A Last Minute Dress and Juliet Cap Veil for a Charming Winter Wedding

wpid377619 george in rye wedding 11

Good morning all! Thanks for stopping by Love My Dress today for a fix of wedding blog goodness. This morning’s wedding is one of those lovely, heartwarming weddings I so love sharing with our readers. Singer and entertainer Joanna married account manager Thomas on 20th December last year at The George in Rye – a beautiful hotel we reviewed for a minimoon or romantic getaway option last year on Love My Dress. It was the perfect venue for their family and friends focussed wedding.

“We didn’t really have a style in mind when we started out planning our wedding. We just knew we wanted to do it at Christmas time and it all took a slightly old fashioned turn as things started to come together. The venue was old with lots of character and we were getting married on what would have been my Nan’s birthday, the 20th December, so it just started becoming a cosy, festive and slightly vintage themed event as we put it all together.”      

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

Veil by Erica Elizabeth Designs

“We got married at ‘The George in Rye’.  The George isn’t a big overwhelming venue which was great as we wanted a cosy intimate wedding with everyone all together and not split up in different rooms. We just wanted everybody to have fun together and feel like all our favourite people were close for the whole day. The whole style and cosy feel was just perfect.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“The lovely lady who made my dress (in just four weeks!) is Lorna at ‘Lolly Couture’. She was so nice and kind and made it all so fun and exciting, it was like making a lovely new friend who also just happened to be super talented and great at making wedding dresses too. “

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

Dress by Lolly Couture

“After being let down by my original dress shop, by the time I found and met Lorna we had less 8 weeks till the big day and this once very chilled out bride had started to panic that she may be in just a dressing gown at the altar.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.“Tom and I met in the gym over seven years ago now. I thought he was really good looking and charming. He seemed really polite and a real gent but I am a bit of a scatty chatterbox so I hated always bumping in to him when I was all red cheeked and sweaty and flustered. Luckily though, it turned out he quite liked me anyway despite always seeing me at my worst. Result!

I soon realised not long after being with Tom that I had found the nicest, most caring, funniest and driven man I could ever wish to meet. We laugh so much which I love and he accepts me for the crazy scatter brain I am while always encouraging me to do what I love. I am very lucky to have him.”

2015-08-27_0102

Shoes by Irregular Choice

“We had been together nearly six years when Tom took me away for the weekend to Southwold in a 45 year old VW camper van on November 8th 2013. It was so much fun going for a road trip in such a rickety old camper. We had to keep stopping to wipe down the damp windows and fiddle with the lights, hand-break and indicators that didn’t work so it was all quite comical and I really wasn’t expecting a romantic proposal at all that weekend. It was about 10pm after dinner when we went for a walk along the beach with our little dog Frank. The old Southwold pier was all lit up and looked so pretty but as we walked out on to it, it started raining so I was ready to head back to the cosy camper fast when Tom insisted we walk down to the end of the pier.

Thats where he got down on one knee in the rain with Frank as his wing man and with a lovely sparkly ring asked me to marry him. I was so surprised and ridiculously happy. There wasn’t anyone else about, just us and Frank in the rain at the end of the beautifully lit pier. It was a perfect moment I will never forget. We booked the George in February 2014 for December that year.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“I treated myself to some lovely goodies from ‘Bare Minerals’ and ‘Benefit’ and did my own make up. I had my hair blow dried and styled by Louise at The Rye Retreat hair salon just down the road from The George.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“My original dress maker had closed up and vanished with my money and with no trace. I had heard of wedding dress horror stories but just hadn’t expected it to happened to me.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

I felt really hurt and let down that I had trusted her to make me a lovely dress only to have her make a fool of me. I couldn’t believe that on an arranged date that she had told me to come to the shop for a fitting, she knew she would be long gone and I would arrive to find it boarded up. It was a real nasty shock and with less than 2 months before the wedding, pretty worrying). But a friend of a friend then gave me Lorna’s number and she saved the day. Lorna was fantastic. She got me in straight away on the same day that I called her.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“I had swooned over so many beautiful dresses on ‘Love My Dress’ and so I had a bit of a mash up of a few different styles in mind. I knew I wanted long sleeves as my Nan had long sleeves on her wedding dress and we were getting married on her birthday plus it would be cold in December too so sleeves would go with the season as well as follow in my Nan’s style.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

