Love My Dress Wedding Blog

Red Wedding Shoes And A Flirty Fifties Frock

Good morning my loves! Did you have a sweet and lovely long Easter weekend break?  Whilst mine was full of family time and crafting, I can truly say I'm raring to get back in to work this week and have a full on few days ahead of my book launch next week. Excited? Check? Nervous and getting more nervous? Check and double check!

The wedding this morning is special to me because not only was the dress supplied by Laura and Emma of Fur Coat No Knickers who I think are just brilliant, and who also contributed their gorgeous designs to Style Me Vintage: Weddings - these photographs were shot by our brand new sponsor Sarah Lafford of Assassynation - whose work I have enjoyed featuring on Love My Dress for almost three years now!

Helen and Tim tied the knot on 1st December 2012 at The Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green London.  Helen chose to wear a flattering 1950s original vintage wedding dress - a fabulous find from the girls over at Fur Coat No Knickers...

"I discovered Fur Coat No Knickers through visiting wedding blogs like Love My Dress, and I genuinely can't recommend it highly enough. I was a bit anxious having gone to a few other vintage shops that I wouldn’t be able to find a vintage dress that wasn't for teeny tiny girls – but Emma and Laura instantly found me a rack of amazing dresses that fitted perfectly, and then proceeded to customise every detail to how I wanted..."

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

"Benjamina Fedaraviciute from Indeco Flowers and who were recommended by our venue, were our florists.   I have to say I was a little nervous about choosing flowers as neither Tim nor I have any idea about flowers, and I really had no idea about what kind of thing I might like – other than red! However we went along to New Covent Garden Flower Market to meet Benjamina, accompanied by one of our green-fingered friends, and after flipping through a stash of Benjamina’s magazines realised that we liked arrangements that didn’t feel too ‘done’.

We then went round the market choosing the types of flowers that we liked – and decided on a mixture of Piano roses, Grand Prix roses, anemonies, rununculus as well as some seasonal greenery so it felt quite fresh and natural.  Tim also suggested including some strands of rosemary in his button holes which we thought was a nice touch!"

"I only had one proper bridesmaid, my best friend Jo. Her eldest daughter, and my goddaughter, Sylvie, was also a flower girl. My bridesmaid Jo just wore her own red shoes in keeping with the dress, and I bought Sylvie some sparkly red ballet pumps from BHS.  Once I had decided on the red shoes and flowers theme, I also thought it would be cool to put Jo in red, and ideally lace so it had a similar look/feel to my dress. I also didn’t want a traditional flouncy ‘bridesmaidy’ dress - so I spent a little while searching on the high street and online for the right red lace dress. The one we found was originally from Marks and Spencers but I bought it on eBay for £20 – bargain!

 For Sylvie we chose the Fairy Bridesmaid dress from John Lewis in white, with red sparkly shoes and a white cardigan. She loves dressing like a princess so this was perfect!  We also bought some flower clips for Sylvie from Accessorise."

"Every dress fitting at Fur Coat No Knickers was such a lovely experience.  Visiting the girls with my Mum and best friends and drinking bubbly and getting excited – part of my wedding prep memories that I will always treasure.

I always had in my mind that I wanted a short, fifties style dress with a tight waist and a big skirt, because I know that style suits me and also it would fit in with the venue’s vintage style. I did try on a few modern, longer dresses but they just didn’t feel like me and I knew I wanted to be comfortable and able to dance on the day, and also show off awesome shoes. I was torn between this dress and another, more sparkly number from the shop, but in the end I was really attracted to the simplicity of this one:  short, vintage, white, lace – perfect.

The girls, Laura and Emma, were amazing and added some incredible customised features – changing the sleeves, the length and adding some beautiful buttons down the back. What a privilege to have an incredible vintage dress fitted to your every need! I loved wearing the dress and felt amazing in it all day."

 

"My shoes were ‘Marilyn’ in red, by Rachel Simpson, purchased from  from Fur Coat No Knickers. From looking early on in the planning process at wedding magazines and blogs, I had the idea of a short white dress with red flowers and amazing red shoes.

