A Claire Pettibone Tiered Lace Wedding Dress for a 1920’s Inspired Wedding…

Hi everyone 🙂 Just a quick mention for anyone who entered this Upperstreet competition to check back here at lunch time to find out if they have won or not 🙂

This morning’s wedding took place on 17 September this year at St James Church in Horetown, followed by a reception at Dunbrody Country House Hotel in Arthurstown – both of which are close to the Brides hometown of Wexford in Ireland.

Beautiful Bride Kelly got on touch with me directly after marrying her beau Chris, and I am so absolutely delighted that she did {wait until you see their cute engagement shoot and video coming up in a separate blog post soon!}.  Kelly was inspired by the 1920’s in selecting her wedding dress and styling her wedding day.  Her gown was an elegant, tiered style wedding dress by Claire Pettibone {heart beats a little faster} called Kristene…

“I’ve always been a massive fan of all things vintage and in particular the style and fashion of the 1920’s which has always fascinated and delighted me.  I knew that my wedding day would be influenced by this era and so I tried to incorporate this into every aspect without going over the top with a theme.  I took inspiration from wedding magazines but in particular blogs such as Love My Dress and real life weddings which also had a vintage feel….”

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Brosnan Photographic

“We bought a lot of baby’s breath and some greens and put them in jam jars wrapped with lace.  As the candelabras were going to be the main feature on the table(along with the tube photos) the flowers didn’t need to be big but they added a really nice touch to the tables along with some tealight votives…”

“Lamber de Bie was the florist recommended by the venue and after doing some research on florists in the area I was convinced they were the best – their blog talked about vintage roses so I knew they were the one!  I wanted vintage roses to be a big part of the bouquet and thistles also ended up featuring, I sent quite a few images to the florist and there were many emails back and forth about what was and wasn’t in season and also what I did and didn’t like…”

“In the end I was beyond thrilled with the bouquets and couldn’t believe how they had perfectly recreated what I had in my head…” 

“My veil was from Luella’s Boudoir boutique in Wimbledon.  I initially went to Luella’s trying to find a replacement dress(!) but also brought my Kristene to try on veils with it.  The wonderful Rachel was fantastic and convinced me not to even consider another dress and so we began the search for the perfect veil. I knew I wanted something along the lines of a cap veil and something that was quite long.  The veil was perfect in that I could just pin in straight onto my head giving a cap style effect but still being soft and feminine, and I loved the length…”

“I didn’t hire an event planner although I would like to credit my sister, Tracy, for going above and beyond the duties of any Event Planner.  She essentially made all of the save the dates/invites/order of service/menus, she was the stationary queen!  We had nightly skypes (as she lives in the states), she was my sounding board and had so many creative ideas that really brought my vision to life. 

My Mum was also a huge support, as she is based in Wexford she liaised with and managed all the local suppliers, lots of little jobs that would have been a real hassle to take care of from London.  I honestly don’t think the wedding would have happened without them!”

“The dress was without a doubt the most stressful part of the wedding planning for me.  I knew that I wanted something with a vintage feel and that I didn’t want a traditional wedding dress.  Initially I thought that Jenny Packham would be my girl but, as beautiful as they are, once I had tried on quite a few I realised they just weren’t working for me. 

I spent hours and hours trawling through websites to find a style that really jumped out at me, and subsequently spent hours visiting bridal shops trying on dozens of beautiful dresses that just weren’t the ‘one’.  I have to admit that even after purchasing my Kristene gown I had huge panics that I didn’t actually like it and kept searching for a new dress right up until the week of the wedding!”

 

“This is certainly not recommended and it added huge stress to both myself and Chris, I’m almost ashamed to admit that (until the wedding day) I didn’t in fact ‘love my dress’.  When I tried it on initially in the bridal shop I definitely thought it was beautiful and rang my Mum straight away to describe it to her in detail.