I knew I didn’t want a big wide dress too (but I still had some fun trying on some really huge princess style ones while I was in the shops! You have to have fun with it ladies!). Despite trying some fabulous dresses in some lovely shops, I just didn’t find one that ticked all my boxes so I decided to go for a dress maker to hopefully make a dress for me that was bit of everything I loved. Thank god for Lorna!”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“My veil was from Erica Elizabeth Designs.  Not long before Tom proposed, I had cut 15 inches of my hair off for charity so wearing my long curly hair up on my wedding day like I’d always imagined wasn’t going to happen now. So I went for a veil that had a bit of a feature to it as my hair wouldn’t be grown back long enough to do much with. I saw the veil online.

After clicking an advert on ‘Love My Dress’, I stumbled on a picture on ‘Erica Elizabeth Designs’ and immediately ordered this veil. It was hand made and shipped over from America and when I got it out the box and tried it on one night (in my pjs of all outfits for real bridal glamour), I really loved it and hoped Tom would too.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“Because I had a high neck and long sleeves on my dress I didn’t need a necklace or too much jewellery. I wore my Nanny Mary’s gold blue stoned ring which I always told her as a little girl I would wear it as my something blue when I got married. She had loved Tom so I knew she approved and getting married on her birthday and wearing her ring made it feel even more like she was with us in spirit on the big day.

I also wore small sparkly diamond earrings and I opened a surprise Tiffany infinity bracelet from Tom about an hour before the ceremony so I popped it on under my lace sleeves. I got my bridesmaids all silver heart ankle chains and I wore one myself too so we were all matching.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“Tom had the look he was after in mind from the start and kept his eyes out all year till he spotted the suits he went for in River Island. I didn’t do a thing where the suits were involved. He did pretty well all by himself!”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“My lovely big Brother Mark gave me away. I walked down the isle to ‘Maestro‘ a track from ‘The Holiday‘ which is one of our favourite cheesy Christmas films.”

 

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“Two of our friends Nicki and Luisa read for us. Luisa read a lovely promise poem that again made us blub and Nicola surprised us by reading the lyrics to a beautiful song by Christina Aguilera called ‘I Turn To You’. “For a shield from the storm, for a friend, for a love to keep me safe and warm, I turn to you.

Our fantastic registrar also added her own excellent touch by reading ‘He’s not perfect’ by Bob Marley which was a great surprise.”

 

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“We really enjoyed the ceremony (so much more than we expected actually as we were both really nervous about that bit). It was perfect. Marrying your best friend the love of your life with all your favourite people there is the best, we loved it. I was so overwhelmed to be marrying Tom, I just couldn’t wait to see him down the isle and when we met at the top it was the best feeling ever.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“We got our rings From Paul Tait at Justine in Hatton Gardens. Tom had got my engagement ring from Paul so we went to him for the wedding bands too and had them engraved inside. We love our rings.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“Our fantastic photographer was Scott Johnson from ‘The Edge Photography’. I met Scott about six years ago when I was singing at a friend’s wedding. Since then, I have sung at other weddings where Scott was the photographer so I got to know him over the years. He is a lovely guy and also so good at what he does having won lots of awards for his photos. We’d seen lots of his beautiful wedding shots online and having seen him in action too, I liked how relaxed he always seemed to make the bride and groom feel to get the best pictures for them.

Some of his photos have a real quirky and arty style to them as well and I love the scenes he always catches. So when the time came to plan our own wedding, we didn’t consider anyone else but ‘The Edge Photography’ to capture our big day.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“My friend Shaun, a fellow musician, recently got in to film making and wanted to film our big day to build up his portfolio and experience. Well all I can say is he is amazing already. We couldn’t have asked for a better wedding film. What a pro. He captured the day perfectly and I am so glad we had it videoed as it meant a poorly Aunt who couldn’t make it, still got to see the best parts of the day. We can not recommend Shaun of ‘Mad Hat Media‘ enough. This is our wedding highlights video.

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“I love baking cakes and find it really fun. So I decided to make our wedding cake myself. I thought I would go for a messy frosted cake rather than spend the days before the ‘I Dos’ stressing over doing a perfectly smooth iced cake!”

 

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

The bridesmaids wore dresses from Boohoo.com.

