Vera Wang Elegance For a Day Full of Rustic, Countryside Charm

Morning all, and what a divine sunny morning it is – how about where you are? This morning’s wedding is retold with such love, passion and enthusiasm by bride Jemma, you simply can’t help falling in love with it all, though there is no denying that the fact the photographs and film you see below were created by the wonderful Mckinley-Rodgers add more than a touch of magic.

Lecturer in Beauty Therapy Jemma married Electrical Engineer Robert on 27 September last year at St Johns Church in Boxmoor followed by a pretty, rustic style reception in the garden of The Old Chequers in Hertfordshire, for which they hired tipis from tipis4hire.com.  I hope you love reading about their day, watching their film and viewing their lovely photographs.

“I wanted a pretty day as most brides do, but we also really wanted a relaxed day that simply said ‘Robert & Jemma’. We used our hobbies as inspiration for styling our day – Rob is a dedicated country and nature enthusiast, so we used touches of wild inspiration like the stags head and the hares as venue decor.  I used my entire collection of Emma Bridgewater Starry Skies pottery & fabrics too. We even had an old wooden lard delivery box from King George’s reign that Rob had picked out of a skip at work (Buckingham Palace)!”

Film & Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Mckinley-Rodgers

“We were briefly introduced (but nothing more than a ‘How do you do?’ in the Summer 2008, we met again on a evening out a couple of months later in the same pub that Rob’s grandparents had met! Robert called out my name whilst I was passing and we began to talk.

Those first months of our relationship were like a fairy tale – Rob would meet me at Euston Station and I would race to see him standing at the top. We would take so many journeys on the tube, just hanging onto each other, forgetting there was a world around us and just being so wrapped up in one another, chatting, cuddling and sneaking kisses. It felt like we were the only people in the world.”

“We got engaged early December 2011 during a weekend away in London. Rob had surprised me by hiring a private pod on the London eye and ended up proposing at the top overlooking the beautiful London night Sky. He had got the most beautiful engagement ring and all the people in pods around us were banging on the glass, cheering, waving and taking pictures. It was an incredible moment in our lives! We dined out after at The Ledbury in Notting Hill where we got to meet the head Chef and the staff treated us like royalty and really were the icing on the cake to a perfect evening.

We chose St John’s for a couple of reasons, it is our local church, Jemma’s parents married here, Robert was christened here and our decision was made on Christmas Eve at Midnight listening to the ethereal choir sing in our beautiful church, which was breath taking!”

The couple used the bike that Jemma uses every day to cycle to work to style their reception.

“I actually fell head over heels in love with my wedding dress from a single photograph I had spotted on Pinterest! But the photo did not have any accompanying information to help me identify the designer, so here in started nearly a two year search for the dress! I researched everywhere just hoping it would come up in image search and then one lucky day, bingo! I found her, but my joy was dismissed almost immediately when I discovered it was a Vera Wang gown – I feared I would not be able to afford it.

Intrigued and hopeful that the dress might have been one of Vera Wang’s more affordable dresses, I contacted Browns Bride to try and find out more details. When they told me the gown was called ‘Gemma’, a big, big part of my heart was telling me she was the one! After long debating whether we should go and try it on, I booked an appointment at Browns Bride.”

“The team at Browns Bride were amazing and encouraged me to try on other gowns too, given this was my first time trying any wedding dress on at all. Of course I had to try ‘Gemma’ first. I just felt like the dress was made for me! But when the price tag was revealed to me, my heart sank. It was way out of the budget. And so began the biggest dress hunt ever! I visited practically every bridal gown shop in Hertfordshire and London to try and find an alternative and every single gown was beautiful, stunning, ethereal, but it wasn’t ‘Gemma’.

We looked at having one made, but couldn’t guarantee the exactness. Rob even took me to two sample sales in January & February at 5.30am in London where I queued for 5 hours in freezing temperatures with other desperate brides all regaling each other with our gown stories! Each time, unfortunately, ‘Gemma’ did not go into the sale.”

“On the last sample sale, another bride and I were discussing our dress woes and she suggested I look abroad. For some reason, I had presumed that Vera Wang stocked her designs only in the UK. I practically ran back to the car to begging my search abroad with renewed hope! After a lot of searching I tracked down Matinas Bridal in Ohio, and Lyilyana at Matinas kindly helped me by informing me that I could buy their immaculate sample dress and ship it over to me with considerable savings on the UK price.

With a lot of faith and hope, I ordered the dress and anxiously awaited arrival. In April 13, she finally arrived, I had tracked the gown by Fed Ex and rushed home on my lunch break to discover my neighbour had signed for the gown and taken it on for me. I tore up our stairs with box, whipped open the box, out fell a little card which I opened and read from Lyilyana ‘Dear Jemma, Please find your dream dress, we hope she makes your dreams come true’.

Kerry Steeden  did all of my alterations and the dress fit lie a beautiful glove.”

“I made all of the flower arrangements except my bouquet and the groom men’s button holes which were lovingly made by a family friend Pam using flower that my Mum and I gathered from a very early morning trip to The Flower Centre at Weston’s International. I hadn’t made my mind up between blush roses or white hydrangeas as my bouquet.

