), dried roses, and a wreath of berries on the table."
"We actually had a second set of cake toppers that I bought on etsy—only problem being that the bride was about half the size of the groom! (You couldn’t tell from the photograph online.) It was still a good purchase though because I laugh every time I see them!"
"Our wedding photographer was Rachelle Simoneau, who’s a Canadian photographer now based in the UK/Europe. I had met Rachelle casually before we were engaged, and knew she took very beautiful photographs of all sorts of things, so emailed her to see if she photographed weddings. And luckily she did! Rachelle was awesome: when we got the photos back, we had that wonderful experience of seeing lots of candid shots of our friends and family that we didn’t even know she was taking, lots of strange and hilarious combinations of people dancing, as well as lovely formal shots. We couldn’t have asked for a better photographer."
"As my gifts to the bridesmaids, I found five different vintage powder compacts (mostly Stratton and Kigu) on etsy."
"My dad walked me up the aisle, and both my parents stood up at the ‘Who gives this woman?’ part of the ceremony. My home town is Christchurch in New Zealand, and my parents are still out of their house over two years after the huge earthquake there.
Those two years have been a dreadful time for them, and for Christchurch in general, so it was especially lovely to have them come for the wedding—Matt and I were so grateful for all their support throughout the planning as well as on the day."
"We used one of the Church of England’s services in traditional language, because we loved the idea of vows that have been said by so many people and for such a long time. Seeing there’s no space for the bride to give a ring to the groom in that service, something that was important to us, the priest let us do that part outside by the well.
All of our readings were actually religious, because of the service we chose. But we included little extracts on the programmes for people to read while they were waiting—Robert Herrick’s poem ‘A Ring Presented to Julia’ and a quotation from an Anthony Trollope novel that I liked: ‘That such a settlement will always be better for the young gentleman and the young lady concerned than one founded on a sterner prudence is more than one may dare to say; but we do feel sure that that country will be most prosperous in which such leaps in the dark are made with the greatest freedom.’ I had just read the Trollope novel, and the quotation grabbed me as being a funny, tongue-in-cheek thing to have on the back of the programme. The Herrick poem was more earnest: it’s so beautiful, but again it’s good-humoured, cheerful, simple, rather than overly sentimental or serious. I hadn’t read the poem before last year, but now I almost know it off by heart".
"My engagement ring from Norah’s Antiques in Oxford is in suffragette colours: purple, white, and green (amethyst, pearl, and peridot). I loved the way Matt explained why he chose the ring—the fact that he thought it said something about our relationship and the things we value. (As a New Zealander, I’m so proud that my country was the first to give women the right to vote.)"
"Fabulous Flowers in Oxford did our bouquets and my flower circlet. I am something of a flower fanatic and one of the most exciting things about the planning process was choosing the flowers. The bridesmaids had posy versions of my bouquet: a mix of three different peach or apricot roses (mine had a few cream roses mixed in as well), hypericum berries and rosehips, rosemary, and red oak foliage..."
"The buttonholes were amazing too: there were really deep red dahlias, roses, wheat, and berries. Everything looked and smelled phenomenal—Matthew at Fabulous Flowers had been recommended to me by someone in the know and did an excellent job."
"The reception was in the Wytham Village Hall. We liked the location (Wytham is another gorgeous village near Oxford), but wanted to be free to choose catering, entertainment, decorations, etc., for ourselves—hence having a village hall. I had dreamed of people walking up the river from Binsey to Wytham, but didn’t have high hopes for the weather—astonishingly it turned out to be lovely, and people did walk!
In fact, people may have had more ‘nature’ than they bargained for on the walk, as a calf had been separated from its mother and was running around in a panic. (We got to see mother and baby reunited during photographs; in fact the farmers concocted some fairly poetical interpretations of the event, that it was symbolic of the theme of union, etc.—hilarious.)"
"I think my favourite part of the day was first sitting next to Matt at the reception and looking down the hall at our guests, and feeling completely happy and excited. Most of the day passed very quickly, but that was a moment of calm and quiet and drinking in how lovely it was to have family and friends from all over together in one place."
"Our first dance was something of an off-the-cuff decision. We didn’t practice any dancing, we didn’t have a first song, but we wound up doing a first dance anyway. A waltz to the ceilidh band. It was apparent to everyone involved that we had not practiced! We were just screaming with laughter at each other while we tripped around for a minute or so—as you can tell from the photographs..."
"We had a chaotic ceilidh dance, our eighty guests stomping around in the hall."
Words of Wedded Wisdom...
"For me, planning a wedding was an experience where I found that—if I didn’t stop myself—I cared a huge amount what other people thought of the things I liked, or the things that were important to me and Matt as a couple. I think trying to laugh at that worry, at that pressure, at that potential for judgment, was the most helpful strategy I found. Especially when you can do it with your partner.
I hadn’t quite understood that even when you have planned fairly well beforehand, if you and your helpers are doing lots of stuff there will be so much to do in the days leading up. Knowing that, I suppose I might have left a little more time for (e.g.) decorating the cake. But as it all came out fine in the end, I can’t really complain!
Also, Love My Dress was my go-to blog for what really was a bit of a bridal fix. Luckily I now have some other friends planning weddings, so I still have an excuse!"
Just breathtakingly beautiful - all of it. I don't think I've ever seen such a beautiful vintage wedding dress, and kudos to you Heather for choosing something so different and working it so beautifully!
I would like to thank Hannah for so kindly sharing her and Matt's wedding story and for using Love My Dress for inspiration in the run up to her wedding day.
Thanks also to Rachelle Simoneau for providing these beautiful photographs.
Readers who love Hannah's 1970's veil can buy one the same from the new 'Vintage Veil' collection at Dream Veils.
I'd love your thoughts on this delightfully pretty peach affair,
With love,
Annabel
Photographer - Rachelle Simoneau
Venue - St Margaret's Church in Binsey, just outside of Oxford + reception at Wytham Village Hall
Wedding Dress - Annabelinda 1970's vintage
Veil/Headpiece - Dream Veils
Brides' shoes - Dolly by Rainbow Club
Bride's floral circlet - Fabulous Flowers
Grooms Suit - +J (Jil Sander for Uniqlo) + shes by Grenson
Bridesmaids - Elkin, Anthropologie + Alice McCall
Flowers - Green and Gorgeous
Cake - made by the bride & groom using a Dan Lepard recipe-
Catering Company - The Anchor (the couple's local pub)
Hair and Makeup Artist - Danielle at Beautycall (and that lipstick is Nars Heat Wave)
Corn Dollies on Church Pew Ends - Maddy’s Corn Dollies
