An Elizabeth Stuart Gown For A Romantic Wedding in Shades of Blush

Hello, I do hope you have had a chance to enjoy the glorious weather we have had of late. Today we are heading back just a few months to a lovely spring day for the wedding of Lisa, a recent medical graduate and Edward, a doctor. The couple tied the knot on the 2^nd of April 2016 at Good Shepherd Church in Belfast, followed by a good old Irish knees up (and Guinness drinks reception!) at the beautiful Galgorm Spa in Ballymena, Co. Antrim. Lisa’s gorgeous dress was designed especially for her by Elizabeth Stuart after she won a competition and it is truly stunning. Captured by photographer Marc Lawson ,the charming styling of this wedding, incorporating light pastel flowers and candles is guaranteed to have you swooning all day.

Images by Marc Lawson Photography

Lisa was the very fortunate winner of The White Gallery’s Glass Slipper competition to have a bespoke dress designed for her by Elizabeth Stuart. The dress is truly a work of art, mixing a gorgeous tulle skirt with a stunning lace top, it’s the dress that dreams are made of and Lisa wears it beautifully with a soft single tier veil and Jenny Packham shoes in the same blush colour as the lining.

“To be able to work alongside Elizabeth Stuart to design my own dress so it truly felt like ‘The One’ was wonderful. I knew that I wanted to create something romantic but classic. The entire process was amazing and when I saw my dress for the first time it took my breath away. Elizabeth chose the most beautiful silk and lace and it had a beautiful detachable tulle skirt, which I took off for the evening reception to reveal a stunning lace skirt with blush silk lining underneath. It felt like I had two beautiful dresses for the day.”

The beautiful flowers were provided by Sally’s Floral Studio with extra flowers in the church and in jam jars around the venue styled by Lisa’s beloved mum.

“As a thank you to my mum, Edward and I had ring made with the birth stones of all of my brothers and sisters, which I gave to her the morning of the wedding.”

Lisa is full of praise for her hair stylist Lynette Murray and makeup artist Jenna Somerville. They both did a wonderful job and stayed with the bride until she left for the church.

“Our flowergirl and page boy are my gorgeous little cousins, they were adorable in the church and great little helpers to me on the day. Ava wore a lovely tulle dress from Monsoon which matched my dress perfectly with a beautiful fresh flower crown of baby’s breath and Joseph wore a suit from Debenhams.”

Edward and Lisa met while they were both studying medicine at Bristol University and their gorgeous proposal story would not be out of place in our new proposal stories feature.

“I was studying in my room when Edward surprised me with a visit (we were living apart after he had qualified as a doctor) suggesting we go out for dinner. When we got back he handed me a note containing a riddle to read while he went to his car to collect something. I, at this stage, suspected that this was nothing more than a game and not that surprising for the amazing person that he is.”

“What soon transpired was that Edward had in the past month been hiding clues all around my house that I had been totally unaware of. Each riddle related to our relationship, the medical course that we met on, the voluntary work that we do in Uganda, my love/his frustration for mismatching socks, our families (I had to call his brother for one clue). I laughed throughout it all and wondered where Edward was as I frantically searched the house for these clues.”

“The final riddle involved me going to where we had our first kiss and as I approached the spot, I could see hundreds and hundreds of fairy lights illuminating the night sky. Edward had changed into a suit, and as he spotted me arriving he got down on one knee and proposed, saying lots of lovely things that I cannot remember a word of! We sat for quite a while under the stars and surrounded by fairy lights drinking champagne.”

Edward opted for classic traditional tails worn by the groom and his groomsmen with a single ivory rose and baby’s breath buttonhole.

 

“My sister Emma was my bridesmaid. She wore the Salma dress by Ghost with beautiful vintage Rainbow Couture shoes (from her own wedding) and fresh flowers in her hair.”

The couple travelled to the church in family cars, with her brother driving the bride. Lisa then walked down the aisle on the arm of her dad Bobby to ‘Flower Duet’ from the Opera Lakmé by Leo Delibes played by The String Quartet.

 

Edward and his family are Quakers and Lisa is from a Catholic background so it was important to incorporate both traditions so they exchanged both Quaker and Catholic vows.

 ‘In the Presence of God, I take this my friend, Edward, to be my wife.’

“The service was very emotional but filled with joy. Our priest, Father McKenna, was so fantastic and we developed a great friendship with him over the past few years and he helped to make the service very personal to us. Friendship and family was the theme for our wedding and we wanted as many of our closest friends and family involved in the service as possible. Edward’s brother sang Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’, my four brothers and Edward’s sister did readings, a close friend read ‘To My Dear and Loving Husband’ by Anne Bradstreet and my aunt read ‘The Hands Ceremony’, which is so beautiful but the author is unknown.”

“We were both truly honoured to be given our grandparents wedding rings to wear. Exchanging rings was one of the most special moments of our day.”

 

One look at these gorgeous images and it’s not hard to see why Lisa and Edward chose Marc Lawson as their wedding photographer. He has captured the essence of the day through the smiles and laughter of the couple and their guests in such a natural way.

“Marc was amazing and we could not recommend him enough. Despite appearing invisible on the day he truly captured the most intimate, beautiful, and joyous moments of our day.”

The naked lemon drizzle cake topped off with large pink blooms and created by Roz of Lime Tree Cakes truly is a thing of beauty. The groom created the little figures holding onto stethoscopes beneath the gorgeous cake.

Lisa and Edward put a lot of effort into personalising their wedding. The groom designed the invitations (complete with a gold seal) and mass booklets and painted the chalkboard welcome sign. Lanterns, candles and fresh flowers adorned the outside of the church, and the ladies were handed a vintage handkerchief on the way into the church.

“Edward and I have a great passion for literature so we decided to use a typewriter as our guest book and placed beside it a few of our favourite books. We displayed framed pictures of our grandparents on their wedding days and decorated the tables with fresh flowers, wooden hearts and a personalised crossword.”

“We hired Haste to the Wedding, a céilidh band, for the reception. They provided fantastic live traditional Irish music ensuring that the dance floor was always completely packed!

We danced for the first time as husband and wife to ‘Thinking Out Loud’ by Ed Sheeran as we just love the lyrics of this song. We ended the night with a sparkler send off, which was so much fun.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“Be true to who you both are and the most important thing is to simply enjoy your day as it goes by so quickly.”

Very wise words indeed. Huge congratulations to the lovely Lisa and Edward, it has been a pleasure putting this feature together. Thanks also to Marc Lawson for the wonderful images of this gorgeous wedding.

Love Caoimhe xx