Love My Dress Wedding Blog

Penguin Books and Jesus Piero - Navy and Blue Fill a Castle Full of Colour

Good afternoon my friends - brides, before you get stuck in to this post, have you seen our latest competition on the blog this morning? You can win a full wedding photography package you know!

This afternoon's real wedding comes to you from Cardiff based wedding photographer and our long-term sponsor, Jake Morley.  Jake was the chosen photographer to shoot Ruth and Steffan's wedding, which took place on 3rd November last year, at Craig Y Nos Castle.

Ruth's chic and elegant dress was a Jesus Piero design - a purchase from the Alyson Jayne bridal boutique in Cardiff...

"I loved the simple elegance of my Jesus Piero dress and the classic Audrey Hepburn-esque style. I don’t do sparkles or lace – I wanted something sharply cut and very stylish – this was only the 2nd dress I tried on and I loved it immediately."

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

"We wanted a non-religious humanist ceremony. I was inspired by autumn and autumnal colours - I really wanted a different wedding to the normal summer wedding. I fancied sparklers, log fires, cosy, candle lit setting. The navy and orange colour scheme came out of the colour of autumnal leaves and the burnt orange bouquet I wanted.

Our Florist was The Bee Orchid Claire was absolutely fab, she was a fellow Brummie and so friendly throughout the whole process. I decided to go with a burnt orange colour palette and wanted to feature succulents really prominently as they are something my Gran and my mum have always grown at home. The succulents used were grown by mum."

"My veil was from an amazing lady Ashley behind With Love from Bobbin – the headpieces and veils are all handmade and she made my shoe bows too – we met by accident at a vintage shop in Cardiff, Vintage Zizou  http://www.vintagezizou.co.uk/ who provided both of my white vintage fur coats for the day!"

"Our venue, Craig Y Nos Castle,was an amazing venue set in the Welsh Valleys. It was once the home of Opera Singer Adelina Patti and has a reputation for being haunted. The venue was beautiful, quirky, atmospheric and very 'us' we also loved the preserved Opera Theatre where we had the ceremony." 

"We met when I moved back to Cardiff after graduating from Cardiff University for my first job. Steffan's best friend had moved out of a shared house of four boys to go and live in Manchester and I was the replacement.

We met after I had been living there a couple of weeks. I instantly liked him but it took us nearly 6 months to finally get it together! He proposed after seven years by taking me on holiday to Kalkan in Turkey and it was the world's worst kept secret. It nearly ended in a row though as he had disobeyed strict instructions NOT to buy me a ring - I wanted to choose my own! We got lost looking for a 'special beach' with Steffan getting more and more anxious - in the end he blurted it all out next to a wheelie bin! Romantic!

Seeing him all stressed and emotional and finding it difficult to get his words out made me love him even more - even if he did fluff it!"   

"DecoPomPoms are amazing, effective and cheap. Everything else was hand made even down to the orange confetti painstakingly cut using butterfly and heart paper stamps!"

"Our photographer was Jake Morley. Jake was great and all my guests observed how he was brilliant at being unobtrusive. We are really happy with the shots and he has captured some beautiful memories of the day. We would definitely recommend!"

An Annasul Y Wedding Dress for an Around The World Travel Inspired Wedding...

Hello lovers, in this my final feature of today, I am so happy to share the photographs of Jo and Dom, who tied the knot on 13 October at Luton Hoo Hotel in Bedfordshire (which some of yo may recognise as having been the backdrop for our DIY beauty series featuring Franky).  Jo looked gorgeous in a grecian style gown designed by Annasul Y and these photographs were taken by the delightful Caudia Rose Carter. I have chosen to feature this wedding because of the lovely, relaxed, laid back style of it all and because I love Jo and Dom's story, and that fact that they have once again embarked on a big around the world adventure discovering new places (as you read this!)...

"Dom and I met at a mutual friends house five years ago - we travelled around the world together then a year after returning from our travels Dom proposed (on 13th June 2012 - four months to the day to our wedding).

A few weeks prior to our engagement we had bought a 1985 VW camper van, Wayne (making our collection now three the other two from 1965 and 1977!).  Dom came over to take  me out to dinner as planned but had sneakily put a beautiful antique emerald and diamond  engagement ring on the new van’s key ring - and then proposed! After that we went for the most amazing meal!"

Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Claudia Rose Carter

"We didn’t have a theme in particular and neither of us are  very colour co ordinated or systematic people!! So it made sense to incorporate this mis-matchness and my love of vintage into the mismatched bridesmaids dresses, crockery, lampshades , Dom’s tie and the tables clothes etc.  Our love of travel played a big part in the wedding.  The tables were named after all the counties we have travelled to as a couple, with the name of the country and a photo of us in that country placed in photo frame’s on each table. Our seating plan was a map of the world.

We made our table plan ourselves out of an old map and a large gold picture frame. We also  made our own confetti bags out of brown paper bags with the order of service printed on them with ivory ties ( the confetti was lavender from Dom’s mum’s and auntie’s gardens  which we dried and dried flowers)."

"The designer of my dress was Annasul Y and I bought it from Satin Bow Bridal in St Albans, were the owner Victoria  and her colleague were amazing!"

"Our photographer was Caudia Rose Carter, who was amazing from the first phone call we had with her, photo’s were something Dom and I felt really important to get right and Claudia made it her mission to follow this through! She has a fantastic eye for capturing the entire day!)"

Orange, Peach, Gold, Blue and a Tiered Rachel Gilbert Gown for an East London Wedding

Hello loves, firstly, thanks for being so patient for the past couple of days as the blog post schedule has been a little out of sync due to a menagerie of reasons we've now thanksfully resolved. We appreciate your loyalty and visits as readers so very much, so have worked hard to make day a bit of a bumper blog post-fest to show just how much we care :) I've a really lovely Christmas DIY tutorial coming up at 11am, but to start with, I've chosen to share the wedding of Ellen and Toby, who tied the knot on 20th October at Toynbee Hall and Fourth Floor Studios, both in Shadwell, East London. Photographer Georgi Mabee submitted these pretty, smiley, colourful images for us to share with you.

Ellen wore an unusual but beautiful tiered wedding dress, by sought after Australian designer Rachel Gilbert, which she purchased from Net A Porter and I just love her choice of dark blue, self-designed shoes, from the brilliant Upper Street (yes, you can actually design your own shoes via this site!) 

"I was very keen to have a high, rounded neckline and sleeves (I think it suits my short haircut), and I came across this dress in the January sales on Net-a-porter. I had it altered to fit by Carmen's tailoring  in Covent Garden.

loved its simple outline, and I thought the layers of different fabric and the chunky crystals around the neckline made it pretty without being too fussy..."

Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Georgi Mabee

"I decided originally to do the flowers myself, as we were after something fairly low-key and relaxed. After I mentioned that to my Mum, though, she volunteered and did a far better job than I could ever have done."

"We went and chose the flowers at New Covent Garden Market (very early) on the Thursday morning and went for lots of peach, white and beautiful greenery, plus probably my favourite element, thistles, which worked perfectly for buttonholes. My Mum collected around 80 jam jars in the run-up to the wedding which we filled with flowers and tealights. The overall effect was stunning, especially as the sun started to go down during dinner..."

"We were very keen for the whole event to have a fun, relaxed feel. Once we decided on an October wedding, I wanted something autumnal but still bright. I was keen to avoid any strict styling guidelines, but we ended up with a palette of blues, oranges, olive green and gold."

How sweet and lovely are these pastel pretty frocks worn by the bridesmaids?

"The bridesmaids dresses were from Warehouse. They worked beautifully with the colour scheme and suited all of the bridesmaids down to the ground.All of the bridesmaids wore the vintage lockets I'd bought for them, each with a teeny-tiny note inside."

"I made my veil myself, using a vintage broach and some shimmery tulle..."

"I designed my shoes on Upper Street, and went into their studio in Islington to go through samples and styles, which was a lot of fun."

"Toby bought his suit from the bespoke tailors, Raja Fashions – they measured him up and the suit was made in Hong Kong, then altered to fit perfectly."

"I'm a graphic designer so I created all the stationery. We got the idea from a friend's wedding to make a booklet with all the information for the day (order of service, schedule, menu, table plan) and include a short biography of each guest – it served as an ice-breaker and gave people something to do during the inevitable moments of waiting around."

