Love My Dress Wedding Blog

A Lusan Mandongus Dress for a Wild Flower, Vintage and Countryside Inspired Wedding...

Good morning my loves. Yesterday, we took a break from featuring any real weddings to share with you an exquisite set of buttonhole ideas alongside details of the divine Emmy Shoes (still can't get over how many click-throughs we sent Emmy's way yesterday - turns out our readers are rather partial to a pair of sexy glamorous heels). I'd like to start today with the wedding of Charlie and Adam, who tied the knot on 29th June at St Kyneburgha Church in Castor, Peterborough - bride Charlie's childhood home.  This was followed by a reception at The George Hotel in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

I really love these photographs for their wild flower nature, all those pretty daisies and gypsophila, and I want to also point out that lovely Charlie is wearing a Chez Bec headpiece - readers, did you know if you order a piece from Chez Bec before midnight tomorrow (Valentines Day!) you will be entitled to a 25% discount? Full details here.

"My dress was a Lusan Mandongus design that I bought from Morgan Davies Bridal.  It was just so me - as soon as I put it on I knew. Pretty, floaty, lacy, no meringues or stiff satin. I absolutely loved the train - it was a straight dress but still had some wedding drama with the long train..."

Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2013, Wookie Photography

"I can’t rave on about Wookie Floral Design enough. As soon as I saw Amy’s website I knew she had to do my flowers. Her style was exactly what I wanted and when I met up with her to discuss everything I knew she was on my wavelength. I was so confident with her that I just described the style and feel that I wanted to achieve and left her to choose the flowers. The flowers were the thing that I was looking forward to seeing the most on the day and they were perfect.

I had imagined what our room at The George was going to look like so many times in the lead up to the day and when I finally walked in there it took my breath away – it was even better!  I only shed tears once on my wedding day and it was when I saw my bouquet – what more can I say."

"Lots of things inspired our wedding - the country style of the venues for example; I had an image in my head of little bridesmaids with flowers in their hair running around bare footed in a meadow, I also saw a picture of Kate Moss’ wedding – I loved her style and the wedgewood blue of her big bridesmaids. I basically came up with words that described the feel I wanted: wild, floaty, relaxed, pretty, stylish, vintage, countryside, traditional."

"The Bridesmaids dresses were tricky as I already had my heart set on the colour and couldn’t find a dress that was the exact colour I wanted – in the end we had it made by Maids to Measure.

The flowergirl dresses were called Estelle and I got them in the sale at Monsoon."

"My son Jacob’s trousers and waistcoat were from John Lewis and we bought an extra tie to match Adam’s which my mum turned into a bow tie so that he matched his dad."

"The reception was at The George Hotel in Stamford, Lincolnshire. We had a number of family meals at The George in the past so we knew exactly what it was like. Beautiful surroundings, excellent service, top quality food and wine."

"Our photographers were Wookie Photography.  They were amazing! Amy and Frank did a fantastic job. The pictures are breathtaking, so different to all the other photos that were taken on the day. We really love the soft vintage style."

Jenny Packham for a Midsummer Nights Dream Inspired Woodland Wedding...

A wedding in the woodland? A pretty, floaty Jenny Packham wedding dress? Lots of romantic reds and roses and photographs filled with joy? Oh go on then, you twisted my arm!

Tim and Laura's wedding took place on 19 May at St Stephens Church in Kingston Lacy, followed by a marquee reception that was held in Laura’s parents’ home, both in Wimborne, Dorset. 

"My dress was from Jenny Packham, and I bought it from her gorgeous boutique in Belgravia.  I knew that I loved Jenny Packham dresses – all the ones I liked seemed to be designed by her when I checked the labels. When I looked on their website, I really loved the look of this dress, but never expected that it’d be the one I’d end up with.

I tried a few on and pretty much loved them all but this one just felt right –it had a bit of a vintage look, was light and floaty, had a deep back and was really comfortable – it almost felt like I wasn’t wearing anything!"

Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Sarah Lauren

"All the flowers were by family friend Polly Wright. She did such an amazing job. With a few pairs of extra hands to help her, the bouquets, tables and marquee garland were gorgeously full of lush blooms."

"All my bridesmaids wore the most beautiful, red, convertible dresses made by the lovely Biby of Orchidea Boutique on Etsy.   The girls also wore fresh freesia clips made by Polly, our florist and family friend. They smelled heavenly!" 

"My dress was from Jenny Packham, and I bought it from her gorgeous boutique in Belgravia.  I knew that I loved Jenny Packham dresses – all the ones I liked seemed to be designed by her when I checked the labels. When I looked on their website, I really loved the look of this dress, but never expected that it’d be the one I’d end up with.

I tried a few on and pretty much loved them all but this one just felt right –it had a bit of a vintage look, was light and floaty, had a deep back and was really comfortable – it almost felt like I wasn’t wearing anything!"

"People seemed to mention “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” a lot when we described things, so I suppose that was in our minds when we were planning and styling our wedding day!  We had always dreamed of getting married on a stretch of woodland behind my parents’ home, where I grew up. It was formerly the old railway line that ran into Wimborne, but as the line was closed down long, long ago, we have always known it as a peaceful nature haven full of deer, foxes, rabbits, buzzards, owls and all sorts of other wonderful creatures.

The old railway line is actually a private route from my mum and dad’s house to Tim’s family home, so we used to meet in the middle for secret picnics and sneaky bottles of cider! It’s our favourite place, and so full of history for us, and we just couldn’t imagine celebrating anywhere else.

There wasn’t really a theme, but I suppose the woodland itself influenced our style the most – we wanted it to be as if the wood had been taken over by sparkly lights, a band, and a whole lot of people we love having a great time!  We also knew that we would be making most things ourselves. Flowers played a huge part in our decoration and style of the day – my mum’s friend Polly did the most fantastic job. They looked beautiful, and really worked in the setting whilst providing flashes of meadow colour."

"A car designed by Laura’s granddad (the very rare Peel Viking) was used to transport the bride to the church and we drove it to the reception afterwards. The bridesmaids were driven by Laura’s mum in our much loved 1977 VW campervan, in which we’ve had many a great holiday!"

"All designed by me - I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator in the process, thanks to an afternoon crash course from the very kind Raj, who helped me to figure out how to pull my hand drawings and ideas together digitally."

"Our main decoration was all the beautiful flowers created by Pauline, with a gorgeous long garland of lilies which framed the marquee. I wanted to put all the leftover flowers out in their buckets as it seemed such a waste not to see them, but we gave them away instead as a thank you to guests, along with the table flowers and bouquets.  To hold the flowers on each table, we sprayed tin cans copper, gold or white, and had been collecting nicely shaped jam jars to hold flowers too. We used the leftover jars and tins to hold candles and tealights.  Tim’s mum, Sandra sweetly made us some bunting, as did my sister, Nay.

I bought cheap frames for our table names (our favourite movies) and my mum printed off the original movie posters to go in them. She also made us a huge table plan using an old empty picture frame, ribbon and name cards.  My Dad made beautiful blackboards for our signage, framed with fallen timber from the Railway Line. He also made plenty of ‘this way’ arrow signs which I painted, along with the boards, to help our guests find their way, and put up a LOT of fairy lights! Hay bales and a bonfire competed the ‘chill out area’ and further down the line we had a games area with swingball, boules, giant connect four, coits and other fun things."

"We absolutely cannot recommend our photographer, Sarah Lauren enough. Both she and Chloe were such fun and took amazing pictures for us to treasure always. They were really part of our day and it was sad when they had to go home after the first dance!"

Sunshine, Daisies and Glamping for a Beautiful Humanist Woodland Wedding...

