An Elegant Edwardian inspired Handmade Dress

With all the fantastic options available for weddings these days, it’s easy to overlook the simple things that actually make a day most beautiful. For Emma and Edward Thomas, their wedding day was about keeping it traditional and celebrating with close friends and family. Here is a lesson in how to do countryside simplicity very, very well. And that dress! Vintage inspired, handmade and gorgeous.

Edward proposed on Christmas Morning, during a walk in Emma’s parents woodland, so it seemed like a natural choice to continue with that countryside theme for their June 2014 wedding.

“We wanted the day to be relaxed, rural and traditional – we were determined to make the wedding a reflection of what we like and how we live. We didn’t want any of the day to be constrained by having to cut the cake at a certain time or have too much structure. We also didn’t want to get sucked into buying things for the sake of it – so chair covers, anything glitzy (apart from the shoes) and any unnecessary fuss was banned!

We were also on a tight budget as we paid for the wedding ourselves. We were determined that a wedding shouldn’t cost the Earth, so we focused on the key elements, the traditional ceremony and a good party and meal after!”

Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Sally T Photography

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

“We were married at our local Church, St Marys in High Offley. Our vicar told us two weeks before that she had to travel to the Shetland Islands for another wedding so we asked our amazing friend Father Richard Peers, who is normally a Headmaster in a Lewisham school, to step in for the day. It was so great to have your friend marry you – we were completely relaxed and made it extra special.

The church is a typical local 12th Century Church and is quite rustic and small inside. We were limited on our guest numbers on how many people could actually squeeze in.”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

Emma and Edward wanted the relaxed and traditional feel of their wedding to be reflected in their photographs.

“We had Sally from Sally T Photography – she was amazing. We didn’t even notice her taking the pictures and she was so lovely chatting away to all our guests. We had such good feedback from everyone on our photos which are so perfect. We can’t wait to get them all into frames. Sally has a great eye and as we didn’t want a lot of structured photography her style was perfect. She also produced an amazing slide show, we loved watching the day all over again!”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

There are a lot of clever handmade details in this wedding, which always helps to make a day more personal. In particular I have a huge amount of admiration for a bride who makes her own wedding gown! Emma’s is a real beauty. It has a demure, edwardian quality that suits her perfectly.

“The dress was actually something I had never really thought about before I got engaged. I was determined to have something traditional that was appropriate for a church and comfy to wear. I went into one bridal shop and hated the experience, all the dresses were so heavy or strapless and I couldn’t get my head around trying on everything with people fussing around me. So I declared that I would make my own dress! My bridesmaid was horrified and started to quiz me on my sewing skills! Luckily I did sewing at school and had made clothes before but knew this was a bit more of a tall order!

I started to look at shapes which suited me and materials. I really like Jenny Packham designs but my budget wouldn’t stretch to that so I sourced the material via eBay, found some lovely vintage lace and got sewing. It took me 6 months and lots of revising with some help from mum but I got there. My dress was a perfect fit, comfy and unique. I found a beautiful Jenny Packham cathedral length veil on Ebay for an amazing price and that finished off the look perfectly.”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

“We originally planned the wedding to take place at our farm however we had an issue with the legal contracts and up to the day before the wedding we weren’t sure if we would complete the sale in time. Hence we had a last minute panic change in venue the week before the wedding and moved it to my parents house. We are really lucky they have a large amount of land and a lake – however fitting the marquee onto the lawn was still a bit of a squeeze!”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

“We are lucky that Edward’s mum is a florist so she did our flowers for us. We went to the flower market in Birmingham for ideas and I started to make a list of things I liked. I wanted the flowers to be as seasonal as possible and we used a lot of material from the hedgerow. I had a bouquet of peonies and the bridesmaid had a bunch of gypsophila.

