Morning guys and girls. My my, you were busy visiting Love My Dress yesterday – biggest day of hits ever! Thank you for popping by!
This morning I'm featuring the work of such a lovely lady with a wonderful and vibrant personality (and the most amazing blonde hair {goodness me, I do miss my blonde locks soooo much *sigh*}. Aaaaanway, I digress, so say hello to the wonder that is Anna Clarke – a Birmingham based wedding photographer who I think is brill and ace. And I think you will too once you've seen this wedding and checked out her website.
This is the wedding of Guy & Madi, who got married on 5 November 2011. Remember remember? Yes, that date, which also happens to fall not long after Halloween, which the couple referred to for inspiration when styling their big day…
Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011 – Anna Clarke
Guy and Madi's wedding took place at Hampton Manor of Hampton In Arden. I loved reading through Madi's wedding report and learning how she and Guy had personalised their day and wanted the celebration to truly reflect something of their personalities and lives…
"Our day we knew had to reflect us and make us happy and be about the things we enjoy. Im not very good at matchy matchy and everything in our life is a little higgldy piggildy and I didn’t want every single little detail of the day to be perfect, as that's not us…"
"We love the white pumpkins and have a farm down the road that grows them, which also added to the whole local or handmade theme I was going along. The colour – Coral my favourite colour and I think makes you smile and looks good on everybody…"
"We chose Hampton Manor of Hampton In Arden, as we fell in love with the amazing cluster of trees that turn reddy / orange during the autumn. Luckily for us they had just turned the week before our wedding…"
"We also knew that we didn’t want flowers as decorations, I just wouldn’t buy flowers and Guy wouldn’t buy them for me. So the unbelievable Princess Lasertron made my felt bouquets and our buttonholes and also my Mum's felt flower clip. And even though I couldn’t afford a bridal bouquet, Princess Lasertron made me a very lovely bridesmaid bouquet. I loved them all – especially the bridesmaid flowers which are either lovingly in my bridesmaid houses in vases or on my dinning room table…"
"All the time spent making things was just simply things we liked or meant something special. The cranes is something I had always loved the idea of, that having all the patience to make them means that we could survive marriage as I know it is hard work.
I wanted Guy to know that I would work really hard to make us work and keep it as good as it is. The cranes were really for me to show him my commitment. I made them from all my wedding magazines so they had been recycled…"
"My bridesmaids all wore Dessy dresses from The White Dress Boutique – they could all choose any maxi dress in chiffon.I wanted them to feel comfortable and like them on the day. They are all stunning anyway so whatever they wore would have been perfect, but I cant imagine making them wear something that didn’t reflect who they are, they are all so different…"
"We had originally planned a totally different wedding, but that got cancelled when we found out we were having Tilly and so we moved the date and once we started to look at re booking everything you just know so many more people from having a baby and different people are important to you. It did make me want a party at the night which we wouldn’t have had before as it would have been very small…."
"I always knew that I wanted Rachel Simpson shoes – and they had Coral Tilly Shoes how perfect. My daughters name and our wedding colour…"
Madi wore a Justin Alexander designer, number 8353…
"I kept calling it cigarette stained in colour and it wasn’t of course it was light gold. I work in a wedding dress shop, The White Dress Boutique. But before I started work there two of my bridesmaids took me shopping for dresses. I saw this dress in my first shop and it was the second dress I tried. It had been discontinued and the only one I could have was that one. I walked away – I didn’t want a sample dress as the dress was so sparkly and delicate it really was in bad condition and couldn’t have been repaired well enough. The dress had such a pre loved look already that it needed to be new.