Hello hello! Monday is always double wedding day here on Love My Dress and this second wedding feature of today is a real summer sunshine of a beauty.  And in the spirit of holding on to memories of an actual 'summer' (pah!), this is the second feature today with a bit of a 'glamping' theme.

Photographer Eddie Judd submitted these photographs of her clients Claire and Dave who got married on 17th August this year at Swallows Oast in Ticehurst, East Sussex and I love them for their beautifully bright and sunshiney vibe.  And I also happen to be a huge fan of yellow as a colour scheme at weddings...

Love My Dress Wedding Blog, Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Eddie Judd

"We chose Swallows Oast because of the gorgeous Oast house, the possibility of having our ceremony outside in the wooded area, and the ability to hire their campsite exclusively for us and our guests for the whole weekend.  It was everything we wanted, a beautiful setting, with plenty of outside space and safe for the many children who’d be there!

We wanted an outdoor wedding, as we both love being outdoors, but with the unpredictable weather in the UK we knew we’d need the backup of indoor space.  Swallows Oast was the perfect combination, with beautiful inside and outside spaces.  We also wanted the day to feel fun and natural, hence the meadow style flowers, and plenty of homemade decorations I made all the table runners, bunting, place names, table numbers, table plan herself – a labour of love)."

"My friend and photographer Eddie pointed me in the direction of Pinterest and Love My Dress for ideas.  I fell in love with an image of a bride wearing yellow shoes (as well as many others!), I loved the bright colour and the originality of the yellow shoes.  I had to have some!  We stuck with the yellow theme, because it was so bright and vibrant, but I just couldn’t find those elusive yellow shoes!The camping for the two days after the wedding on the Friday was amazing."

"We chose a humanist ceremony, partly because we weren’t able to have a legal ceremony outside, but mainly because we realised that a humanist sentiment reflected exactly what we wanted for our big day.  We really enjoyed the process of constructing our own ceremony with our Humanist celebrant Ginny Collins.  The ceremony was very personal, and reflected Dave and I so well, together with Ginny we wrote our own vows, and the ceremony told our story and how we see marriage, what we love about each other, with plenty of laughs along the way.  Our guests commented on how lovely and unique the ceremony was.

We married legally a couple of days before at Brighton registry office witnessed by my Dad and Dave’s Mum only (we didn’t want to have two wedding days!), followed by a curry lunch and a beer!"

"Our Florist was Battle House of Flowers.  We wanted flowers that looked like they were picked straight out of a meadow, which we had originally planned to do, but realised that it was impractical!  Battle House of Flowers did a fantastic job arranging the flowers in the vases and milk bottles on all of the tables, and the bouquets were stunning!   Everything looked just how I’d imagined, bright yellows, with pretty daisies, loosely tied for a natural look."

Claire's wedding dress was the Neomie design by Amanda Wyatt - a purchase Claire made via Ozone Weddings...

"My brief on entering the bridal boutique was ‘something I could play rounders in!’ Needless to say that eyebrows were raised, and I never actually ended up playing rounders on the day anyway!  But, I wanted something that I felt like myself in.  So many dresses looked beautiful but just weren’t me, and something that I could move around in easily if I so desired to play rounders! 

The dress that I chose was actually the first dress that I’d tried on, it was a perfect combination of structure on the top half with a soft chiffon criss cross finish and soft chiffon skirt.  Floaty loveliness!"

"We wanted a fete style cake table, and were lucky enough to have some talented cake maker friends who we asked to make some cakes for us.  There was no brief, but the cakes were to be judged by the guests (everyone voted with stickers from the inside of their place names) with the winner being crowned the wedding cake with the lego bride and groom!

Our cake maker friends went to so much effort, we had a snow covered mountain, a tent shaped chocolate brownie, a beautiful traditional fruit cake complete with colour coordinated bunting, pretty cup cakes, fresh scones with jam and cream and many more!"

