A Pale Blue Halfpenny London Gown for a Vibrant and Colourful Festival Wedding in France

When we shared this wedding on Friday, I truly didn’t think a wedding could get much more colourful. I was mistaken! Today’s real wedding is the most colourful, vibrant, exceptionally fabulously fun wedding we have ever shared. Bar none. Film and Experiential Producer Jess married Digital Creative Director and Strategist Rob at Castelnau des Fieumarcon in Legarde, Gascony, France on 6th August last year. Described on it’s website as an ‘extraordinary place for your celebrations in a grandiose setting’, the Castle provided a perfect backdrop for this creative couple and their fabulous, festival inspired nuptials.

Jess and Rob had already tied the knot formally in London a month prior to celebrating in France (we’ll be sharing that wedding on the blog next weekend). They also had help planning their wedding from Abigail Wells-Davies of Marry Me In France. But where to even start describing this epic wedding, where the couple were crowned as ‘Sun King’ and ‘Moon Queen’ by their celebrant, rejoiced with ‘the elements’, celebrated with exploding confetti and rainbow coloured smoke bombs and had an open-mic session in place of more formal speeches? All the usual adjectives seem so inadequate – it’s all such a glorious riot of fun and colour with a beautiful pale blue silk Halfpenny London dress at the centre of it all. This is insanely good. Enjoy!

“We wanted a real festival feel for our wedding in France – like a fiesta or carnival. In fact we called it ‘Wedstock’! The background palette of the venue and surroundings were very natural, grass and greenery, straw bales, stone, rocks, gravel etc. I wanted to have all the décor as colourful as possible – rainbow colours. We asked all our guests to wear white, both for style and also comfort in the heat. We had originally wanted to do a ‘Holi’ festival of colour, but realised what a mess it would make so opted for coloured smoke bombs instead.”

Photography by Antony Merat

“Designer Kate Halfpenny worked with me, my tear sheets and ideas to create my dream dress. It was actually a top and skirt, so I could wear them again as separates if I wanted. I wore pale grey/blue duchesse silk. I have always loved the corseted ‘wench’ look, and wanted something like this for the French Wedding. I also wanted something off the shoulder as I think it’s flattering.”“I knew it would be hot there and I wanted some bare skin so as to stay cool. I wanted to make the most of my lady bumps too. A corset helped keep ‘everything’ nice and tight. I did not want to wear white, ideally I wanted grey but we settled for a slight pale blue grey in the end.”

“For the skirt I really wanted to show my ankles off, as they are the skinniest bit of me! I loved the big chunky pleats and full skirt look, and we went for an asymmetric hem, which mirrors the curve of the neckline, but reversed.”

“My sparkly pointy flats were from Jimmy Choo, style name ‘Romy’.”

“We used a local florist – we wanted vibrant and rainbow colour blooms with a real festival/fiesta feel.”

Rob wore an off-white bespoke suit by Pokit, which he teamed with yellow Stan Smiths and a yellow T-shirt. He also wore a special ‘J’ pin, and a buttonhole designed by Alice Begg of Theatre of Flowers – as did all the best men.

His custom made ‘Sun King’ Crown and ‘J’ pin were supplied by by the couple’s celebrant, Andrew Logan.

“Rob’s oldest son Reuben wore a white fruit of the loom T-Shirt, some white Supreme trousers and white Stan Smiths, plus a white baseball cap.”

“Orlando, Rob’s youngest, wore a white 3 piece suit, we also got him a white bow tie, cumberbund and white top hat and teamed it with some snazzy patent black and white brogues. He also had a walking cane.”

 

“It was 2009 and I had just discovered my finance of 11 years had cheated on me and was having an affair behind my back. I was devastated. Six months later I got a call from my Step Mother, Julie, saying she had ‘found me a man’!”

“I was to look this gentleman up on Facebook and connect. With much reluctance and a bit of prodding from my Stepmum, I found and ‘friended’ him…well he looked nice and what did I have to lose!?”

“We struck up a conversation over Facebook and then on email. It turns out Rob was midway through a Divorce, he had the Nisi but not the Absolute. He’d been single for a year. We finally set up a date. It was a Monday night, but it was the night of the first of the massive snowfalls London had.”

“London ground to a halt under several feet of snow and I was stuck in Wandsworth. I had to postpone. Rob was a bit grumpy about that, so I suggested…since London was so magic, that he should bunk off work the next day and come down to Wandsworth. And he did. Date 2 he cooked me Risotto at home. By date 6 we were on a weekend away skiing. The rest, they say, is history.”

“When I listed my requirements for a man on many of the dating sites I tried, I didn’t want anyone over 40 and not previously married and definitely no kids (Rob has two boys). It just goes to show, that sometimes, you get what you don’t ask for!”

“Myself, my maidz and my mum arrived at the ceremony accompanied by the sound of ‘Love is In The Air’ by John Paul Young. Rob and the boys came in first to ‘Find me somebody to love’ by Queen.”

“I had a wonderful headpiece custom made for me by Alice Begg of Theatre of Flowers. The inspiration was ‘Day of the Dead meets Frida Khalo!’. I wanted to use silk flowers as I was worried that the headpieces and button holes etc. would droop and wilt in the August French heat. Also, now we get to keep them afterwards.”

