Hey! Is it back to work today after a lovely long sunshiney bank holiday weekend here in the UK? Let us help ease you back to the grindstone if so with the first of our real weddings this week.
Adèle and James tied the knot on 20th April 2013 at a Church local to Adele's parents house, where they later held their marquee wedding reception.
Adèle chose to wear a one-shoulder design by Charlotte Balbier, which she accessorised with a warm tweed blanket that matched her husband's suit…
"My dress was called Harriet by Charlotte Balbier and I purchased
it from Hazel at Kudos in Edinburgh. Hazel was superb and wonderfully
straight talking which I liked. I fell for Charlotte Balbier's
dresses since they were both comfortable to wear and of course gorgeous
and feminine.
I chose my two favourite Charlotte dresses and asked my
Mum to come to a second fitting to see what her reaction would be on
both dresses – as soon as she saw me in the Harriet dress I knew by her
reaction that this was one. I loved the asymmetric neckline as I didn’t
want a busty dress, the super soft satin and of course the dramatic
bustle detailing at the back with its flowing paddle train."
Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2013, Kitchener Photography
"My mum recommended a local florist from Crieff, Wendy
Wilson. I knew I was looking for a colourful bouquet with lots of
texture and greenery. James favourite colour rose is a yellow rose and
since we had chosen royal blue ties for James, the bestman, groomsman
and bridesmaid dress, we decided to use yellow for James button hole and
my bouquet and dark pink for the others.
My bouquet was finished off
with a cutting from my wedding dress which I requested when my
alterations took place."
"As a warm layer, I opted for a soft wool shawl from Marks and Spencer which complimented James’s tweed suit. And it turns
out I am not a veil kind of girl but that was okay since the dress had
plenty of detailing that didn’t want to be missed."
"We met at work, discovered we had a similar sense of humour and
spent hours laughing at each other’s silly antics in the office. James
moved in with Adèle and shortly after we adopted a miniature Jack
Russell called Charlie our four legged side kick. After about 5 years,
James whisked Adèle away on a surprise weekend away to celebrate her
birthday in Amsterdam where he proposed."
"Since it was a Scottish country wedding James wanted
something traditional but a kilt wasn’t his style. Instead he opted for a
superb three piece tweed suit from Walker Slater in Edinburgh which turned out extremely practical in the cold weather we had during spring!""James
wore his grandfather’s pocket watch in his waist coat which he was very
proud was still working when he checked it at 8 o’clock at night!
We knew we wanted to have a Church wedding followed by a reception
which could take advantage of the stunning Scottish scenery, to be dog
friendly and for our guests not to have to travel far between the
ceremony and reception. The perfect solution was to return to the
village where I grew up in Comrie, Perthshire. With the lovely
little local church, St Serfs being only a short walk away from their home, our plan to have the reception at my parents seemed
ideal."
"Our dogs, Charlie and cousin Skip looked thoroughly dashing at
our reception in matching knitted blue scarfs with pompoms and added
family tartan which I made for them. They were frequently found in the
caters tent, playing outside with the little ones and making their
debuts on the dance floor!"
"For table centres we potted herbs, made blackboard
signs and placed them on large slices of logs from my Dad. I wanted
everything to mis-match so a selection of jam jars were tied with
various ribbons and filled with cut flowers, tea lights and painted
buckets with additional potted plants for colour.
The
marquee was decorated with handmade bunting and tissue pom-poms strung
via super fine plastic thread from the highest point of the marquee. "To continue in our outdoor spring theme we got four different flower and herb seed varieties from an online nursery called Sow Seeds who printed envelopes with our Charlie logo.
In addition, for table settings we used fine slices of timber which my
Dad had cut and dried out which proved a popular momento.
We
also decorated trees in the garden with birds and solar lanterns."