"I’ve been close friends with photographer Eddie Judd for 26 years.  When she offered to photograph our wedding as a gift I was absolutely thrilled.

She’s such a talent, and it meant so much that she was there with us rather than a stranger taking those all-important shots on the day. 

I would highly recommend Eddie to any bride and groom.  She has an incredible eye for detail, and is highly dedicated to getting the most out of every shot."

An Original Edwardian Wedding Dress for a 1960s Mod Inspired Brighton Wedding...

You know, as a blogger, I've got it pretty sorted haven't I? I mean, don't get me wrong, running your own business is damn hard work (she says, as her two year old daughter helps herself to the butter knives and pots out the dishwasher to play drums whilst I try to get some admin work done!) but all that aside, I have one of the most amazing jobs in the world. I get to pour through beautiful, glorious, romantic images every day and then I have the absolute pleasure of being able to share them with you. I truly mean it when I say that sometimes, I have to pinch myself to believe it all.

This wedding today is one of those that tugs at my heart strings and makes my face ache from smiling during the blog post editing process.  Lydia and Patrick got married on 28th July this year and their wonderful wedding photographer, Hannah Mia, thought these photographs would look might pretty on these pages. She was right there, for this wedding couldn't ooze more Love My Dress appeal; Lydia wears an original Edwardian wedding dress and adores the 1960's Mod style.  The couple tied the knot at

"I initially had in mind a very mod 1960's style wedding with an empire line dress and lots of eyeliner but when I fell in love with my Edwardian dress the styling adapted around the dress..."

Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Hannah Mia

"We still had the late 60's influence with the car (a 1969 Jaguar Mark ii) and daisies in the flowers but it all had a softer more natural rustic feel. The eras were mixed to create, what we hoped, was a very relaxed and informal feel to the day.

My dress was an original vintage Edwardian dress from a shop in Brighton called Hope & Harlequin.  I loved the simplicity of the dress but at the same time the incredible detail, the dress felt unique.  It was also really comfortable and fitted me perfectly so I didn’t have to worry about it being altered, just a little bit of repair work! I also had a beautiful silk slip made to go underneath and silk sash."

"Our driver David, from The Classic and Vintage Car Company was brilliant - really friendly and even went for a little walk along the seafront whilst me and Patrick had a moment to ourselves & enjoyed some champagne."

"For me, my favourite part of the day was the ceremony held in the Town Hall, from the anticipation beforehand and the exhilaration of seeing Patrick, we were both very emotional!"

A groom caught on camera shedding tears of joy. Gets me *every* time...

"We chose to get married in Brighton Town Hall which is a beautiful Grade 1 listed building, we both love Brighton and it is where Lydia grew up, we also thought everyone would be happy to spend a summers day by the sea side! The reception was held in The Connaught Pub and Kitchen, which is a great pub in Hove with a lovely garden.

We actually very first met each other in my hometown of Brighton. Patrick organised a weekend away in Cornwall and proposed in the grounds of some beautiful Cornish valley gardens. Patrick proposed at the end of August 2011 and we were married at the end of July 2012- so we were engaged for eleven months before the wedding."

"Everything that Patrick wore was from Mr Start in Shoreditch - including his tie, shoes, shirt and pocket hanky.  Patricks pocket watch was a family heirloom lent to him by his father for the day."

"Our Florist, Gingerlily, is based in Brighton. I loved the bright yellow of the craspedia and the simplicity of the daisy’s, I wanted to go for a summery natural looking bouquet tied with raffia. And the flowers in the pub had a wild natural, garden feel also."

"As favours, we had rock sweet that said ‘just married’ on inside favour boxes..."

"Patrick and his brothers had visited the pub the day before and hung loads of fairy lights in the garden but i didn’t actually get to see them as I never really left the dance floor once the music started!  I wish I had gone outside to have a look!"

"Our wedding cake by Flutterby Bakery followed on from the bouquet with all the same flowers and I wanted quite a pretty cake with lots of detail"