A Hermione de Paula Embroidered Gown for a Celestial Inspired Country House Wedding

If there’s one designer who’s crept up on my radar and utterly stole my heart in 2017, it’s London based Hermione de Paula. Her beautifully embroidered gowns are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, perfect for the modern bride who wants to make a fashionable, sexy, feminine statement. We’ve featured a number of Hermione’s brides on Love My Dress already (this is one of my all time faves) and today we’re adding to the collection.

Ellie, who works for a private family office, married Robert, a Senior Content Strategist, on 22nd October 2016 at Huntsham Court in Devon. Their wedding day was full of stylish, celestial touches. Ellie also recounts the very moving scene of her poorly mum standing to read during the ceremony. It’s moments like these, that have been beautifully and sensitively captured by photographer Katie Palmer that remind me how very privileged we are in being able to share such private and intimate moments of joy.

“About a month before we got engaged, I stumbled upon Hermione de Paula on Instagram and I had joked with RJ saying that I’d found the dress designer I would use when we decided to get married. Little did I know one month later I’d actually be emailing her to make an appointment! I wanted something unique and to be part of the creative process so I could add personal touches. I wanted something traditional but with a modern twist and I loved the idea that no one else would ever wear the same dress as me due to the unique personalisation that Hermione incorporates through embroidery into the designs.”

Photography by Katie Palmer

“I worked in fashion PR and events in NYC so with that experience behind me, I had it in my head I was going to plan my dream wedding solo so made it my mission to do everything myself, and everything I did. We both love space and the cosmos so I had wanted some kind of celestial theme. The first gift RJ ever gave me was a piece of one billion year old meteorite so that was the initial inspiration. The colour palette was navy, light blue, forest green, silver and gold. We wanted it to be quite autumnal with a hint of sparkle, to remind us of the stars and sky.”

“I had chosen to have a beautiful braided velvet design, which was a velvet swirl dream.  The dress had a secret Tinder flame hidden in the embroidery, as that’s how RJ and I met. I wanted something comfortable that I could wear all night, as I wanted to watch the sun rise wearing and still be wearing my dress.”

“I even had our initials as a crest in the front and then a line ‘I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart), I am never without it’, from the E.E Cummings poem embroidered into the hem. (My mum read the full poem in the ceremony and had the whole  room in tears!)” 

“My shoes were the first thing I bought for the wedding and they’re from Miu Miu. I wanted my shoes to be my something blue and also be something I’d wear again and they were the perfect height for comfort and dancing! If you know me, you’ll know how ‘me’ these shoes are.”

“One of my best friends, Mia Jones, is a make-up artist for Charlotte Tilbury in NYC so it was a no brainer that she was always going to do my make up. Another friend of mine Naz Sonmez, did the hair, she’s also totally amazing at what she does and I couldn’t have been happier to have them do it.”

“My friend Terri Chandler had not long started a florist business WORM London with her friend Katie Smyth so it was a no brainer that I would have them do the flowers. They are so bloody talented, and I literally drool over their Instagram daily, so they did my bouquet which was wrapped in beautiful trailing silk ribbon and my six bridesmaids bouquets.”

“I had it in my head that I wanted to do the flowers for the venue myself, so the day before we drove to Devon we got up super early and went to New Covent Garden market and picked everything. Huntsham Court had untold amount of vases for us to use so we roped in some help of friends to make up the flowers when we arrived at the house. Funnily enough I bumped into the WORM girls at the market and without knowing we’d picked a lot of similar flowers which tied everything together.”

“Accessories wise, I wore pair of simple diamond studs from RJ in my ears, my something borrowed were two diamond bracelets on loan from my mother-in-law and friend and I bought my bridesmaids and I matching rings from Shashi. I also wore a handmade Mexican fire opal ring which was a wedding gift from my friend, jewellery designer Sylvie Gianella, who was unable to make the wedding.”

“I wore a Swarovski crystal embellished star head piece from Bond & Ceremony (Bond & Ceremony no longer seems to exist as I can’t find their website) which added a touch of sparkle and tied into the celestial theme.”

