Afternoon all :) I've been waiting for a while to feature a wedding by the wonderful Scotland based Photographers that are Lillian and Leonard, and to be fair, this wedding has been waiting to be blogged for a little while too.
I love Lillian and Leonard, their photography is always so beautiful; soft lights, gentle tones, and subjects captured so naturally on camera. Lillian and Leonard are actually 'Cara' and 'Nye', who work together behind the camera. You can learn more about this talented duo of wedding photographers here, and whilst they may be in Scotland, remember my point made in this morning's feature that you should ALWAYS consider talent and ability over the location of a wedding supplier – the best suppliers will travel and it is WELL worth investing in covering their travel expenses. I cannot emphasise this point enough.
This Manchester 'city chic' style wedding celebrates the love between Bride Mel and her Groom Rick, who tied the knot in September last year at the Great John Street Hotel.
I love Mel's relaxed bridal style. Her wedding dress was by Elizabeth Dye and called 'Giselle'…
"The one thing I was certain of was that I did NOT want a strapless dress. Of course, I ended up with a strapless dress. 'Giselle' was just so beautiful, I fell in love via the internet – the TULLE! Antique lace!
I also wanted, and needed, a short dress. I'm incredibly clumsy, and with all the traipsing around from venue to venue we'd be doing on the day, I figured it was of utmost importance that I could actually walk. Buying over the internet sight unseen was mildly terrifying, but Elizabeth was brilliant…"
Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Lillian and Leonard
"We fell in love with Great John Street Hotel as soon as we saw their website. The building is an old School House in the middle of Manchester, beautifully restored. And we could have our reception on a rooftop! I didn't see it in 'real life' until we arrived in the UK a month before the wedding, but thankfully, it exceeded all expectations and the staff were incredible.
It was important to us that our wedding was quite informal and relaxed. For this reason, we didn't have seated tables, just plenty of areas for people to sit and eat, and we also looked for a venue that would suit the type of day we imagined."
The gorgeous blue dressing gown worn by Mel is by Plum Pretty Sugar and I recognise that clutch anywhere for I have one very similar – it is by Davie and Chiyo who featured on Love My Dress here…
My hair accessory is from Accessorize…
"My shoes are by Ian Pinkus – I wanted, *needed* blue, and after hours and hours of shopping (who knew finding pretty high heels in the middle of an Australian winter would be so hard?) I found these beauties…"
"For cake we had vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese icing and berries, and Choc chip cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese icing and berries. Supplied by my Mum 🙂 She practiced for months and months beforehand, perfecting the recipe. Really, by the time the wedding rolled around, we were all quite sick of the things. She then dragged all the equipment across the world, dealt with an extremely temperamental oven and, with my Dad, spent the whole of 'wedding day eve' baking cupcakes and transporting them to the hotel…"
"I was desperate to have a Polaroid guestbook. It cost us a fortune in film and Rick's cousin spent the first few hours of the reception taking photos with my battered old camera, but it was so worth it! People loved it, and left the most amazing messages scrawled beneath their photos…"
For their first dance, the couple smooched to Otis Redding – 'That's how strong my love is'…
"Our song' seemed too private for such a public moment (it makes me sob unattractively) so we chose this song – which we both love. And really, that intro? How can you not?"
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
"Don't be worried about changing the 'rules' to suit yourselves. I was determined I'd enjoy the day without getting nervous about all those eyes and all that attention. So I did everything I could to stay relaxed. This meant that Rick and I spent the night before together. It also meant that after we'd gotten ready (separately) we met up at a nearby pub for a drink with our respective entourages and all walked up to the ceremony together. And there was no 'hiding the bride', we greeted most people before we went in for the ceremony – which made walking down the aisle a lot less stressful. It all worked brilliantly, I was entirely relaxed and just had a wonderful day.
If I could pass on one tip for long distance wedding planning, it would be to have a reeeaallly long engagement. You not only have to plan a wedding without meeting any vendors or physically seeing any venues, you also have to organise airlines and accommodation and general holiday details. This takes time! Particularly when you can't just ring a vendor and quickly sort something out. We were engaged for 18 months which not only meant that I had plenty of time, but that I could get sick of the whole thing and not look at it for a couple of weeks without then panicking!"
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Brides dress – Elizabeth Dye
Brides shoes – Ian Pinkus
Brides hair accessory – Accessorize.
Hair & Makeup Artist – Ruth Mannion-Palmer
Grooms Suit – Saba in Melbourne + Shirt by Thomas Pink + Cufflinks by DLK Designs
Venue – Great John Street Hotel, Manchester
Photographers – Lillian and Leonard
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You see, a wedding doesn't need to be all out flash or styled up to the max – as long as you are in love, and you have a fine wedding Photographer who you trust, then your wedding photographs will be beautiful, just like these. A very pretty dress just like Mel's helps, of course 🙂
Congratulations Mel and Rick on your lovely, lovely wedding and thank you so much to Cara of Lillian and Leonard for allowing reproduction of these beautiful photographs. Please take a moment to visit the wonderful website of Lillian and Leonard Photography.
Have you booked your wedding photographer yet???
Much love as always 🙂
Annabel xXx
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Annabel View all Annabel's articles
Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