"We both liked the idea of a spring wedding so after checking the
diary 20th April was chosen and the venue to be in the Scottish
countryside where Adèle grew up. Our inspiration was to have a spring
theme and to hire a traditional pole marquee from Inverhall Marquees in my parents’ garden where they have an
amazing spread of daffodils in their garden so we aimed for a date when
we thought we had the best chance of them being open. We felt the style
of the traditional marquee was more sympathetic with the surroundings
and Inverhall Marquees couldn’t have been more helpful in the lead up
to the big day.
We also knew we wanted colour,
fun crafty things to work on and objects which could be recycled after
the wedding. We had a lot of ideas and thought we would just see if they
worked together when setting up. Luckily it all came together!"
"The year before we had really enjoyed the catering at a friend’s wedding in Loch Fyne so we got in touch with Richy from EnCroute
who helped guide us though their enormous menu and we knew we couldn’t
say no! The entire staff at EnCroute were friendly, helpful and
professional in setting up the catering tent, during our reception meal
and drinks and in the clearing up. The food was delicious using slightly
different ingredients with generous portions and thoughtful
presentation."
"We didn’t want one tiered feature cake or cupcakes so instead we
had one enormous traditional fruit cake baked by my Mum, chocolate and
walnut brownies and an orange sponge cake which I baked on the morning
of our wedding day! It sounds nuts but I knew I would want to be doing
something in the morning when I woke up and it meant that the cake could
be enjoyed while it was still super fresh."
"When we were looking for a photographer we knew we liked the
informal style of wedding photography where photos were taken capturing
smiles and moments during the day. We were lucky to have found Joanna
and Dylan from Kitchener Photography
and were over the moon when they said they were available for our
wedding day. Shortly after we met for a drink in Edinburgh and they
were so relaxed, confident and laid back we knew we were in safe hands!
After Christmas we met for a pre-wedding photoshoot with our dog Charlie
at the Mound in central Edinburgh. This was a really good idea as it
got us familiar to having our photos taken and Dylan’s request for
kisses which made us laugh and smile even more. Of course Charlie was
the star of the show and never shy of a camera or two!
On the morning of our wedding day Joanna
came to hang out with me and she couldn’t have been better. She was
calm, relaxed and up for a giggle or two which was just what I needed
after lots of jam packed days getting ready for our wedding.
While
Joanna was with me, Dylan didn’t miss a trick and was busy taking
photos of the details in décor and setting at the marquee reception
before heading over to James in time to snap a few gems of James, his
bestman and groomsman getting ready.
Then on to the church and the rest is history!
Kitchener Photography
were fabulous to work with and we feel really lucky to have met them.
We would both thoroughly recommend them to other brides and grooms."
"I wore a pair of super comfortable Rainbow wedding shoes picked from a superb wide selection at Hummingbird Boutique, Falkirk."
"Gill from Senses Spa, Comrie
did my mother and my make-up and Lisa Cramb a Hair Stylist from Crieff. I had a trail with both and on the day both hair and
make-up turned out better than I would have hoped. Before getting
married I had never had my hair styled in an ‘up’ do before so it was a
real treat and it lasted all night even with lots of dancing!
Since I wasn’t having a veil I wanted to have a pretty feature
in my hair which would compliment the movement in my dress. I chose an
Amanda Wyatt hair comb which had pearls and sparkle and was malleable
enough to be shaped into place once my hair was ‘up’. Janet from Rene Walrus
did a wonderful job by personalising the hair comb by adding small
clusters of pearls which were used to make my earrings and bracelet.
This made it more personal and changed the slightly silvery tones in the
original hair comb to better link with the ivory shade in the dress and
jewellery.
A clever alteration which just made everything come
together.I really like jewellery and was
excited to choose something which was personal to me. My Dad gave me a
string of old pearls which he found in a box at home which in their
heyday would have been part of a much loved necklace. Having been
already recommended Janet at Rene Walrus,
I commissioned her to use these pearls to make some beautiful cascade
drop earrings and a bracelet which would compliment the floral and
flowing nature of the dress. The results were gorgeously sparkling, soft
and timeless."