I saw these shoes online and was really pleased that Fur Coat No Knickers were able to order them from me – they looked amazing and were also really comfortable – and hopefully the fact that they aren’t in wedding white satin means I will be able to wear them again as well!"

"Tim’s basic objective for the day was to look and feel as much like Don Draper as possible. He knew he wanted quite a tightly cut, vintage-feeling suit, and we were fortunate enough that one of our friends worked for Tommy Hilfiger and helped him find the perfect suit, from Ralph Lauren.

Tim also bought some vintage cufflinks from eBay which he was very proud of, and also wore red socks to match my shoes and flowers!"

"We had two readings – one that was more formal and one that was a bit lighter in tone. The first was 'Union' by Robert Fulghum. When we started looking for readings I was keen that we found one that reflected our relationship, that acknowledged that we had been together for a long time, and that  - and this is really important to how I viewed the whole day – getting married was just an affirmation of how we felt about each other and how we had supported each other throughout our relationship rather than anything suddenly life-changing."

"My Dad gave me away - because music is a massively important thing for us, we picked all the music on the day very carefully. I walked into the ceremony room to The Universal by Blur - I am a huge Blur fan and everybody associates them with me and me with them, so this was the obvious choice. We signed the registrar to Clair De Lune by Debussey, which is Tim’s favourite piece of classical music, and we walked out as a married couple to the theme from Rocky (Gonna Fly Now by Bill Conti)!

That was something we kept a complete secret from all of our guests because we knew it would work best as a surprise – and it was a fantastic moment when it started playing and everybody laughed and cheered us!"

"This reading was really the only one I found that captured that for me - the line about “all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding” just really said what I wanted – that the marriage ceremony was just a way of formalising all those unspoken, and spoken, commitments we had made to each other over the many years of our relationship. Tim’s Dad – who is a Vicar and therefore used to public speaking – did this reading for us, and he was amazing at it!

The other reading we had was 'Recipe For Love” by Anonymous – it was just lovely and sweet and also Tim is an amazing chef so it was appropriate! My brother read it for us."

"Tim also designed the place cards and table plans in the same font and style, and we bought a white vintage-style picture frame to present the table plan in. Another DIY project was the table place names - we are both big music fans, so we decided to have each table name as one of our favourite albums."

"Our venue, The Town Hall Hotel, was everything for us – we knew we wanted to get married locally because everyone says the most important thing about planning your wedding is to make sure it feels like ‘you’ – and East London is our favourite place in the world - where we have lived for years, where Tim works, where we go out, where our friends live. But the amazing thing about the Town Hall is even though it is minutes away from our first flat together, and is surrounded by scruffy estates, once you are inside it feels so unique and special – it felt like ‘us’ but a special version of us, which how I think you want your wedding to feel. The Town Hall was at the top end of our budget but once we saw it we knew there was nowhere else we wanted to get married.

We definitely made the right decision – the staff were all amazing from beginning to end. And now we have a special place with amazing memories just around the corner where we can celebrate our anniversaries!"

"The Town Hall tended to dictate the style of the day more than anything – particularly in terms of its vintage detailing, and also by the fact that it was so spectacular with so many brilliant features, that we tried to keep our own styling pared down so as not to detract from the venue.

So where we did have to make style choices – over our outfits, or the look of the flowers, we tried to keep with a vintage theme, but mostly we wanted things as simple as possible – so no flowers in the ceremony room, or seat covers in the reception!"

"Our photographer was the amazing Sassy from Assassynation.  I cant really express how incredible Sassy was and how delighted we are with her pictures – so hopefully her pictures speak for themselves – and if not, this testimony we wrote will.  Tim is a great photographer himself and we always knew we wanted a particular style from our wedding photographs – cool, stylish and not cheesy – and Sassy completely nailed that.

Our favourite photographs from the day were when me, Tim and Sassy left the reception to take some shots on Columbia Road in East London – our favourite street in London – those pictures are so fantastic and it was lovely just having that time away from everybody to focus on being together. Everyone who has seen our pictures thinks they are amazing – I could look at them all day and we will treasure them forever."