“I knew I wanted to get my girls something they would be comfortable in and something they might hopefully like to wear again. After checking out a few different looks and colours, we went for a light creamy caramel shade for the bridesmaids’ dresses and my clever mum made us all contrasting dark brown faux fur coats to go on top. I got the girls different coloured shoes as they had mid length dresses so I thought it would be fun to have them with different colour feet. I got their heels from ‘New Look’, ‘Dorothy Perkins’ and ‘Primark’.

Also, being a bit creative, I thought I’d have a go at doing the flowers myself. I had no idea what I was doing but I was really pleased with how they came out. I went for silk flowers and I got everything I needed from ‘Whittingtons’ in Kent. They had every flower and bloom you could possibly need.  I wanted us to have simple flowers that had a wintery feel to them so I went for ivory and blush pink roses and added in to all of the bouquets little pine cones as I thought these had a festive feel to them. I also made all the button holes and table and cake decorations.”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

“Working in entertainment and often being the wedding singer myself, I love to see everyone on the dancefloor so it was really important to me that everyone who had joined us, had a good night. I wanted to give everybody a great party. We booked Dean and Joe at ‘Love Light Entertainment‘ for our evening reception. They were such lovely guys. They lit up the ball room with digital lighting all around which created a lovely party feel and they gave us live drums as well as amazing DJ-ing. The dancefloor was packed all night long. Can’t recommend them enough!

Last year when I first heard ‘Thinking Out Loud’ by Ed Sheeran on the car radio, it instantly made me think of Tom and set me off blubbing. We didn’t care that it then became a massive hit and probably a very common first dance choice as the words were just perfect to us so thats what we went for.

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“Making some of your decorations, your postbox or the cake or bouquets etc is not only really good on the budget but also a really nice and at times therapeutic way of doing things. If you can make certain things yourselves, definitely do it as it just adds fun to the whole thing and you’ll have quite a giggle doing it (and telling your groom or bride ‘that looks like a child made it, better start again’ haha) as well as giving the day a more personal touch while saving money. Get in on the making of things and it will be a really nice part of the lead up to your big day.    

Just a little tip to Christmas wedding couples, don’t forget to stick up some mistletoe. We have some really funny pictures of our friends and family having smooches under it!     

Finally, the only blog I followed for the year between getting engaged and getting married was Love My Dress. Annabel and her team write about wedding days and marriage in such a lovely dreamy way and I throughly enjoyed (and still do), reading your blogs and looking at all the beautiful weddings and seeing all the different styles that people go for when they say ‘I Do’. I can not thank you you enough for giving me a lovely blog to read and be inspired by. You really added to the enjoyment and excitement of being a bride and groom to be and I hope you continue to keep bringing us all such lovely reads and tips and beautiful pictures!”

A charming winter wedding at The George in Rye with a bride wearing a Juliet cap veil. Images by The Edge Photography.

What a gorgeous love filled day – so many thanks to you Joanna for sharing your wedding

Love Annabel x

 

Photographer –  The Edge Photography
Venue + Catering – The George in Rye
Wedding Dress – Lolly Couture
Bride’s Veil – Erica Elizabeth Designs
Shoes – Irregular Choice
Perfume – Daisy by Marc Jacobs
Groom – River Island + Mrs Bow Tie
Bridesmaids – Boohoo.com
Florist – silk flowers via Whittingtons in Kent, styled by the bride
Cake – Made by the bride
Entertainment – Love Light Entertainment
Rings – Justine in Hatton Gardens

 

Annabel

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.

8 thoughts on “A Last Minute Dress and Juliet Cap Veil for a Charming Winter Wedding

  1. Thanks Annabel for sharing our big day and a big thanks to everyone who made it so perfect for us and all our friends and family! Happy wedding planning to all the future brides and grooms reading. It’s the best day ever so enjoy every second!
    Jo xx

    1. Thank *you*, you were so lovely and sweet about it from the off, and it’s my genuine pleasure to be able to share with our readers 🙂
      Much love,
      Annabel xx

  2. The exact same thing has happened with my dress supplier & I felt so down about it all.

    Seeing how amazing your dress & wedding was, has made me realise that it won’t impact my day in anyway.

    I’ve now got a vintage dress that is the opposite to the other one but much more me (I think for the first one I just got carried away with the princess cut & sparkly bits).

    Thank you for sharing your story

    1. Glad your dress story has a happy ending too. Good luck Sheryl and have a wonderful day. Bet your new dress is perfect! Xx

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Close
Top