The answer is no, I couldn’t possibly ever imagine it. And that is a truth spoken from my heart. Asking me if I ever tire of weddings is I suppose a good question, when you consider weddings are what I see, and deal with every day. All I can say is, when I got married in 2009, I followed my calling and now I can’t imagine doing anything else. Writing about other people’s weddings almost every day of my working life now is not something I would ever consider a chore, or bore. It’s an absolute privilege, not least that I have been entrusted with a couple’s most beautiful and precious memories, but that in so doing, I have the honoured position of inspiring so many others. By default, I receive a beautiful daily reminder of the value of marriage, of the role of formal commitment in our lives, of the importance of trust, loyalty and love. I consider that an absolute joy, and I love my job.
This morning’s feature exemplifies most beautifully, all that I adore about weddings – that rare and most wonderful opportunity to bring loved ones together for a single day in all of life, to celebrate love, joy, togetherness. And these photographs inspire me to feel happy and appreciate that I too had the opportunity to marry the one I love and celebrate that marriage with our friends and family.
Camilla, a Doctor, married David, who works in Harrods’ Fine watch room, on 6th September 2014 with a ceremony at St Michael’s Church, followed by a reception at Porthill Farm*, both in Porthilly, Cornwall. Their wedding day was a true reflection of the couple’s love for Cornwall.
“Our day was all about us and Cornwall. We didn’t want any ‘themes’, we just wanted it to feel like our guests had come round for a day at our house – cosy, fun, romantic and a little bit silly at points! We tried as much as we could to keep things local too. If we could get it in Cornwall/the South West, we did! Supporting local businesses is something that is important to me so this guided a lot of our decisions.”
Photography Copyright (c) Jackson & Co Photography
“Cornwall is our happy place – we had seen St Michael’s Church online when I joked about us getting married (little did I know that David had already got the ring!). It was perfect –small, secluded and in our favourite corner of the country. Then our friends who live locally told us that the Marshalls at Porthilly Farm rent out their headland just around the corner from the church. Just Perfect.”
“I am a big fan of flat shoes – one crucial thing for me was that I wanted to be comfortable for the whole day! I found a gorgeous pair of green pumps from J Crew. As my bridesmaids had both chosen different coloured shoes these fitted in nicely with the hotchpotch style of the wedding.
One of my bridesmaids had given me a sixpence from 1914 and my talented sister in law incorporated it in to an anklet for me… not quite in my shoe but close!”
“My dress was a Cortana design, from Spain. I tried on quite a few dresses and I loved a Jesus Peiro gown, I was pretty much set on it until one day just after Christmas, when I was on Pinterest and saw a picture of a wedding dress from Cortana. I went online and found their collection – within it was a simple top and skirt. It was the one! I had to order it online, but four weeks later it arrived. And It fit. Phew! I didn’t want to take it off.”
“I don’t dress up a lot and I found a lot of wedding dresses just too much. I have a relaxed style and I’m happiest in comfy jeans and a t-shirt. This was the wedding dress equivalent –comfy, soft and relaxed in its style.
My veil came from Twigs and Honey. It was a beautiful silk tulle Juliette veil with lace edging.”
Readers, you can find this exact sweet and dreamy 100% silk veil here on the Twigs and Honey website, it is just so beautiful. The veil costs $230 US dollars (approximately £154 on the day this post went live – though remember shipping costs and import tax. More than worth it though!).
“David met with James of Cad and The Dandy and decided on a dark green tweed suit. He wanted something different to the suits he wears for work – so that ruled out black, grey and blue. He also wore a blue tie from the Harrods of London line.
The best men wore three-piece tweed suits from Victor Valentine with transformers cufflinks from Amazon.”
“We had a couple of shopping trips for the bridesmaids dresses, but found nothing. I had initially wanted polka dot dresses, but we couldn’t find any we liked. Then I stumbled across the talented Isabel Knowles on Notonthehighstreet.com, and found a fun and pretty Liberty Tana lawn fabric and a picture of a dress that both the girls liked the style of, so Isabel made the most amazing dresses. I thought the girls looked stunning and the dresses fit really well.
My gorgeous little flower girl was David’s niece – her dress was also made by Isabel Knowles and was a complete surprise for her! Her face was a picture! She loved it! Her shoes came from Debenhams.”
“Our florist was The Blue Carrot – I had seen some of Susanne’s work in the Cornish edition of Wed magazine. She is so creative and came up with ideas I would never have thought of. We met her at her home and she was so warm and welcoming. She really listened to our wedding plans and what we were looking for with respect to the flowers. She got us completely. The bouquets, the pinholes and the reception flowers were glorious! I got very emotional when she delivered our bouquets in the morning. Cannot recommend her enough – such an incredible talent.”
“Our photographer was Jackson & Co Photography – Wow, simply, Wow – Michael and Hannah are incredible, the minute we met them at the National Wedding Show we knew they were the photographers for us. They are such fun and incredibly easy to get on with. They understood exactly what we wanted –nothing formal, just fun, relaxed pictures.