Weekend Wanderings ~ Happy Easter Holiday!

Morning lovelies, we're taking a day off at Love My Dress today, because everyone deserves a break every once in a while, and it is Easter chaps, and chapesses - and a bank holiday you know - and that means it's a great excuse to kick back, relax and do what makes you happy for a day before we all slip back in to our usual week day routines.

In addition to this, the next two weeks is going to be back to back busy as I prepare for the launch of Style Me Vintage: Weddings in London on 10th April - something I'm feeling an intoxicating mix of excitement and nerves about right now.  So instead of anything 'weddingy', I thought I'd share some images taken this weekend after some precious family time spent with my girls.

All photographs taken by me

I found the pretty wicker heart pictured above (a left over decoration from our wedding) on the fence at home on Friday.  On Saturday when venturing out with my girls, it was looking rather prettier - my husband had decorated it with primroses from our garden!

As regular readers will probably already know, I live in Whitby, a beautiful part of the world that is great to get out and explore. On Saturday, I took my girls to the beautiful Pannett Park, where they were holding an Easter Egg hunting competition - you had to find wooden eggs dangling in various trees, each of which had a letter painted on it. Discover all the letters and you made a word (daffodil) and won a chocolate Easter egg.  Though I think the organisers had rather underestimated just exactly how many families might venture out on a beautiful Spring day so must have ran out of chocolate quite quickly, as we qualified for two small bags of jelly sweets instead.

The views from the park are just beautiful, you can see across the bay to the other wide of Whitby, where the Abbey lies.  I love how being here means my girls can run wild and enjoy themselves whilst I take a slow walk, and a little contemplation...

The park is on the same site as Whitby Museum, an amazing place that you absolutely must visit if ever you are in the area. We took all but a few fleeting yet tantalising steps in to the foyer area on this occasion (to collect said jelly sweets from a giant basket that was being guarded over by a lovely little old lady).  The Museum is full of the most amazing antiques and artefacts, but sadly it wasn't the right time for me to take the girls around on this occasion, they were too hyped up about being outside in the sun, though I did manage to stay long enough to take this image of the most captivating Elizabeth Taylor oil on canvass portrait which I found just mesmerising...

A David Fielden Gown For A Rob Ryan, Midsummer Nights Dream Inspired Wedding...

Given that it's good Friday today, we're treating today as a semi-holiday over her at Love My Dress H.Q. (desperate to get to the bakers before they run out of freshly baked hot cross buns!), so today, there will be just one post, but let me tell you it is completely worth it.

Andy and Jemma's wedding took place on 27 July last year at The Milton of Crathes, Aberdeenshire and these pretty photographs were taken by our brilliant sponsors, Mirrorbox Photography.  

I love this wedding for the way Jemma so passionately shares the memories of the day, and for the lovely photographs which capture some really lovely, special moments...

"To begin with I found it quite tricky to get started with all the planning as I didn’t have a clear idea in my head.  I had always imagined getting married with an Arabian nights sort of theme but as things got going this quickly evolved into a whimsical, woodland feel for the day. I like to think of it as our Midsummer Nights Dream wedding.

We were so lucky with the weather – especially considering that two days beforehand Andy, his best man and I had been standing in jackets and wellies watching the marquee start to go up in driving rain!  On the day, it was sunny, dry and even warm, and this meant that people were mingling outside until 1am under the twinkling stars; this definitely helped with the Midsummer Nights Dream atmosphere."

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

"I think I was initially under the impression that I had to choose a colour scheme that would feature in almost every aspect but nothing stood out for me and we ended up going with a wide range of colours which fitted into an outdoorsy, relaxed, summery theme.

I ordered beautiful Rob Ryan greetings cards which my sister in law turned into invitations – the image on the website was moss green on the outside with a duck-egg blue interior, however when they arrived the inside was bright pink! This was a bit shocking at first and I planned to send them back but after a few days I had grown to love them so green and pink became feature colours. 

