A Charlie Brear Dress For A Laid Back and Low Key Californian Coast Wedding

It’s not too often that we cover weddings across the pond but this is a special one because the couple chose California as the halfway point between both of their families. Laura, the bride is British and her groom is from New Zealand so it made sense to them for their guests to travel a similar distance to their wedding.

They got married in a beautiful ceremony by the sea on the 28th of September 2016 at the Wind & Sea Estate, a fabulous private house, in Big Sur, California. Laura is lucky to be great friends with photographer Kristian Leven and he was delighted to travel with them to capture their wedding. The results are gorgeous.

“We were aiming for laid back and low key. We wanted the day to be very informal so we kept it very simple with a few personal touches to reflect the two of us and the Californian backdrop. Big Sur speaks for itself so the venue did all the hard work for us. We had previously visited California a few years back and drove highway one from San Francisco to San Diego. We stopped in the Big Sur on this trip and it’s unspeakably beautiful. Our only criteria for the wedding was that we wanted to get married outside and preferably by the sea. As it’s one of the most beautiful coastlines you will ever see, with the most amazing sunsets, it was an obvious choice when we were thinking of places to get married in California.”

Photography by Kristian Leven

Laura got her stunning Charlie Brear dress and top at their old flagship studio in London. She accentuated the low back with a fabulous pearl back necklace from Denise Jewellery Designs and matching earrings. Her hairdresser Kim Larson styled her hair beautifully, adding orange and yellow flowers to match the rest of the florals.

“I wanted a classic piece, which would also suit the venue we had chosen. The Payton dress was very simple and elegant, but with a touch of glamour to make it stand out so I paired this with the Sabine top.”

“The supremely talented Kristian Leven photographed our wedding. As well as being a top London wedding photographer, he also happens to be one of my closest friends of the last 16 years. Asking Kris to be our photographer was the easiest decision of all the wedding planning decisions.”

Mark got his gorgeous blue check suit from Tailor Made in London. He was able to add their names and wedding date to the lining, and the inside of his shirt collar bore the words ‘just married’.

“We met ten years ago through a mutual friend at a party. We had a brief fling and then went our separate ways for several years. We then saw each other again at an event organised by the same mutual friend and we’ve been together ever since. We had been together six years when we got engaged and got married a month after our seven year anniversary.”

Laura’s beautiful bridesmaids wore a selection of long and short Lori Lee lace dresses from Coast in navy and cobalt blue with nude shoes.

They all wore pearl hair pins from Etsy and Laura bought each of them a bracelet as a gift. The flower girl and page boy also wore navy to match the ladies.

 

Laura’s dad accompanied his daughter down the aisle.

“Mark Banks was amazing and kindly agreed to learn the instrumental version of ‘More than Words’ by Extreme for me walk down the aisle to.”

“We adapted our vows and reading of ‘A Lovely Love Story’ by Edward Monkton. We changed a few words in places to reflect the two of us and the location, which was very much in keeping with our laid back approach to the wedding and our sense of humour. Our celebrant Bryan was fantastic and we spent some time with him in Carmel before the wedding so it felt very personal.”

“Mark chose my engagement ring from Osaka in Hatton Garden. It is such a beautiful ring, we didn’t consider going anywhere else to get our wedding rings.”

“The ceremony is normally the boring bit when you go to other weddings but when it is your own it takes on a very different meaning. We ended up giving more time to planning the ceremony than we had thought we would and it became the highlight.”

The couple enlisted the help of Unskripted Designs to supply them with beautiful bright seasonal flowers.

“We tied the flowers in with the local area and what was currently in bloom and we chose the colours to match the Big Sur sunset.”

“We chose the venue in part because it didn’t require any dressing up. We brought photos of all our guests to put up around the house and added some UK and NZ bunting, it really was very simple and low key.”

“We chose a simple three tier lemon sponge cake with white icing in keeping with the simplicity of the day and used the bold flower colours as the main decoration.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom
“If things don’t go to plan, let it go and don’t sweat the small stuff. If you think back to weddings you have attended as a guest, you won’t remember the table decorations, or the lighting so don’t waste your time on these decisions. If you have good food, good wine and good music your guests will take care of the rest.”

“We had a second day of celebrations at the house with a post wedding BBQ as everyone had travelled so far to celebrate with us. The wedding did not feel like it was over in seconds and we were able to spend some proper time with everyone over the course of two days. If anything we would have extended the celebrations if we could.”

Thank you so much to Kristian Leven for these beautiful images and big congratulations to Laura and Mark. Are any of you planning a wedding in the U.S.? We’d love to hear all about it in the comments box below.

Love Caoimhe xx