When I started working at Shakespeare in Love, the sister shop to The White Dress Boutiques, Catherine the owner somehow managed to get me a brand new Justin Alexander 8353 dress! I LOVE my wedding dress – the colour looked like it had been around forever and told a story. I had always wanted a fitted lace dress but all the dresses I looked at in magazines all looked too modern and white…"
Madi did her own makeup on the day, but did employ a professional hair stylist…
"The amazing Rachel from Tattered Rose who I met at a wedding fair when I brought our M & G bricks made Nikki, my bridesmaid, a wedding clip and I asked her if she could help me as the colour of my dress meant I needed something different. She found a vintage broach and made my gorgeous head piece which she then dipped to make it more antiqued…"
"I gave all my Bridesmaids bracelets that I had hand-made from a girl from Etsy who makes tiny origami cranes, as the meaning of the crane is so powerful I wanted them all to have a little bit of that with them on the day. Also all the profit from those bracelets went to help children from the Slums in India…"
"My other bouquet my best friend’s Husband made me as he knew I loved the broach bouquets. He turned up one day with this light and plugged it in and lifted up some lace to reveal the gorgeous bouquet – amazing!
"I met Guy at work. I always thought he was the funniest man I had ever met and developed into more randomly when he ended up having a knee operation and being on crutches. I looked after him, I think he liked my mothering skills!
He took me to New York for Christmas and he proposed on Christmas day night, in our hotel room with a ring in my favourite movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” I honestly never thought I would be so lucky as to get the man of my dreams, let alone build the beautiful life together that we have…"
"My mummy gave me away – I don’t see my dad so my lovely mum walked me nervously down the aisle. My gorgeous little brother did the most amazing father of the bride speech also.
I walked down the aisle to ’It feels like home', by Chantel Kreviazux…"
Guy and Madi went to town decorating their venue with 1000 oragmi cranes, which Madi tells me she made lovingly over a whole year. They also used white pumpkins and miniature pumpkins…
"I made all the signs, guest book and table plan with the help of my sister…."
"The amazing Daisy of Daisy Cupcake made our cupcakes. I love carrot cake and apple cake and to make that in to a cupcake is very hard, but she did, and they looked gorgeous and tasted lovely. She also made the cake pops that I look so fetching stuffing in my face and the birthday cake for Guys niece who’s birthday it was on the same day.
Daisy was also our registrar, she is such a lovely, warm bubbly person that I couldn’t believe we could have someone we knew and loved also marry us. But we were very lucky everyone involved in our day we knew and loved…"
"As wedding favours, we provided chocolate pumpkins which my brothers girlfriend made. She lovingly made each pumpkin and hand wrote all the names on them…"
"We didn’t have a first dance – we did however have a very impromptu last dance – which for two non dancers was brilliant and one of my favourite moments. We had both had a little bit to drink by then, you never would have got him dancing if not.
The band played sang our favourite song “Wonderwall” by Oasis and everybody stood around us singing it to us. It was amazing…"
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
'Do what makes you both happy, wear what makes you feel great. Your day will be amazing if it is all about what makes you two as a couple happy. Happiness breeds happiness…
Love, laughter, smiles, tender embraces, and beautiful wedding photography. A perfect Love My Dress wedding. I just love it!
Huge congratulations Guy and Madi – and little Tilly of course! 😉
Thanks too to lovely Anna Clarke for sharing these photographs…
"The amazing and gorgeous Anna Clarke was our wedding photographer! It felt like we had our best friend as our photographer, I don’t know how she stays so professional while still being so much fun!"
Is anyone else going for a gorgeous coral colour scheme on their wedding day? What about opting for no flowers and using felt-bouquets instead like Madi did? I'd love to hear from those of you who are opting for a similar style to Madi 🙂
Much love,
Annabel xXx
♥
Photographer – Anna Clarke
Venue – Hampton Manor of Hampton In Arden
Brides dress – Justin Alexander
Brides shoes – Rachel Simpson
Brides accessories – Tattered Rose + Monsoon earrings
Groom – Made to measure by Tim Nash – A local tailor in Warwick who works from home + tie from Clements Church
Bridesmaids – Dessy from The White Dress Boutique
Felt Bridesmaids bouquets, buttonholes & Mother of the Bride clip – Princess Lasertron
Cakes – Daisy Cupcake
Hair Stylist – Anouska Galdin {no website}
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.