Ladies, if you’re looking for a similarly celestial headpiece for your wedding, we recommend either Clara Francis or Tilly Thomas Lux.

“I wore Tom Ford’s Soleil Blanc perfume. I had been given it as a gift recently along with the shimmer body spray so chose that scent for the shimmer factor.”

“As the wedding was October I wanted to find a fun jacket to wear with my dress in the evening which I managed to find a fun, space-cadet-style silver leather jacket with dusty pink shearling lining. It was such a fun piece and took the dress from wedding to party.”

“We went to see the Huntsham Court in Devon the Christmas before and fell in love with the place. RJ is American and we lived/met in New York so we had a lot of people coming from overseas so we wanted somewhere quite traditional where everyone could stay on site. We were about to have about 85 out of the 125 guests in the house with us. It was the perfect setting for one hell of a house party, that sold us!”

“RJ and I met in New York when I moved there spontaneously a few years ago. We met on Tinder a few months after I’d finally got settled there and have been inseparable ever since. We got engaged in August 2015, which was our last weekend living together in New York, just before we had both decided to move apart and be long distance to be closer to our mums who both currently have cancer.”

“We got engaged in our favourite restaurant, Union Square café and then RJ planned a surprise party on a rooftop in Williamsburg with all of our friends there. We had originally wanted to get married summer 2017, but as we both had poorly mums we decided to move things forward so we could guarantee they could both be there.”

“I wanted my bridesmaids to wear dresses that they felt comfortable and spoke to their personal style, I prefer the mis-Matched look too. The brief was long and blue so between them they wore a mix of high street and designer. My maid of honour wore a stunning silk and lace slip dress from Zimmerman, my sister had a beautiful light blue off-shoulder dress from Self Portrait where as my best friend wore a 70s navy sequin catsuit from ASOS.”

“I bought all of my bridesmaids rings and myself rings from Shashi at a boutique in the Hamptons each one was a star or moon theme in rose, white or yellow gold. I lost mine almost as soon as the day began, still mourning the loss.”

“My dad walked me down the aisle and gave me away to the sound of  Desree’s Kissing You. I was obsessed with Baz Lurhman’s Romeo and Juliet when I was a teenager, so I had always wanted that song to be in my wedding. We walked down the aisle after we were married to Bob Marley’s Is This Love.”

“We used Paperless Post for our invitations, it’s so easy to track RSVPs and I wanted to make the process simple. We created a website on Square Space with all the other information, the image on the invite was designed by our friend Tim. My friend Kristina designed our order of the weekend cards and our menus. She created a logo using a picture of the moon, she was inspired by the full moon the night she started working on them and was obviously in keeping with the wedding theme. For everyone staying with us at Huntsham Court, I put treat bags with cookies in each of the bedrooms so everyone had a midnight snack.”

“We both decided to write our own vows and RJ’s vows put mine to shame. Mine were short and poetic and he wrote the most beautiful words about his love for me. My mum read EE Cummings’, ‘I Carry Your Heart’ at the ceremony. I mentioned that she had cancer, which affected her ability to walk.”

“Her mission was to dance at the wedding so she spent the months leading up to it having physiotherapy and basically re-learning how to walk again. She stood to read the poem in front of the whole room and everyone was crying. It was such a beautiful moment, I was so proud of her.”

“My maid of honour, Jess, wrote a beautiful poem which she read in the ceremony also.”

“RJ’s ring was a traditional men’s band from Cartier and my wedding band was from Satomi Kawakita, simple with celestial scattered diamonds.”

“We used Katie Palmer as our photographer and I knew I would ask her to do the photography long before marriage was even on the cards. She captured the day perfectly, and as she’s a friend, we felt comfortable around her so felt less awkward when it came to the intimate shots. The photos aren’t too traditional which is exactly what we wanted, the shots are natural and really capture the atmosphere as well as the personalities of all of all of our loved ones.”