I cannot recommend them enough! We absolutely loved having them at our wedding – a lot of giggles! Our photos are simply brilliant; they fully captured the feeling of the day. They even managed to get a couple of shots of my camera shy mum!! That is quite a feat!”
“David and I met at The Bedford Pub in Balham in 2011 – one of my flatmates at the time was David’s friend (and one the best men!). That was in the April and we moved in together in the November. It has been the most incredible 3 years…. We got married nearly a year to the day of getting engaged.
As usual we headed down to Cornwall last September. We had planned to go to my favourite beach – Bedruthan Steps, but the day before this I had injured my knee running and on top of that it was overcast. So I wasn’t particularly keen and didn’t want to drag David over there in the rain! After some faffing we made it over to the beach. Bedruthan is a stunning beach, only accessible by a steep cliff staircase at low tide. Bad knee & stairs, not a great combo… I was feeling a bit nauseous by the bottom of the stairs and to top it off David was being very odd!
We strolled along the beach for a bit and the sun appeared through the clouds! David sat down on a rock. I sat down next to him and he immediately got up….. I was a bit confused! Then he got down on one knee and asked me if I would be his wife! I cannot put in words how it felt. David is my world and here he was asking me to spend the rest of my life with him – a no brainer really! But despite all the excitement and happiness my first response was ‘Are you sure?’!”
“Between us we have three nephews, so we dressed them in claret trousers from Ted Baker at Debenhams, white shirts and my mum and I made them tweed ties to compliment David’s suit and the best men’s suit. My nephew Freddie was the ring bearer and we had a tweed waistcoat made for him by Le Beau Cheval.”
“My friend did my hair and make-up. I wanted a very natural look and casual hair.”
“The wedding car was ‘Dora’, our Land Rover Defender – she was beautifully decorated by my lovely bridesmaids. From the church, us and the majority of guests walked round to the marquee. It was great to see them all walking down the hill behind us.”
“The bridesmaids chose their own shoes, as we wanted them to have shoes they would wear again. Vicki had a pair of snazzy electric blue heels by Untold and Lauren chose a lovely pair of burnt orange heels by Dune both came from House of Fraser.
The bridesmaids also had coloured pearl earrings that complimented the shoe colours they had chosen, we got these from a fabulous jewellery shop called Gwyneth’s in Padstow.”
“My dad walked me down the aisle. I was suddenly very emotional when I took his arm to walk down the aisle towards David to the sound of ‘Salut D’amour’ by Elgar.”
“Our first reading was St Paul’s letter to the Colossians 3. 12-15, which was read by David’s Auntie Kate. Our second reading was ‘A Lovely Love Story’ by Edward Monkton – this was such a fun story and was performed brilliantly by our friends Sarah and Barny.”
“A very special part of our ceremony was when my brother Ben and my friend Frances performed ‘Sweet Nightingale’; this is an old Cornish folk song that we both love. It was so moving to have them do this for us.”
“The day was better than I could ever have hoped for, but if I was to pick one part that was my most favourite, it would have to be the ceremony and exchanging vows with David. The church was full but all I noticed was David standing next to me squeezing my hand – I could not believe I was actually getting married – I had never felt happiness or excitement like it. I am truly lucky to have David beside me in life and I am so excited to see what life brings us – starting with our move to Cornwall.”
“We made our rings with Abigail Brown in Penryn, Cornwall. We spent the day with her and we made the rings from scratch. It was a fantastic day and the rings (although not ‘perfect’) are really meaningful and special to us!”
“As a surprise for David I had arranged for a bagpiper to play our recessional. He was waiting outside until he was given the sign to start playing. My other brother Dan was on the case –he stealthily opened the door, gave the thumbs up and the pipes music drifted in! I may have broken David briefly.”
“We hired a beautiful marquee from LPM Bohemia – we chose to have a wooden floor and a roof lining printed with a blue motif. It looked so beautiful, that we didn’t need any other decorations. We painted signs to guide our guests to the marquee and we also painted signs for the bar, guest plank and the photo booth.
Outside the marquee, we had a drinks table with our random and hotchpotch collection of glasses (we bought them from charity shops over the year) and three big drinks containers. There was also a children’s area with some giant games and a tepee.”
“Our wines all came from the Camel Valley Vineyard – we had a help yourself bar with four beer casks from The Padstow Brewing Company alongside some delicious Tarquins Gin (also Cornish).”
“Our caterer was the fabulous Miss Tea – my mouth is watering just thinking about Sarah’s food. Sarah has the patience of a saint (I was a bit indecisive!). Again everything was from Cornwall, using local suppliers. Sarah created the perfect meal – we had delicious canapés, including mini Cornish pasties followed by slow roast joint of lamb that guests carved at the table, served with veggies and salad.
Pudding was ice cream with a help yourself topping buffet. The ice cream was provided by The Cornish Ice cream Trike. This was then followed by an immense cheese board – I love love love cheese and Sarah produced the most incredible spread of Cornish cheeses. It was utterly Yummy!”