Our venue also really lent itself to a natural theme so we used lots of wood, petals, leaves etc for lots of elements of the day."

Jemma wore a David Fielden gown, which she purchased from the David Fielden flagship store in Fulham... 

"I can’t describe how great a feeling it is putting your dress on on the day of the wedding and knowing that you’re finally allowed to wear it. The design and fabrics of mine were so luxurious and I felt like a flower fairy all day in my marshmallowy tulle!

I really, really loved the dress search. I wanted to enjoy it as much as possible so went to as many shops as I could and constantly browsed magazines and websites. I was pretty disillusioned by the thought of finding ‘the one’, not believing there would be that epiphany moment when putting on a dress... luckily I was wrong."

"We used Val Morrison for our flowers (Val doesn’t have a website). She is absolutely wonderful and managed to create exactly what I was imagining plus more! We had tall vases of green and pink hydrangeas on the tables.  Hydrangeas in pale and darker pink were used for the bridesmaid’s bouquets too. I carried pink peony roses tied with raffia and ivory ribbon.

I love the delicate look of these flowers and have since instragram-ed one of Sam and Sequoia’s photos of my bouquet and had it made into a phone cover so I can look at them every day."

"Cymbelline was a brand that I loved as soon as I discovered them... the styles were very me, so I went down to London to try a few on. I found a definite maybe and over the next few months didn’t see anything better than it so booked another trip to London to try it again. Just before I went I spotted  David Fielden in a wedding magazine and after a quick scan of his website booked an appointment for while I was in London. I liked the Cymbelline dress even more the second time I tried it on and booked to go back to order it then next day, after my appointment at David Fielden – just in case! 

 Of course, as soon as I stepped into the magical, fluffy, lighter than air David Fielden creation I ordered it there and then, even keeping it on while I signed all the paperwork! I was shaking when I left the shop as it was such a quick decision, but definitely the right one."

"The staff at  David Fielden are so friendly and made the process of organising fittings/appointments between Aberdeen and London as easy as possible. It was probably the most precious cargo I had every carried when I eventually picked it up and my friend and I had to get it from London to Aberdeen on the overnight train!   I still don’t think my Mum has got over the shock that I was on my own when I chose my dress.

For every other appointment, I had had my Mum, sister and/or bridesmaids with me but the way things had worked out on this occasion, I had just nipped across London on my own - not thinking the appointment would amount to anything. As much as I loved the appointments with people there, it was also really nice to be on my own for this one.  All that mattered was that I knew it was my perfect dress and I didn’t have to think about any other opinions!"

 

"My wonderful husband treated me to my sparkly gold Miu Miu shoes which I absolutely adore. A few hours in I changed into shoes number 2... a lower heeled pair from Topshop, which also had glittery gold heels (seeing a theme here?)..."

"Our invitations were Rob Ryan cards and everything else was designed by my sister in law who is a graphic design genius! She made tiny save the date booklets (which were stitched together by my mother-in-law), invitation inserts and RSVP postcards, signs for the day and all sorts of other things. We were so lucky to have her doing this as it made everything so personal and even more special for us."

"As there wasn’t much colour in my other accessories, I opted for a flash of bright pink on my nails which looks great in the photos.   Under my dress, I had splashed out on a simple cream Florrie Mitton garter.   I had no idea that finding the perfect garter would be so hard!"

"My Dad has a vintage Mercedes which he drove me in. After piling my dress into the small car and convincing my Dad to keep the roof on to avoid any veil mishaps we had a really lovely drive out the country roads to the venue together. It’s only a two-seater so it was a really nice chance to have some father/daughter time before he walked me down the aisle to my husband.

One of my Dad’s friends drove the bridesmaids in his lovely vintage Rolls Royce. The duck egg blue of his car looked lovely beside my Dad’s metallic blue silver car - they were both decorated in ivory ribbon."

"My bridesmaids dresses were from Ted Baker. They were such a pretty stlye and I thought the pink colour would fit in well, but when we went to try them on each of my bridesmaids seemed to love a different colour so we just went with all three. I wanted them to be happy in what they were wearing and hopefully be able to wear it again in the future.