However once it was at home hanging in my closet I had serious cold feet.  But, thankfully, on the day itself with my hair and veil completing the look everything seemed to fall into place.  I honestly loved wearing it and cannot think of another dress that would have made me happier, I was so sad to take it off at the end of the day…”

“The bridesmaids dresses were from Coast, again I didn’t want anything obviously bridesmaidy but I also wanted them to be a bit glamorous and something the girls would enjoy wearing.  I loved the colour and also the graduated length which gave it a bit of a 30s dance hall effect…”

“After attending a makeup trial with a local artist I actually decided to do my own makeup.  I’ve been doing my makeup for years and so know what works on me, my biggest fear was not looking like myself on my wedding day.  In the end it probably did add a certain amount of stress on the day but it was the right choice for me. The hair was another big decision, I knew I wanted  20s style finger waves and also knew how difficult they are to do!  Somebody recommended Trudy Hayes and I ended up having to do a last minute trial the week of the wedding but thankfully she was amazing and knew exactly what I wanted and how to achieve it …”

 

“The ceremony took place at St James’ Church in Horetown and the reception at Dunbrody Country House Hotel in Arthurstown – both quite close to my hometown of Wexford in Southern Ireland. 
We had fully intended on getting married in London as we wanted to make sure our friends could be there and also it would be more convenient to plan.  We researched and visited countless venues, some of them really beautiful but they were either outside our budget or they had very early curfews and it was very important to us that our guests didn’t feel rushed to finish up the party and could keep going into the early hours – a typical Irish wedding! 

My Mum mentioned Dunbrody several times and it was only on a trip home that she persuaded us to visit for some afternoon tea.  As soon as I saw it I was sold!  It was the perfect balance of old fashioned charm with some quirky modern features and with beautiful grounds.  Plus it would be ours for the weekend of the wedding with our guests taking all the rooms.  We quickly emailed our friends to check if they would make the journey but everybody was definitely up for a weekend in the Irish countryside :)”

 

“They used dried lavender tied with lace for the pew ends.  We decided to do the flowers for the tables ourselves as I wanted them to have a just picked feel…”

 

“Since we attend an Anglican church in London we wanted a religious ceremony that would be personal and meaningful to us.  Fortunately the local church was everything we could have wished for – a quaint and charming old country church with a lovely tree-lined driveway leading up to the gates. 

The Vicar, who we only met a few months before the day, performed a really beautiful and moving ceremony.  And they even rang the bells for us as we left the church.

 

“We hired lace tableclothes, candelabras and votives for the tables, a croquet set for the garden and a photo booth for the guests to have some fun with.  My sister got some photos of old family weddings to display on the table with the cards for guests to sign as well as the additional tube photos we had taken…”

“We thought long and hard about our table names, we wanted something that would reflect the era but also our lives together.  When Chris suggested the London tube stops it seemed ideal as our lives are very much based in London now and we picked the locations that meant something to us, so either we’d had a first date there or it was a part of our story in some way.  I had the idea of dressing up in vintage clothing and taking shots at each stop, making them into a little love story of sorts.  Our friend Philippa took the photos and did a fantastic job!  My sister then made up tube maps based on the maps from the 20s and these formed the basis of our table plan.  The photos have also become our engagement shoot in a way as we couldn’t afford to do a traditional shoot with a photographer, I can’t wait to get them framed and up in the house!”

 

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

“I would probably say give yourself a reasonable amount of time to plan the wedding.  For various reasons we planned the wedding in 6 months which really wasn’t long and it did feel quite overwhelming.  I would also say if things are getting too much then just lose some of the detail, your guests won’t notice and if it makes your life easier at this time it’s worth it.  There are many things I wish I’d had time to do but there are only so many hours in the day. 

Decide what is really important and let everything else be a bonus.  If you have a sister like mine then you are incredibly lucky, but you will need as much help as you can get so let people be involved.  Delegate as much as you can and try to trust people to get it right(I know it’s hard when you want everything to be perfect and letting go is very difficult). 

And what everybody said to me, try to enjoy it!!”

 

Huge thanks to Christina of Brosnan Photographic for sharing these images…

“I knew the kind of style of photographer I wanted, somebody who would capture lots of detail shots and nothing too posed.  Christina of Brosnan Photographic seemed like a perfect choice as she had won wedding supplier of the year in Ireland in 2011.  Her shots are just beautiful and she really captured some wonderful moments.”

See more 1920s style wedding and Claire Pettibone wedding dresses here.