I already knew I wanted white gypsophila for the bridesmaids, and when I saw the white hydrangeas as big as footballs I just knew they would go so perfectly with the dress and the understated pretty look of the day.”

“We used Tipis4Hire.com – their tipi’s are naturally warm, welcoming and intimate with their use of wooden beams which we wrapped thousands of tiny soft fairy lights around (which took poor Rob nearly two days!). The long picnic tables provided with the Tipi’s had bench style seating covered in animal skins. The tipis also come with a dance-floor and stage and we used giant cable wheels as tables to sit beside the dance floor.”

“I used all of my own Emma Bridegwater pottery as flower vases. The flowers I did myself the day before the wedding. I used blush pink and white hydrangeas, scattered white and light pink babies breath and placed a few blush pink roses in too. I had desperately wanted to include peonies but being out of season I purchased a few silk peonies and scattered these throughout the vases too!

I sourced two crowns from Etsy and used them to signify our place and a large silver stags head sat between us on the table. All guests had napkins cut from Emma Bridgewater Starry Skies Fabric on their plates, my sister in law Jo and her partner had tied velvet bows for each guest to hold their cutlery in a star on their plate. “

“Our cake by Beaney Bakes was provided by Rob’s mum Carol as a gift was kept plain and simple with plain white smooth icing on three tiers, as I wanted the stand out feature of the cake was to be the cake topper which was a mini wooden London Eye model – which was where Rob proposed, I kept this a secret from him to!

As well as our wedding not really having a theme, the cake we just wanted to compliment simple style and relaxed attitude. The bottom layer sat on a tree log slice that Rob’s father had chopped down. And we used natural moss to surround the bottom layer.”

“Planning a wedding is one the most exciting but nerve wrecking experiences we have ever experienced! Once we had secured our venue which was number 1 priority, we swiftly moved onto number 2: Photographers.  We were adamant we wanted two photographers, absolutely certain we wanted reportage specialists and most importantly we wanted our photographers to feel like friends.  

After a very quick Google search, we found the amazing Mckinley-Rodgers website full of beautiful pictures & videos.  We didn’t even look at another Photographer’s website, we didn’t need too. We booked them immediately.  Penny and Cam truly are like old friends that you haven’t seen for years.   As for our film – we could never have wished for a better way to summarise our day all in about 4 minutes.

Obviously I recommend Pen & Cam to everyone.  I watch our video at least once a week!  I could go on and on about Mckinley-Rodgers skills, their kindness, their relaxed vibe. They just are the coolest people you will ever be lucky enough to meet. Let alone shoot your big day.  Pen & Cam, Thank You!”

“My old Hollywood 40’s style wave hair was styled and created by Tiffany Rose Burgin who did my up do and then returned later in the day to let my hair down and prepare it for the evening. She also did the bridesmaids hair. She is exceptional.

My stunning make up was lovingly created by my best friend & bridesmaid Natalie Allsopp.  I feel incredibly lucky to have a talented and sought after Bridal Make Up Artist as my friend and she created the perfect make up for me, my dress and the day. Natalie is so good I recommend her at least twice monthly.” 

“After 3 different hair accessories trials, I settled on a mixture of handmade silk cream roses and real roses to sit in my hair.”

“As Rob generally sports a relaxed scruffy country gent style, we decided that for the occasion of our wedding, we’d splash out and treat him to a tailor made suit from Dress To Kill. He wore a lovely shirt from Hugo Boss and a pair of smart brogue style shoes from Aldo.

I had always wanted to give Rob a secret message on our day, just to let him know how lucky I felt becoming his wife, I wrote a poem and contacted an embroiderer who sewed the poem onto some fabric and Rob mum managed to sneakily sew it into the inside of his suit jacket the night before the wedding.”

Jemma wore a handmade cathedral length ivory tulle veil with a blusher and tiny crystals scattered throughout. The veil was lovingly crafted by Kerry Steeden of Kerry Steeden Couture.

“I really wanted my beautiful dress to do all of the statement making and I knew my hair would be do beautiful, I didn’t plan on wearing any accessories but my amazing husband surprised me the most beautiful platinum and diamond pear necklace and matching diamond pear earrings which he had made at Rapheals in Hatton Garden, the same jeweller that he used to make my engagement and our wedding rings. When I opened them, they took my breathe away and made my mum cry! They are timeless, elegant and perfect. He is amazing.”

 “I was keen for my bridemaids not to look too identi-kit – their gowns were from Dido Couture on Etsy (handmade/made to measure) and the dusky lavender dress was from Coast.”

“My dad walked me down the aisle, he was holding my Flower Girl Amaya’s little pink shoes in his hand as he walked with me which we didn’t notice until we saw the photos. It really made us chuckle! We walked down the aisle to ‘Kissing You’ by Deseree from the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack, one of our favourite movies.  The song fitted the very emotional atmosphere perfectly.

During the ceremony, we exchanged traditional vows.  Our Vicar Ruth Goatley was simply the best – she looked after us and guided us both.  We chose Corinthians 13 as a reading.”

