Old Hollywood Glamour for an Audrey Hepburn Inspired Bride and her Winter Wedding

Sometimes, when I'm reading through the questionnaires brides send us to accompany their real wedding feature, I am struck by the fact that Annabel and I share many of the same interests and passions as our readers. This has never been truer than while reading through the words sent in by our occasional contributor, Jess.

Photography Copyright (c) 2013, Harerra Images

A fellow Audrey Hepburn enthusiast, she even chose to marry in January for some of the same reasons I did! If, like me, you spend a considerable amount of time dreaming of looking like a glamorous movie star from Hollywood's golden age, then I have a feeling you will adore the wedding of Jake and Jess…

'I grew up loving old Hollywood movies and at weekends sometimes Jake and
I would curl up with a black and white movie. I especially adore Audrey
Hepburn. When planning the theme, we chose winter as it's when many of
the great screen legends got married: Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Dors,
Brigitte Bardot, Ingrid Bergman and Rita Hayworth. January was particularly significant, with Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey all marrying in this month.'

'So January was perfect, and the 18th marked 44 years to the date that
Audrey herself was married. I was determined not to go too OTT with the
Audrey thing and didn’t want to specify an era for the style as we felt
inspired by different parts from different decades, so we set the theme
as “vintage glamour”.'

Jake and Jess and were married on the 18th of January this year at Pendennis Castle in Falmouth. Jake chose the castle, built by Henry VIII, because of its history.

'One day we were walking around the site on our anniversary and it was set up for a wedding later that day. He said 'I'm going to marry you here one day'. He never forgot that and 5 years later we did! I chose our reception venue The Greenbank Hotel. It is the oldest hotel in Falmouth and it’s incredible – the food, the service and its location on the water. All of our guests said it was the best venue and food they had ever experienced.'

Jess wore two beautiful dresses. The first was designed by Bella Donna and purchased at The Bridal Studio in Cornwall and Jess had a lace shrug custom made to go with it by a dressmaker in Cornwall (no website). The second dress was Alessia by Jenny Packham which Jess purchased second hand

'I initially fell in love with the Jenny Packham dress – a bias cut 1930s style backless number with crystal detail – when I saw it at a wedding fayre, but I couldn't afford the 2k price tag. I ended up buying it second hand, but it was sold to me in awful condition which I was unaware of and had red wine stains and had been bleached. It was at the dry cleaners for months and they said the damage couldn't be fixed so I began looking again.'

'I ended up finding my champagne dress at a wedding fayre and immediately was drawn to the colour as I have a photo of Jean Harlow wearing something similar. I met the dressmaker at a different wedding fayre and she had a champagne lace shrug on the mannequin, Jake pointed it out as pretty otherwise I'd never have noticed! I emailed her immediately and got a shrug made to measure with pearls on the buttons as my nod to Grace Kelly.'

'Around this time I got my Jenny Packham back ready to re-sell, all the red wine had gone and the bleach stains were minimal but still existent. I don't know why I did this but before I sold it I tried it on one last time and looked in the mirror. I called my Maid of Honour to tell her, I couldn't sell it, I still felt amazing in it after all this time.

The day dress felt so demure and chapel-like, I felt elegant, sophisticated and beautiful but the Jenny Packham made me feel like Marilyn: sexy, fun and carefree. It brought out the two different sides of me. I realised if I wore it to my evening it would be too dark to see any imperfections so I ended up wearing both dresses!'

Jesse wore a beautiful birdcage veil by Flo and Percy  and accessorised with a stunning pair of shoes by Emmy.

'I'm shoe mad so always knew this would be the most important part of my outfit. I found Emmy through Love My Dress and their service was incredible. The Francesca shoes are even more stunning in real life than the photographs. They were also really comfortable for dancing all night.'

'I had two hair accessories. With my first dress, I wore a fan shaped comb called Maya by Emmy which was created to match my shoes. With the Jenny Packham I wore a headband called Grace by Jo Barnes Vintage who I also discovered on Love My Dress. Her headpieces feel special and are incredibly good quality, it had lots of sparkle!'

In the evening, Jess wore a bespoke crystal cuff by Connie & Dolly which matched her dress beautifully. Her diamond earrings were a gift from Jake and she also wore a pretty champagne 'deco' garter and silk champagne briefs with Mrs Collins embroidered on the back from Ell &Cee via Liberty in Love.

'My very favourite accessory of the entire day was my three-strand pearl necklace. I bought it from Victoria Millesime who I also found on Love My Dress. I browsed her site, saw a picture of the necklace on the blog and emailed her to see if it was for sale… The necklace is an original from the 1950’s and is truly spectacular: the moment it arrived I cried – it was so so beautiful and I didn’t care if it matched my dress or not, I knew I would never ever let it go. It ended up matching perfectly and was my favourite accessory of the entire wedding and the one everyone commented on the most.'

Jess dressed her bridesmaids in black Audrey Hepburn style dresses found on a jive dancing website, adding petticoats and belts purchased from Etsy. The ladies wore simple black shoes from Dorothy Perkins, customised with some glitzy shoe clips to match their belts, black feather hair clips from Accessorize, short
black satin gloves and white fur shrugs with a pearl clasp. Jess also bought
each of them a pearl bracelet and earring set as gifts to wear on the day.

