A Marchesa Gown for a Minimalist and Intimate Wedding in the Woods

Good morning beautiful people – thank you for taking time to visit Love My Dress this morning.  We’ve a couple of weekend posts for you to catch up on here, here and here. And we’re had a little (well, pretty big when you consider it) milestone to celebrate this weekend too!

This morning’s wedding is that of Emily and Jesse which took place in May last year and it takes us beyond these UK shores to the stunning shoreline of British Columbia.  The couple, who both work at an advertising agency (Jesse is a Creative Director and Emily is an Account Director), tied the knot at Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino, British Columbia and commissioned the super-talented Nordica Photography to document their wedding in images.  I’m always thrilled to receive a submission from the Nordica guys (Cole and Jakob) – I’m a huge, huge fan of their work and was over the moon to have been invited to speak at their Iceland workshop for professional photographers last year.  These images are a beautiful example of the Nordica style – gorgeous crisp, clean shots that capture the natural surroundings in their most beautiful, and bride Emily who looked divine in a  Marchesa gown, shares why she and Jess chose this beautiful part of the world to tie the knot.

“Our wedding day was really driven by our personal taste and love of nature. We wanted it to be simple, minimal and intimate. We chose not to restrict ourselves to a particular theme or style because we wanted the whole day to feel organic and real, not overly designed.  We did choose a color palette of muted, dusty tones for the floral design, but we weren’t strict about applying it everywhere.”

Photography Copyright (c) 2015, Nordica Photography

“Jesse and I met in San Francisco, at the advertising agency we were both working for at the time.  Jesse proposed during a weekend trip to Wisconsin, where we had rented a cabin at a wonderful property called Canoe Bay. It was actually this property that led us to Wickaninnish Inn – it was part of the Relais & Chateaux network. When we were ready to pick a wedding venue, finding a Relais & Chateaux property was high on our list, because we had been so impressed by the focus on gourmet cuisine and exceptional service.

We were engaged for ten months prior to the wedding.”

“Our choice of location was about finding a place full of natural beauty that doesn’t require a lot of embellishment or over the top decor. We want our wedding to be simple, intimate and natural. Emily grew up in the Pacific Northwest and her family was based there, and Jesse had lived in the region recently as well, so we had a deep love and appreciation for the area. We knew that when it came to outdoor landscapes, nothing was more beautiful to us than the lush, old growth forests of the northwest.”

“My dress was a Marchesa design which I purchased from Saks on Fifth Avenue.  What made me choose this dress was the way I felt when I put it on. I felt comfortable, beautiful and happy.

On the day I bought my dress, my mom took pictures of each dress I tried on. At the end of the day before making a decision, we looked back at all the photos she had taken. Not only did the dress look beautiful in photos, I noticed something really interesting – in every photo where I was wearing this dress, I was smiling! In many of the photos of other dresses, I looked thoughtful or serious. I realised that if this was the dress that made me smile, it was the one for me.”

Emily pays the most wonderful testimonial to her wedding photographer Cole of Nordica Photography…

“From the moment I saw Nordica’s images, I knew I wanted them to shoot our wedding. They have an amazing sense of composition and light, but more importantly, they document the day in a real and true way. My favorite images of the day are not the posed or staged ones, but the ones where they captured a moment of love, hilarity, surprise or joy. What’s even more precious is that they captured things that I missed: the look on my dad’s face as he saw me in my dress for the first time, Jesse’s smirk at a joke about his mother in my toast, or the moment of touching heartache on my mother’s face as she watched her only daughter become a wife.

The end result of your photography is important, but so is the experience with your photographer on the day. In our case, with a wedding of only nine people, that tenth person was going to have a perceptible impact on the dynamic. Cole shot our wedding and I can’t say enough about what a wonderful presence he was. He has the most incredibly relaxed, positive energy, while staying a consummate professional. You can tell that he loves what he does. You get the sense that he’s enjoying the day as much as you are. His work ethic is insane: he proposed getting up at 4:30am for a sunrise portrait session, and stayed with us past midnight. Throughout it all, he struck the perfect balance between being an invisible ghost and there when you wanted him. He gave us advice when we needed it, but was never overbearing. In a way, he became the tenth guest at our wedding, and I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”

“Our florist was Crab Apple Floral.  I did a lot of research on floral and found tons of reference images to share with the florist. In addition to the images, I shared with them the overall feel we wanted (organic, trailing composition), the color palette, and the type of blooms we prefer. They took it from there!”