Since my dress had a lot of embellishment around the neck I decided to steer clear of other jewellery, but I wore a thin gold belt from Asos."

"We chose the East London to marry in, because it's close to where we live and we love it, particularly all its hidden gems - which inclue both of our venues (Toynbee Hall and Fourth Floor Studios) which are re in pretty inauspicious locations, but just wonderful inside!

We started with a pretty blank canvas at Fourth Floor Studios (apart from some fantastic props and retro furniture that were already in residence), and a big team of our wonderful friends and family helped us set it up and deck it out the day before.

We used Kraft paper runners on the table and luggage tags for place names, then we strung up tissue paper pom-poms and papier mache table numbers that I'd made..."

"Our photographer Georgi Mabee did an absolutely fabulous job. She's a dream to work with and we adore all of our photos."

Tweed, The Town Hall and Lots of DIY ~ A Handmade Vintage Inspired Wedding in Scotland...

*Gorgeous wedding jam packed full of inspirational detail ALERT!*

God I love this wedding! And I wish to thank photographers Dylan and Joanna at Kitchener Photography right this very moment, for submitting these fabulous images.

This lovely couple are Scott and Jen, whose wedding took place on 22nd September at Anstruther Town Hall in Anstruther, Fife.  What isn't to love about these photographs? Scott and Jen's wedding day is absolutely bursting with DIY inspiration, colour and all-round wedding day pretty.  Pretty galore infact...

"We very much wanted a do-it-yourself wedding. This was mainly due to our small budget, but also as I enjoy crafts and making things myself, so treated it as a big art project. We just wanted our big day to be a warm, homely celebration with our friends and family, with lots of personal touches. I love brick-a-brac and vintage finds, so I supposed it was inevitable that our day would be influenced by this.

We also love colour, so didn’t really stick to any limiting single colour theme - instead, we went with bright, pretty colours. I also thought that it would feel more special for our guests if our own blood and sweat went into the day, rather than just paying for someone else to put it together..."

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

Jen looked pretty as a peach on her wedding day, in a second hand dress by designer Lyn Ashworth - a discovery she made via Bliss Studio in Edinburgh, which she accessorised with a sparkly gold belt...

"Bliss Studio was the first shop I went to and I think the third dress I tried on. I wanted something shorter for dancing, but also very simple. I fell in love with this dress straight away.

My gold belt was from Mango, John Lewis in the sale. The dress came with an ivory, silk belt but I wanted something a bit more fun!"

"We live in Edinburgh but decided to wed in our favourite seaside town an hour away, where we have spent many summer days together. The venue itself, Anstruther Town Hall, was a big hall, the perfect blank canvas.

I spent many evenings sewing bunting made from thrift shop fabric – my friends were amazing and also leapt on the bunting bandwagon sewing for me. I collected vintage embroisered table clothes handmade a huge fringed streamer backdrop for the ceremony. I also made our confetti (mixed with dried rose petals) literally punched out circles and hearts until my fingers blistered!"

"We were after simple, pretty, rustic-looking flowers so I went to my local florist who was very helpful and gave me a big list to choose from. She ordered them all for me and my friends and  I arranged them in vases and made the bouquets and button holes..."

"My shoes were from Anthropologie and purchased in their sale online around a week after we got engaged - a risk that paid off!"

"Our boy, Noah wore a sailor suit I found on Ebay..."

"We had a variety of cakes made by friends and family. Carrot cake, pistachio cake, cocnut and lime, cupcakes and my sister’s famous black forest gateau. The cake we cut was a simple fruit cake that my mom had made for us with a picture of us both printed. On the cake table we also had the cake topper from Scott’s grandmother’s wedding."

"A friend of a friend made our delicious favours – coconut and cherry heart shaped tray bakes. I collected vintage buttons and used them on the name tags for each personalised favour."

"Our photographers were Dylan and Joanna at Kitchener Photography.  These guys were amazing. They were sweet, helpful and discreet - exactly what we wanted. We really wanted our wedding to be very relaxed day and for the pictures to reflect that. They totally nailed it."