 

'Our beautiful niece and flower girl Lyla wore a champagne dress with matching shoes, glitzy headband and marabou feather shrug, all purchased from Monsoon. Our two nephews, Harry and Harley, were our pageboys. They wore miniature black tie outfits and looked so cute!'

'My hair was done by the local hair salon in Falmouth, NV. My make-up was done by my friend Victoria Penrose who is the most talented make-up artist I know! I wanted smoky, dramatic OTT glamour, Brigitte Bardot style! As always, she delivered and I truly felt like a movie star.'

Jake's suit was the Ventuno from Moss Bros. He also wore a white bow tie and patent brogues. Jess gave her new husband cufflinks with his initial on and a vintage silver and crocodile skin hipflask as a wedding gift.

 

'Our florist was Tracy Q. She understood the theme and decided on Vandella roses, Sweet Avalanche, and Amnesia roses in a colour scheme of mauve, dusky pink and vintage cream to go with the antique look. The flowers were very 1920s and had pearls with them. The bridesmaids carried bouquets of matching roses and pearls and our little flower girl had a wand.'

'For my bouquet I decided to have a brooch bouquet by Beckie at Something Old Something New. She understood the theme completely and put lots of champagne pearls and crystals in, including a blue brooch, crystal on the handle and vintage lace. It was gorgeous and sparkled beautifully in the candlelight. I love that this is something I will be able to pass through our family in years to come.'

Jess was accompanied down the aisle by her dad to the sound of Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's.

'Our readings were one of our favourite parts of the ceremony. We had
three. First, Jake chose “Marry a Girl
Who Reads” which is really fitting as I read like mad and also write. He said the moment he knew he would marry me was when I was curled up
writing and the reading finishes with "better still, marry a girl who
writes" so that was really beautiful. The following reading, "Maybe…", was chosen and read by my Maid of Honour. Lastly,
we asked all of our guests to send us a marriage tip which we turned
into a reading by putting them all together. We called it "Tips for a
Happy Marriage". It was read by Jakes parents as
a duet and was one of my favourite moments of the day.'

Jake and Jess employed the services of Jenny from In the Treehouse
to create a range of bespoke wedding stationery just
for them.

'The stationery was truly one of my
favourite parts! Each table had individual menus
with funny stories and facts about the people on the table (this went
down a treat!), and name tags with different Hollywood quotes on the
back. We also had cocktail vouchers instead of favours for free
Martinis or Bellini’s from the Greenbank Bar.'

Words of Wedded Wisdom

'Enjoy it – it goes so fast. Invest in the best photography you can afford as that's all you have left at the end of it all. The details count – it took hours to write a bit about every guest on our menus but people are still talking about this now, and the fact we had cocktail vouchers and flumps – people really do remember the little things.'

'Lastly, my advice is don’t worry what people think about your choices – we had all kinds of complaints from people saying bridesmaids “shouldn’t” be in black and January was not a good month to marry etc. People couldn’t understand why we would want a dark cold wedding instead of a summer celebration, but not everyone wants a cookie-cutter wedding and a “to do” list torn straight out of a wedding magazine full of silly rules and restrictions around bridal “etiquette”. That’s where blogs are ahead of the curve compared to magazines. Love My Dress helped encourage us to be true to what we wanted. Even though people were shocked by our choices, we pulled off a wedding which was completely “us” and wouldn’t change a thing.'

Wow. That's all I have. Wow.

Not only does the love between Jess and Jake pour forth from the images on this page, they also ooze old Hollywood glamour, don't you think? Huge thanks to Andy and Barney from Harrera
Images for allowing us to share their incredible work with you today.

'Big thank you to Andy & Barney for capturing
the important moments and giving us these memories to keep forever, we
would recommend them to anyone. Words cannot express their talent
and incredibly unique style.'

Have you been inspired by the screen icons of Hollywood's golden age? Will your bridal look scream vintage glamour? Are you planning to marry in winter? Tell all in the comments below and leave Jess and Jake a little love while you're there…

Franky

 

Photographer – Harerra Images
Venue – Pendennis Castle and The Greenbank Hotel
Wedding Dress – Bella Donna via The Bridal Studio and Jenny Packham {purchased second hand}
Veil – Flo and Percy
Brides' shoes – Francesca by Emmy
Bride's accessories – Haircomb by Emmy, headband by Jo Barnes Vintage, cuff by Connie & Dolly, garter and briefs by Ell & Cee via Liberty in Love, necklace by Victoria Millesime, brooch bouquet by Something Old Something New
Groom's Attire – Moss Bros
Bridesmaids – Dresses purchased from a jive dancing website
Flowergirls – Monsoon
Flowers –Tracy Q
Cake – Clare's Cakes in Cornwall
Stationery: In The Treehouse
Transport – Something Blue Cars
Entertainment – Harpist, Swingology, Cover Up
Hair Stylist -Nat at NV in Falmouth
Makeup Artist – Victoria Penrose
Stationery – In the Treehouse