“My father walked me down the aisle to the sounds of nature in the forest clearing.”

“We did customize our vows, but modeled them very closely after traditional wedding vows with just minor modifications. As we were being married in Canada by a civil official, we also had to follow their guidelines.

We didn’t have any readings, in fact, the ceremony itself probably lasted less than 10 minutes!  Jesse and I both agree that our favorite part of the day was the ceremony, and the experience of exchanging our vows. Certainly that was the most romantic, and intimate, moment. But really, the whole day was incredible.”

“My engagement ring was a Buccellatti ‘Classica’, purchased at A. Marek, Oak Brook in Illinois. We chose my engagement ring together. I wanted a band (versus a diamond solitaire) in yellow gold that was unique. What we loved about the Buccellati was that it wasn’t just a beautiful ring – it was made by an Italian jeweler with a focus on traditional techniques and craftsmanship. It’s entirely hand made from start to finish, with unusual engraving.

Our Wedding Bands were purchased at Fey Jewelers, a local Chicago jeweler. Jesse wanted a plain rose gold band, and they had a number of options. For me, we decided to add two platinum eternity bands to book-end my engagement ring.”

“Interms of decor, we used antique brass candlesticks and footed bowls for floral centerpieces, which we purchased on Etsy.  We also used Picture frames, quartz placecard holders and bark vases, which we purchased from BHLDN.

I enjoy sewing in my spare time so I made personalised tote bags for each couple as a favour. The bags were filled with customised gifts, and included things like natural linen throws, Recchiuti chocolates, monogrammed leather pouches or passport cases, Marvis toothpaste, etc.”

“With a wedding of only 10 people, we just wanted a small and simple cake, which was supplied by the Wickaninnish Inn. We opted for buttercream icing and a lemon filling.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

“My biggest piece of advice is this: don’t sweat the small stuff. Your wedding is so much more than stationery and decorations, lighting and seating plans. It’s about love, and commitment, and companionship. Sometimes it’s about your family, but first and foremost, it’s about you and your partner.

We choose to focus on celebrating the romance and beauty of two people pledging to spend their lives together, so we skipped a lot of the trappings and traditions in favor of natural beauty and simplicity. We restricted the invite list to our immediate family only: parents and siblings. We didn’t have a bridal party, or hair and makeup artists, live music or even invitations.

With this minimal approach, we were able to focus on the things that mattered most to us: a beautiful location, out of this world food, and most of all, being with our loved ones and each other.”

“The only thing we would have done differently was spend less time stressing about the details beforehand! At the moment we saw each other in the clearing, none of that mattered. The place settings, the floral, even what we were wearing…became secondary and unimportant compared to the significance of exchanging vows for a lifetime.

And finally, we decided to delay our honeymoon to Marrkech, Seville and Barcelona by a few months, so that we had time to recover from the wedding. The other advantages were that the weather was better in October than it would have been in June (less hot!), flights and hotels were cheaper, and we were able to take a full two weeks off.

While it’s not for everyone, doing a belated honeymoon worked out really well for us.**”

Readers, we blogged about the benefits of delaying your honeymoon here.

Stunning photography as always from Nordica Photography – who I’d like to thank for sharing these images.  I love that Emily takes time to share the importance of investing in a great photographer for your wedding – we couldn’t emphasise this more.

Huge congratulations to you both Emily and Jess, I’m full of gratitude that you have shared your beautiful day with our readers and wish you all the very best for your upcoming 1st wedding anniversary.

You can explore more weddings of similar style using the linked tags at the end of this post – and watch out for an important discussion post coming up at lunch time too ladies.

Love Annabel xx

 

Photography – Nordica Photography
Venue – Wickaninnish Inn, Tofino, British Columbia, Canada
Brides Dress – Marchesa, via Saks, Fifth Avenue
Bride’s Veil – Twigs and Honey
Bride’s Shoes – Valentino ‘Tango’ in Cream Patent
Accessories – Mother’s pearl earrings + the groom’s mother’s sapphire ring
Groom – Band of Outsiders suit + Prada tie + Hugo Boss shoes
Florist – Crab Apple Floral
Cake + catering – Wickaninnish Inn