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!"