They all looked absolutely gorgeous and the colours were so sugary and went together well."

 

"Andy and I met through friends when we were 15. There was a glimmer of teenage romance to begin with but then we just became good friends for the next few years. Even once I moved to London we would still hang out in the same group of friends whenever I was home. It wasn’t until I was back in Aberdeen over Christmas in 2005 that we realised there was definitely something more to us than ‘just friends’.

Within a couple of weeks Andy had spontaneously come down to visit me in London and that was how the story started... 7 years later Andy is my best friend as well as my gorgeous husband and we make a pretty good team – he does almost all the house work and I bake him lots of cakes to say thank you!"

"It didn’t take long for things to get more serious; Andy came with me to my sister’s wedding in Cyprus in May 2006 and the next month I moved home to Aberdeen (the long distance thing really isn’t for me, neither are 12 hour megabus journeys)! 3 years later we bought our flat together and brought a little cat home to live with us...Vince!

It was probably about this time that my proposal hints became more frequent but Andy doesn’t like to be rushed so he took his own sweet time about things!! As a Christmas present in 2010 Andy booked a surprise trip away for the beginning of January. I tried so hard not to get too excited but couldn’t help thinking that this might be it... On the 3rd January when we were all ready to go with our coats and shoes on Andy got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I fully admit that I’m a bit of a control freak and by proposing before we left on our trip Andy achieved the very hard task of taking me completely by surprise!"

"Andy proposed with my stunning Gebruder and Schaffrath SPINNING diamond ring from Rock Candy Gallery. We had walked past their window and spotted the style of ring when we were in Edinburgh the year before... the special setting allows the ring to move so that it catches the most amount of light. It’s so unusual and I couldn’t believe he had chosen the perfect one. Once we were engaged I found out that Andy had dropped me at work one day, driven to Edinburgh to collect the ring, and driven back in time to pick me up from work without me knowing a thing about it!

We started planning the wedding almost straight away and we both just kind of knew that we’d want a summer wedding (if you can call it summer in Scotland?!), so the date was set for July 21st 2012. The next 18 months seemed like they would never pass but waking up on the wedding morning, it felt like yesterday that I had agreed to be Mrs Mathieson."

"We had a bit of a cake issue - it was delivered in the morning of the wedding when Andy was checking everything at the venue. He could see instantly that it wasn’t what I was expecting and was even asked by one of the other suppliers if it had been dropped?! He was so worried that I would be upset and so Val stepped in and saved the day by draping it in flowers and Ivy; unfortunately that didn’t do anything to help the taste and we didn’t even feel we could serve it to our guests!

It was really disappointing as I thought I had chosen a fantastic cake maker and the samples had been delicious. However, it didn’t dampen the day in the slightest and we just laughed about it and had a faux-cutting photo!"

"Luckily, this didn’t mean that the wedding was cake free.  I love to bake and my usual treats are tiny cupcakes adorned in yummy cream cheese frosting. I was adamant that I would make these so set to it the day before the wedding when obviously there are a million and one other things to do. Almost straight away I was distracted with stamping names, tieing ribbons etc. So my awesome friend (and bridesmaid) Mel stepped in and whipped up over 100 cakes that were served as part of the dessert buffet.

The cupcakes were topped with super cute customised toppers by Nash at Happi Yumi. Once I sent a few photos to Nash and told her a bit about us, she used her incredible creative flare to come up with several ideas for me to choose from... she makes so many other customised products too. We had so many comments about the funny toppers and it was so weird to walk past tables and see our faces sticking out of their cakes."

"One of Andy’s friends climbed a tree and cut down a big branch the day before the wedding for me to hang the table plan on! I had mounted photos of us holding the table numbers on our engagement shoot (also with Sam and Sequoia), stamped names on the back and hung these on the branch..."

"Sourcing/making decor was one of my favourite bits of the planning!  I got our cardboard table numbers from Hobbycraft. I didn’t decorate these as I liked the rustic look. Instead, I found tiny bottles of ‘Unicorn Magic’ (all the way from Australia) to put on top of each number and sprinkled some around the table too. We put wooden candles holders with tea-lights around the tables..."