“I wore pearl earrings from Links of London. I also wore a pearl pendant that David had given me a couple of Christmas’ ago. And as a scent, I wore Hugo Boss Orange for women. It is the perfume I always wear and I love it.”
When it came to the paper products and stationery, Camilla once again turned to DIY…
“We made our own orders of service; each one had a hankie in it (made by my mum and me). I also made the table plan by printing each table on a luggage label then I fixed them on to a map of the area we were in. My mum, my school friend Sarah and I made the napkins and we embroidered each guests name on to one. These became our place names. Our menus (drink and food) were written on chalk boards.”
“As favours for our guests, we supplied homemade flavoured gin made by myself and my bridesmaid Lauren, we also adopted a lobster for each guest from the National Lobster Hatchery. For the kiddies we put together small baskets with toys, sweets and cameras in them.”
“On the invitations we had asked our guests to tell us their favourite sweet or chocolate –my mum, bridesmaids and I put a little bag together for each guest with their favourite chocolate. These were brought out later on in the evening along with small traditional Cornish pasties from The Chough Bakery in Padstow as a ‘midnight snack’ for our guests.”
“I made our wedding cake – I found cake companies to exceed our wedding budget, and the cake was not a very important part of the day to either of us, so I put my baking hat on instead. I did a three tiered cake, the bottom layer was carrot cake, the middle was chocolate fudge cake and the top layer was lemon cake! I just did a simple buttercream frosting (which had slightly frozen in fridge overnight… cue panic in the morning!) and finished it off with edible flowers from The Flower Mill Cornwall.”
“For the reception, I changed my necklace to a beautiful copper necklace which I found in The Blue Wing Gallery in Padstow.”
“Our first ‘dance’ was ‘Africa’ by Toto. It is just our favourite song and makes us smile so was such an easy decision. Neither of us is particularly good at dancing and in the run up to the wedding, it suddenly dawned on us that we had never danced together – at all! So needless to say our first dance was rather amusing.”
“For entertainment, we hired Pastiche who were incredible. We started with a ceilidh in honour of David’s Scottish roots and I have never had so much fun in all my life!! The band was great, the music was awesome. Just wish I had had more time to dance!”
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
“Remember this day is about you and your other half. There will be ups and downs but keep in mind that behind all the bunting, the cake, the dress and the stress over the guest list, only one thing actually matters – you are marrying the person you love and want to spend your life with. That is pretty amazing!
Honestly there is nothing I would change – there were things that didn’t work out exactly as planned but it didn’t matter at all. Our day was everything we hoped it would be and far far more.”
So beautiful and inspirational – I love to think these images have brought you a touch of joy today – hold on to that little bit of magic whatever you’re up to, and if you happen to be planning your own wedding, then I’m sending all my love and luck in the world that your wedding will be one of the loveliest most wonderful days of your life too.
My love and thanks to the immense talent that is Jackson & Co Photography for once again furnishing our pages with so much prettiness.
Happy Friday everyone,
Love Annabel x
Photographer – Jackson & Co Photography
Venue – Porthilly Farm, Rock, Cornwall *no website + LPM Bohemia marquee hire
Bride’s Dress – Cortana (ordered online)
Veil – Twigs and Honey
Shoes – Green flats via J Crew
Bride’s Scent/perfume – Hugo Boss Orange for women
Groom’s suit – Cad and The Dandy + tie by Harrods of London
Bridesmaids – Isabel Knowles + shoes from House of Fraser
Flowergirls – Isabel Knowles + shoes from Debenhams + flower head band from Accessorize
Page Boys – Ted Baker at Debenhams + Le Beau Cheva
Florist – The Blue Carrot
Cake – made by the bride
Transport – ‘Dora’, the couple’s Land Rover Defender
Entertainment – Pastiche (band)
Rings – made by the couple, with Abigail Brown
Catering – Miss Tea + icecream via The Cornish Ice cream Trike + Cornish pasties via The Chough Bakery
Wines – Camel Valley Vineyard + The Padstow Brewing Company + Tarquins Gin (of Cornwall)
Stationery – DIY by the bride & groom
Hair & Makeup – a friend
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.
Such happiness! What a truly love filled wedding!
I know, a truly, truly lovely wedding, however you look at it. I just love it x x
A gorgeous wedding! Love the decors and details!
Thanks for your lovely comment YTWA! One of my faves this one, something about it I absolutely *love*.
xXx
Beautiful Wedding. The couple are so much in love and the wedding looked amazing! I love the Jackson’s work. SO, so good x
Thanks Kelly – Just so lovely isn’t it, photographed to perfection too. That Jackson guy is a bit good isn’t he? 🙂
Such intimate happy wedding images. Stunning dress and veil.
I know this was a few years ago, but absolutely love love love your Cortana skirt. It’s now only available in Spain, so wondered what your experience was like buying it online? Many thanks.