"We wanted to design our own invitations and print them on very tactile paper. In the end we found Kirstie at White Blossom Paper Boutique,
Edinburgh home who gave us a base template to work with. Kirstie then
printed all the invitations and we completed the ribbon work to save on
costs. Each envelope was sealed with a ink stamp which looks like our
dog Charlie. We continued with our typewriter font we had
picked and made all other stationary including the order of service,
menus and table plans at home."
"We hired a classic VW Camper
called Bluebell as our wedding car. Although it was fun and practical
for my wedding dress, it was probably a bit of a luxury considering we
had such limited distances to make between the Church and the
Reception."
"My father gave me away dressed to the nines in his kilt and fabulously long horse hair sporran! The song we walked down the aisle to was 'Your Song’ sang live by Pamela Kavanagh with her husband Pete Kavanagh on acoustic guitar. Pamela
and Pete were amazing, it made such a big difference having live music
during our ceremony. It really made the church service feel all the more
personal and up beat. Pamelas voice is truly amazing and she helped
rally the guests on to sing along to our hymns though the wedding.
She
also sang during the signing of our registry to a song which we had
discussed which was even more perfect. We would definitely recommend Pamela and encourage other couples to look for live music during their wedding ceremony."
"My mother passed down my grandmothers engagement ring to
James and I which I cherish. We both picked platinum wedding rings from
Thomas Paterson Jewellers in Perth and have our wedding date engraved
into the inside of each ring.
We had two readings, ‘on your wedding day’ (author
unknown) and ‘Song of Songs’ an extract from the bible. They were chosen
to reflect our personalities and the journey which we had come to get
to where we were on our wedding day."
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
"In planning our wedding day we really wanted to meet all our
suppliers face to face which made such a difference in planning a more
personal day. So we would strongly urge other couples to get in touch
with their suppliers such as photographers, caters, band and florist and
suggest meeting them for a coffee. Step outside of the comfort of your
living room and PC and get to know all these wonderfully talented people
you want to hire. It gives you a chance to get to know them a bit more
and vice versa so on the day you don’t have strangers turning up to such
a special occasion."
When I asked the couple about their favourite parts of the day, James told me it was all about the
anticipation of waiting for Adele to walk down the aisle and seeing her
in her dress, which she had apparently been winding James up about for
months.
For Adele, her favourite moment of the day was walking down the
aisle to Pamela singing ‘your song’ just for us and realising it was me,
the bride walking down the aisle. It was only really then when I saw my
friends turning around to see me that I realised; ‘wait a second – I
am the bride!’ I don’t think I stopped smiling from the moment I got my
make-up on until I went to sleep."
What a beautiful, vibrant, colourful day – huge thanks Adèle and James for sharing it all with us, and big love to Kitchener Photography for choosing to submit this wedding to Love My Dress – thank you guys!
You can see more Charlotte Balbier Brides here – you might want to browse through our colourful, dogs at weddings (yes indeed!) and one-shoulder wedding dress pages too!
I'd be so delighted to see some reader comments in response to this wedding, as I'm sure Adèle and James would too.
Have a lovely morning everyone.
Much love,
Annabel
Photographer – Kitchener Photography
Venue – The bride's parents home using Inverhall Marquees
Wedding Dress – Charlotte Balbier via Kudos in Edinburgh
Brides hair accessory + necklace – Rene Walrus
Brides' shoes – Rainbow via the Hummingbird Boutique in Falkirk
Grooms Suit – 3-piece tweed suit via Walker Slater in Edinburgh
Bridesmaids Dresses – Coast + bracelets via Alan Hannah
Flowers – local florist Wendy Wilson in Crieff
Cake – cake baked by the brides mum + chocolate brownies baked by the bride
Transport – Classic VW Camper
Entertainment – Corra + Pamela Kavanagh
Rings –
Thomas Paterson Jewellers in Perth
Catering – EnCroute
Hair and make-up Artist – Gill from Senses Spa, Comrie (07702 – 546678).
Stationery – White Blossom Paper Boutique
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.