"We also used quirky little props for styling, like the little faux moss rabbits for the top tabl and giant flowers which I made from a tutorial I found online via the Green Wedding Shoes blog.

I bought boxes of Hotel Chocolat caramel hearts (these are so yummy) and had tiny kraft paper bags printed by a supplier on Etsy to say ‘Be Still my Caramel Heart’, we then put two hearts in each."

"My Mum’s friend Sandra is fantastic with flowers and she made the floral arch for us.  It was a lot of fun going to the flower wholesalers to choose flowers and lovely Sandra also clambered through gardens and woods during the week of the wedding (when there was torrential rain) to collect enough ivy! So many people mention how beautiful the arch is when they look at the photos and we are so grateful to Sandra for the amount of work she put into it."

"I genuinely can’t recommend Sam and Sequoia from Mirrorbox Photography enough! They are both so friendly and professional and were great fun to have around on the day. They blended into the background in order to get some amazing shots and when Andy and I were having our photos taken after the ceremony they made us feel totally relaxed - which is particularly good if your husband doesn’t like having his photo taken.

Because there are two photographers, they were able to shoot both Andy and I in the morning and it’s really fun to be able to see what he was up to before the wedding... they even got our lovely little cat, Vince in the photos! In the evening they set-up a photo-booth which our family and friends loved and they put the photos of this up on their website for everyone to see only a day or two after the wedding."

"About six weeks before the wedding we found out that the Circus was coming to town,  to the field right beside the wedding. I panicked, imagining enthusiastic circus-goes accidentally traipsing through the ceremony, or my walk down the aisle being accompanied by the circus tune. Fortunately this wasn’t the case at all and it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise when Sam and Sequoia saw it as a photo opportunity and we wondered over for a few striped-background photos in the evening.

Sam and Sequoia very quickly picked up on what was important to us and have managed to capture the whole atmosphere of the day perfectly in their photos. I love to sit and look through the pictures and still get butterflies when I do!"

Reem Acra for a Fashionable Bride and her Stoke Place Wedding

Oh how I've been looking forward to sharing this one!  Sarah and Adrian got married on 8 December 2012 The Holy Trinity Church in Cookham, followed by a ceremony at Stoke Place in Buckinghamshire.   The couple, who met through mutual friends on a night out in London, were together for three years before Adrian proposed to Sarah on a surprise trip to Seville.  They were engaged for 14 month before the wedding

I think the first thing that drew me to these photographs, apart from how absolutely beautiful Sarah is (those waves in her hair and that smile!), was her dress. With the bride working in fashion, the fashion and styling aspect of the day was very important to the couple, and so a trip to Browns in London was in order... 

"My wedding dress was designed by Reem Acra and I bought it from Browns in London.  I adored the overlay with all the embroidery and beading.  The design was classic, but it also had that vintage feel..."

Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2013, Marta and Adi at Contemporary Wedding Photography

"My bridesmaids wore strapless long dresses with a sweetheart neckline in navy blue from Dessy.   Via a friend, I managed to hire four mink pastel fur stoles for my bridesmaids to wear over their dresses."

"Our Florist, Yannik Pascal Gabory and I worked together.  He created the amazing flower displays and Wish Tree centre piece and I provided all the props and other little extras to style the room.  Yannick used  lots of gorgeous flowers...a mixture of roses, some retro flowers such as carntions, lots of Gypsum and also sprayed lots of greenery silver, to give it that vintage winter wonderland twist."

"I wore a pair of cassic silver open toe, kitten heeled, slingbacks from Prada."

"I wore a diamante hair comb, made from 5 vintage brooches from UrbanBride.  My parents bought me a beautiful pair of Rose Quarts drop earrings from Butler & Wilson."

"The year leading up to the wedding I spent researching and collecting lots of little extra bits....tealight holders, candleabras, vintage signs, pictures and paddle signs for fun and to make it more personal."