“We weren’t originally planning on having a wedding video but we’re so glad we did in the end. Another friend, Tom Walker, shot and edited this for us and the end result was simply incredible. He was a guest so I made it clear from the start I wanted him to enjoy himself, he was staying with us in the house and was up at the crack of dawn outside getting shots of the house. The video is pure magic, I’ve had random people who saw it on facebook telling me it made them cry, it’s that good!”

Readers – if you’re thinking about having a wedding film, then we highly recommend these film makers.

“For the wedding table settings I had commissioned the star signs from the Etsy store Paper Chance Press. Caroline, the designer, worked with me on a bespoke order that was originally a greetings card.” 

“The venue was so beautiful with lots of ornate features I only wanted to add flowers for the day really. To add to the planning, I made my life harder by deciding to do my own flowers. The day before we drove down to Devon to the venue, I went to New Covent Garden flower market to buy all the flowers and we set up a workshop in the kitchen when we arrived and did small posies we scattered around the house and then used them on the tables for the wedding breakfast.”

“We chose Dartmoor Kitchen as a recommendation for the wedding food and we’re so glad we did. We did a family style dinner called the Devon Feast which created quite a nice relaxed atmosphere in the room. The quality of the food was incredible. People are still commenting on how good the wedding food was to this day!”

“The best man, Alan Harca, flew in all the way from Sydney Australia. He’s a film director and he made a hilarious movie trailer as part of his best man speech, which had the whole party roaring with laughter – he really out did himself!”

“My mum, Donna, made the cake for us. She’s an amazing baker and we wanted chocolate cake and hers is the best. She created a huge three-tiered cake and decorated it beautifully with edible flowers from Maddocks Farm.”

“As the party was taking place in the same room the ceremony had happened in earlier, I wanted the room transformation to be quite drastic. While everyone was eating I had staff at the venue transform the great hall into a party room with balloon banners and low lighting. I wanted song lyrics in balloons around the house. In the bar we had ‘Drunk in Love’ above the bar (Beyonce) and then in the great hall we had ‘Hot Love & Emotion Endlessly’ (Drake).”

“It’s hard to pick the favourite part because overall you’re just on such a high and it’s a huge a wave of emotions. Overall it just has to be the love that’s’ in the air and coming your way and having all of your favourite people in one room. A few of the highlights for me were definitely the speeches and readings and the fact both of our mums were well enough to be there for the entire day and the sun coming out so being able to spend some time outside.”

“A lot of our friends are DJs but I wanted them to be at the wedding as guests so we used a friend of my aunties, Geoff from Star Turns. We had a vision for a 70s disco for the after party so we created a playlist and he only played songs we’d chosen so it was all of our favourite songs. He transformed the great hall with party lights, which really made the room feel completely different from the wedding ceremony.”

“Our first dance was to ‘This Must Be The Place’, by Talking Heads. On our first date, we were having drinks at a bar and this song came on – it was one of those cheesy romantic moments when we both said that it was our favourite song. From then, it was our song.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“Enjoy every single minute, don’t get stressed/be a bridezilla, enjoy the journey, and soak up all of the love around you because when it’s over, it’s over and it’s one of the experiences that you’ll only plan to do once.”

Pinterest was my best friend throughout and my top wedding blogs were Love My Dress, Green Wedding Shoes and the Liz Linkleter Events site.”

“I love the real, honest and heartwarming accounts of all the weddings featured on Love My Dress – you show each couples individuality and weddings of all types, locations, across all the seasons and you capture the fine details. There were certain touches from many of the weddings featured on this blog that I found inspiring and I hope that my wedding can inspire some other brides that are on their amazing journey towards their big day.

Honestly, even after doing everything myself, I wouldn’t change a thing, other than booking an extra night at Huntsham Court and having a big roast dinner with everyone the day after the main event so you can talk about it all together.”

What an incredible day! Huge love and congratulations to you Ellie and Robert, thank you for sharing your beautiful day with us, and Ellie, a very special and heartfelt thanks for your lovely words about Love My Dress.

Annabel x