“One day we were walking through our village taking our dog on walk and as walked down an alleyway, we could hear singing coming from one of the gardens. It was a young female voice and it stopped us dead in our tracks.  She was singing acoustically and playing the ukulele. We stood outside her garden fence for at least 30 minutes listening to her sweet sounds. 

During one of the breaks, Rob knocked on the fence and Joanna Toms appeared carrying her ukulele!  We explained how much we loved the sound of her music and asked if she would sing at our wedding! Jo agreed and with her parents permission was booked after school to sing during our canapés reception.

We arranged straw bales around her in a horse shoe shape and she sang acoustically to rapturous applause. We asked her to sing Norah Jones ‘Come Away with Me’ as it’s my favourite song.”

“Sticking with the idea that we wanted the day to represent us and be very relaxed, we chose our two favourite snacks as the canapés. Krispy Kreme provided us with 100 assorted doughnuts and it was nearly top of my tick list on the day to make sure I had at least one.  Some of our guests managed three!”

“Our non traditional wedding breakfast was a hog roast provided and cooked by award winning Eastwoods of Berkhamsted and it was delicious. The Old Chequers provided us with accompaniments of roast potatoes, coleslaw, pasta salad, roasted vegetables and green salad. For dessert we purchased cakes, including our wedding cake, from Costco which we served with jugs of custard and cream. 

In the evening we served crusty bread, crackers, left over hog roast and a giant tower of different cheeses from Godminster Cheese. We are still eating the cheese!”

“Being countryside enthusiasts and nature lovers, again we were keen to personalise our wedding favours. Rob had recently been on his first bee keeping course and had come back full of knowledge and concerns about our declining bee population so we used wild flower seeds that encourage bees to your garden and presented in them brown eco friendly recycled envelopes.

My dad being a talented sign writer he designed the envelope and also created all of the signs used to decorate the day.”      

“If I’m honest, I have two favourite parts of our day – firstly, the vows. Actually becoming married to Rob is still as of this moment the greatest moment of my life. My whole mind, body and soul felt so in tune with what we were saying and the emotional feeling in my heart and my throat was so strong – I can feel it now!

Then the speeches. My husband’s speech just literally blew me away and I cherish the fact that Pen & Cam McKinley-Rodgers made us our video so I can watch it back over and over again.”

“We had two first dances, our first was a secretly planned ‘impromptu’ first dance, Joanna sang acoustically ‘Come away with me’ by Norah Jones and we got up and had a romantic shuffle around the field that the Tipi’s were in. We had also taken dance lessons with our wonderful dance Teacher Daniela Hobbs from Expressions Academy who choreographed a routine to ‘Hey Ho’ by the Lumineers.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

“From start to finish, make your wedding all about you both.

Each bride has priorities – I made a larger budget for my dress, hair and make up and I have never felt more beautiful in my life! We chose to spend less on the more ‘forgettable’ aspects of the day, like favours for example.

Robert and I did almost everything for our wedding – even camping out the night in the Tipi’s to spend the dark hours decorating. In hindsight, I wish we had arranged a bit more help, as I had planned a lovely night before the wedding with my mum which didn’t turn out to be what we had expected simply because I was still doing music playlists and sorting out a malfunctioned cake at 11.30pm! So although I can honestly say that our wedding was completely created by us, I think that pressure can cause unnecessary stress if you don’t delegate.

We’re now expecting our first baby – this month!  We are absolutely thrilled and cannot wait to meet our new family member.  The last year has been so perfect and we couldn’t think or imagine we would be starting our married life this way, so filled with love and hope for our futures.”

Oh my word, what a wonderful, wonderful wedding report, so full of love, emotion and the most fondly recalled account of a beautiful day, thank you so much Jemma and Rob and HUGE congratulations on the imminent arrival of your baby!

Immense thanks as always to the truly wonderful Mckinley-Rodgers for sharing this day – you can see many more weddings from this talented creative duo here on Love My Dress.

Have a most beautiful day everyone,

Love Annabel

 

Photographer + Film Maker – Mckinley-Rodgers
Venue – The Old Chequers, Hertfordshire
Tipi Hire – tipis4hire.com
Brides Dress – Vera Wang via Matinas Bridal (US)
Dress amendments  + Veil – Kerry Steeden Couture
Headpiece – real and silk roses
Brides Shoes – Louis Vuitton Beauty Pumps + Karen Millen pumps
Groom – Dress To Kill + Hugo Boss  shirt + Aldo brogues
Bridesmaids – Dido Couture on Etsy + Coast
Flowergirls – Next
Flowers – styled by the bride & her family using The Flower Centre
Cake – Beaney Bakes
Entertainment – Joanna Toms (singer/ukelele player, no website)
Evening Entertainment – The Bears
Rings – Rapheals,  Hatton Garden
Hair Stylist – Tiffany Rose Burgin
Make-up Artist – Natalie Allsopp
First Dance Teacher – Daniela Hobbs from Expressions Academy
Hog Roast – Eastwoods of Berkhamsted

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