The buttonholes were antique coloured roses. We decorated the church with a mix of hedgerow flowers (lots of cow parsley) and alliums with other colours mixed in. The afternoon tea tent/ bar tent was decorated with single peonies and wild flowers, with the main tent being strictly white and green themed – we had potted white hydrangeas on the tables.”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

The bride and groom used Hinstock Marquees to provide the reception tents. I love a good marquee wedding, it’s that feeling of being sheltered inside, yet also outside in beautiful surroundings. It has a festival-esque, relaxed vibe, in a more controlled and comfortable environment. For Emma and Edward this was the perfect setting, even with the last minute change of location!

“My mum made a lot of bunting prior to the wedding and collected a raft of vintage china. We went for an afternoon tea after the ceremony which we baked all the cakes for and used the vintage tea sets. I made a three tier giant Victoria sandwich cake decorated with red fruit and dusted with icing sugar. I wanted something we would like – and I hate fruit cake and icing so we went with this. We think it was quite effective and it was all eaten up!”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

“The tea tent was decorated with straw bales with rustic tartan blankets and bunting. The main tent had paper pom poms (which we made), ivy arches and pastel bunting. We went with wooden folding chairs and a traditional tent pole marquee. We had a buffet meal provided by Call In The Caterers, with as much locally supplied produce as we could source.

We even knew the farm who supplied the meat which was really important to us. We then had our friends who own an amazing butchers supply giant chicken and ham, and pork and black pudding pies which we served with a cheese and port later in the evening, which kept everyone dancing till 3am!”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

“My only extravagance was my shoes which were from Jimmy Choo. I have an aversion to bridal shoes so I was determined to have something glam which I could wear again and were special – so I saved up and splashed out, they are champagne and were kitten heel so actually very comfy for all the dancing.”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

“We broke with tradition for the bridesmaids as I have two best friends. Emma (wearing Topshop) and Carwyn are both really important people to me, so I had a bridesmaid and a bridesman! I think Carwyn quite liked the attention really although he refused to wear a dress!”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

Emma walked down the aisle with her father to ‘The arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ by Handel, an elegant, uplifting piece. “We asked our friend Tristan to play the piano during the ceremony – he is a concert pianist and is amazing. We had a mix of classic hymns from the countryside including All Things Bright and Beautiful. Our friend Paul did our religious reading and Edwards sister Alice read the Owl and the Pussycat. It was a fun ceremony that everyone could join in with.”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

“We have so many great memories of the day, but the look on our guests faces when we had our first dance to the Arctic Monkeys ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor’ was priceless! The best man speech was also pretty unique which involved Edward getting changed into a suit made of tulip material.”

“Another memorable moment was when our bell ringers cancelled last minute on us so my mum went on Radio Shropshire two days before the wedding to appeal for replacements – we had so many phone calls and people drove from miles to come just for our wedding so we didn’t miss out!”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“You don’t spend a fortune – we didn’t! Don’t get caught up in spending money on things which on the day don’t matter, focus on the ceremony and the party afterwards, lots of good food, drink and music -that’s the perfect combination. Be clever with sourcing local suppliers; it’s good to know where everything comes from and that you are supporting local British business.

Lastly remember it’s about the two of you, weddings can produce an enormous amount of pressure to keep other people happy and that isn’t the point! Focus, make lots of lists and don’t get stressed!”

handmade wedding, bride made her dress, sally to photography, countryside wedding

I couldn’t have given better advice myself, it is so important to remember that your wedding is about your own personal tastes and preferences. Thank you to Emma and Edward for sharing their charming wedding, and to Sally T Photography for her genuine and heartwarming ability to capture the happiness of the day.

Love Susie x

Photographer – Sally T Photography
Marquee – Hinstock Marquees

Bride’s dress – Handmade
Bride’s shoes – Jimmy Choo
Bridesmaids dress – Topshop
Caterer – Call in the Caterers
Vintage tea set hire – Sarah Greenow Vintage Hire. Tel: 01785 284684

Follow Love My Dress® on Google+

 

Close
Top