A Monique Lhuillier Wedding Dress for a Fun, Relaxed Outdoor Wedding in Devon…

Afternoon loves 🙂 Time for some real wedding action, this time from a personal fave wedding photographer based in the Midlands – Mr Steve Gerrard.  Watch him strut his stuff on Love My Dress here – he is amazing!  Steve was lucky enough to have been commissioned to photograph the gorgeous Caireen & her husband Ross's wedding on 28th August 2011 at Buckland House in Beaworthy, Devon.  

Now you know me, I adore weddings and have a mild obsession with wedding dresses, and one designer I find myself in awe of every time is the wonderful Monique Lhuillier.  Caireen is obviously a lady of great style and taste, as she chose a frankly drop-dead gorgeous Monique Lhuillier wedding dress – a second hand purchase that she found via Preowned Wedding Dresses {who featured on Love My Dress last week}. and don't you just LOVE the little gold cardy that Caireen is wearing below? So cute! By the way, ten out of ten for the first person to leave a comment with the name of the famous person spotted amongst the guests! 😉 

"I had fallen in love with the dress having seen it featured on a wedding on a blog, but then found out it was several seasons old and was no longer available unless I was prepared to pay a small fortune to have it made specially.

I then discovered the Preowned Wedding Dresses website, and basically stalked the sites until the dress came, which luckily it did!"

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Steve Gerrard

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Monique Lhuillier wedding dress

"We hired an E-type jaguar to drive down from London (where we had had a civil ceremony on the Fri at Hackney Town Hall) and had the car for the rest of the week post the wedding for our Honeymoon…."

red e-type jaguar

Elegant, simple and so damn gorgeous;  patent wedding heels by Louboutin

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Ross used his late grandad’s ring and Caireen had a replica made of her mother’s wedding ring. How lovely is that?

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Caireen's bridesmaids wore dresses from Topshop which they teamed with shoes from ASOS and fresh flowers in their hair…

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"We wanted a weekend wedding rather than just a day in a country house where our friends and family could stay. We had hired Buckland House for our joint 30th birthday a few years back and despite travelling the breadth of the country, Buckland was our benchmark and no other venue came close.

There exist no restrictions with the house and you basically get handed the keys and left to your own devices. Thirty of our friends and family stayed in the house and another sixteen in tipees in the grounds. Many stayed for 3+ days so it really was a celebration…"

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"Our cake was actually made from Jelly by Bompas and Parr – who also provided our dessert.  We knew we didn’t want a traditional wedding cake and were big fans of Jelly and Bompas and Parr and their crazy jelly concoctions. We went for a Jelly tasting and chose Prosecco & Cherry and Gin & Elderflower which were served as a tier for our cake and in…"

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"Our wedding was based around everything that we love, friends and family, amazing food and drink, great music and dancing, festival style summer living and lots of fun and laughter…"

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"As wedding favours, we made packets of seeds containing ‘Forget me Nots’…"

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"Our Florists were The Flower Appreciation Society – we had limited budget so The Flower Appreciation Society supplied the flowers pre-arranged and friends brought the flowers down and we set them up around the venue ourselves.."

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"My earrings were my grandmothers and match my engagement ring which was also hers…"

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Caireen walked down the aisle to ‘Sea of Love’ by Cat Power and her choice of recessional song was ‘Gimme some Lovin’ by the Spencer Davis Group…

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"We were legally married in Hackney in London which allowed us to have a humanist ceremony which made it amazingly personal as we were able to write our own vows…"

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"We wanted an informal feel for our reception, and so chose Entertaining Food who could offer a family dining style, which was perfect.  We also had a cocktail hour after the reception with three cocktail options all in different glasses including tea cups…"

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"We wanted as much of the wedding to be outside as possible. Fortunately the weather held out so our ceremony was held under a arch that we made, we had the reception inside on long communal tables and with dancing back outside under a canopy of lights on a black and white dancefloor…"

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"We had a double bass player during pre reception drinks. A guy who we know from London called Dan Cundy who plays the markets in our area.  We had the Wedding Smashers DJ in the evening, who played exactly the sort of  broad mix of music that we and our friends and family love…"

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The coupled danced to 'You’re My Best' Friend by Queen…

"We have been together for over 15 years and the words rang quite true to us…"

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Words of Wedded Wisdom…

"Be true to what you enjoy and love rather than what is necessary expected of weddings. It will make it so much more personal

Also take up the offers of help. We would never have been able to have got everything to the venue and set up completed in the day we had if it had not been for some amazing dedication of family and friends.."

 


Huge thanks to Steve Gerrard for sending in these photographs to be featured on Love My Dress…

"Capturing the day as true as possible was something that was important to us and although we adore pictures we are also not the most comfortable in front of the camera so wanted a photographer who we could trust and make us feel at ease.

From the first time that we met Steve, we knew he wouldn’t let us down. We loved having him around on our big day and the photos we have been left with are something we will cherish forever, especially some of the photobooth pictures taken later in the evening which are hilarious."

Do I have any more Monique Lhuillier brides to be reading this page? Is anyone else planning an outdoor wedding similar to Caireen and Ross's?

You can see more from Photographer Steve Gerrard on Love My Dress here.  Also take a peek at the other outdoor weddings that have been featured.

Much love all,

Annabel

Photographer – Steve Gerrard
Venue – Buckland House, Beaworthy, Devon
Brides dress – Monique Lhuillier via Preowned Wedding Dresses
Brides Veil – borrowed from a friend
Brides Shoes – Christina Louboutin 
Grooms Suit – Mr Start + Yves Saint Laurent shoes
Bridesmaids Dresses – Topshop + ASOS shoes + fresh flower hair accessories
Flowergirls – tutu skirts made to measure from Etsy, zara t-shirt + cardigan + Converse
Flowers – The Flower Appreciation Society
Cake – Bompas and Parr
Transport – E-Type Jaguar {hired}
Hair Stylist – Lyndy Ewings
Make-Up Artist – Rebecca Earle
Catering Compang – Entertaining Food
Entertainment – The Wedding Smashers 

Annabel

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.

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