“I didn’t wear a veil, but I did get some clip in hair extensions to give me luscious locks.”

“Rob took what we had done for our London wedding and we adjusted it slightly for Andrew Logan, our celebrant. He pretty much followed what we had written. We went off piste a bit, as it was less formal and more fun. Andrew then also had us crowned us as the ‘sun king’ and ‘moon queen’ , by Reuben and Orlando respectively, before the parade began.”

“We chose our venue because we could hire the whole village, which sleeps 80 in 12 houses, plus we could put people in tents in the house gardens. The views and architecture were epic. The Village is surrounded by fields of sunflowers and rolling landscape of Gascony.”

“The Venue was a blank canvas so we could ‘dress’ and do anything we liked to the place. We even built a City of Straw with tiered straw seating, bleecher style! The houses were stylishly decorated but not too ‘precious’. They also allowed us to party very late / early in the big ‘monumental stables’ hall.”

“Seeing the ‘City of Straw’ with the wonderful White Camo Canopy was one of my favourite moments of the day – that, plus all my favourite people all dressed in white, with blue skies and colourful fans and parasols. Basically seeing how all my hard work and vision had finally come together.”

“We had a lot of home made signage for the Venue – my mates made this. The Summer half term before the wedding, we took the boys to Morocco. There I bought a ton of throws and fabrics from the Souks, which then got dropped by truck at the French Venue direct.”

“We used these to dress the hay bale seating, table cloths and also as backdrops for the ceremony, plus serving tables etc.”

“We had a Parade around the Village, visiting the ‘elements’ along the way; fire, water, air, earth and void! Andrew performed a mini ceremony at each element, with a friend’s son performing a fire-stick dance and us smoking cleansing ‘smudge sticks’ for fire. We sipped water from a goblet for the water element. Then for air, we had a little kids colourful ‘ windmill’ and also giant bubbles. For earth, our celebrant gave us brown bindi’s of water and earth. And for void, we all performed a move under the entrance arch to the Village. Then as bride and groom, we hit a groom and bride Pinata!”

“We had some amazing coloured smoke bombs! They are by Enola Gaye. We ordered these in France as you can’t fly or travel on Eurotunnel with them as they are counted as explosives. We also made our own coloured labels for the ‘Wishing Tree’.”

“I ordered colourful Mexican Papel Picado bunting from Viva La Frida. I also ordered a load of rainbow coloured Chinese paper fans and also parasols for the guests to keep cool – these came straight from China. I also multicoloured biodegradable confetti buttons.”

“I had my five ‘Maidz of Dishonour’, Nina, Fiona, Olivia, Steph and Amanda – and also my mother, Kate. Three of my ‘Maidz of Dishonour’ wore a head piece, two wore a corsages and mother of the bride a big flower brooch.”

“Our rings are from Gill Wing in Islington. I love the jewellery they sell here. Rob has bought many lovely pieces for me from there. The girls are all great. My ring had five diamonds on and is designed by Diana Porter, my engagement ring is also my Diana Porter. Rob’s ring was chunky and silver with a ‘chip’ out of it. It’s by Christina Oswin. 

Both rings are quite organic in form and importantly ‘not perfect’ – like life. This was to symbolise we had both come from failed relationships.”

“I loved our ‘Open Mic’ section – rather than the traditional ‘speeches’ – we just offered up the Mic for people to say something or perform. It really worked.”

“The lighting was provided by our friend who used to be a lighting designer for the likes of Robert Plant and various other legends. This was mainly white, but with some coloured festoon lighting. We also bought a massive white army ‘Camo’ net which a friend constructed into a giant ‘church’ type form, to create some shade for the ceremony. Oh and we had a cool grey bouncy castle for the kids too!”

“We walked into the night disco ‘Disc-glo’ with our evening outfits on to ‘Funking for Jamica’. Rob wore an Op Art ‘Test Card’ suit and I wore a rainbow tutu with LED lights as a massive ‘boa’ over my day dress.  We both accessorised with LED glasses and Neon Bands.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“Don’t be afraid to shake up traditions. It is your day and should reflect you both and your relationship. Our celebration ceremony was totally ‘off brief’ and we made it up as we went along, somewhat. It wasn’t seamless but that made it more fun and relaxed for everyone. If things are too choreographed they can feel a bit sterile and stiff. I would also get songs people can sing along to and get involved in. Everyone loves audience participation.

Know that things will go wrong, but it’s really best not to dwell on them and then miss your day because you are stressing about stuff. Most guests won’t notice the things that went wrong (unless they are major – the wedding the weekend before ours had a total power cut and the one before that the septic tanks overflowed!).

I would have insisted that our celebrant got there earlier on the Friday so we could walk through the ceremony and parade BEFORE the big day, rather then in rollers and my dressing gown on the day itself. I’d have also insisted that we use our own caterers rather than the ones the venue insisted we use.”

What an incredible day – thank you so very much Jess and Rob for sharing your exceptionally wonderful wedding with Love My Dress, I really could not adore it more and am excited about sharing your London nuptials next week already.

Dearest readers, I hope you’ve been inspired by this glorious celebration as much as I have.

Love Annabel x