A Pregnant Bride in Halfpenny London Dress for her Liverpool City Centre Wedding

Happy Monday all, what an incredible, utterly wonderful summer we are having here in the UK. An actual summer full of sunshine. We may be due a spot of rain later today but that’s more than OK after weeks of blue skies and warmth.

This morning’s wedding makes me so happy to see – a radiant, pregnant bride wearing a killer gown by one of my very favourite designers. Barrister Lianne married University IT worker Chris on 17th June last year at Liverpool Parish Church followed by a reception held at Oh Me Oh My in Liverpool City Centre. I’m thrilled to discover that the bride discovered her designer, Halfpenny London, through our gorgeous directory, Little Book For Weddings.

“I had completely buried my head in the sand about my dress and had to be coerced by my bridesmaids into actually going to look at some. I am plus size and we were trying for a baby after many challenges so I had everything crossed that I might be pregnant by the time we got married and I felt completely at a loss as to where to start looking. The ‘Daisy dress’ was actually the first dress I had tried on and despite visiting lots of other bridal shops and trying and attempting to try on many other dresses, it was the one that was always the front-runner. The wrap style of the Daisy was the most flattering for my shape and was perfect to accommodate a growing bump.”

Images by Amy Faith

“I decided to purchase the dress directly from Halfpenny London, as I wanted the peace of mind that their own atelier was there to deal with the uncertainty of what the final measurements might turn out to be. I was 8 weeks pregnant when I ordered the dress and 6 months pregnant when we got married which made the fittings less than straightforward but Kate and her team of magicians especially Marilyne made me feel so comfortable and reassured me that they would make sure I left with the dress of my dreams. I travelled from Liverpool to London for the fittings which was actually one of my favourite parts of the wedding planning as my best friend and chief bridesmaid lives there and it we made each trip into a special occasion. The dress even had its own seat in first class when I travelled home on the train after the final fitting!”

“We met on Guardian Soulmates and I think we surprised ourselves at how well we got on… from the unlikeliest of beginnings started a whirlwind romance and within a few months we had moved in together. We got engaged two years later in Barbados on holiday with friends. I was born in Barbados and Chris proposed to me just round the corner from where I had lived when I was a baby.”

Totally adoring these Charlotte Olympia flat-heeled shoes and perspex clutch bag below.

“Myself and my bridesmaids’ make up was by Gloria McGlashen, a superstar and an actual miracle worker. I had seen Glo on Instagram and asked her to recreate one of her signature glowy looks using Charlotte Tilbury products.”

“Hair was by Melissa at Andrew Collinge. Never one to take the easy option I had decided I wanted to wear my habitually straightened Afro hair curly for the wedding.”

“It is not the easiest to manage at the best of times and I had had the bright idea that I would do my own hair but sensing a potential hormonal meltdown on the morning of the wedding my bridesmaids finally convinced me to leave it to the experts. Melissa and I still joke about her face when I went in for my trial the day before the wedding and she asked me when I was getting married.”

“My husband had a bracelet made for me by Ark Jewllery, using gold from jewellery that had belonged to him, his mother and his grandmother based on a vintage Tiffany design with a ruby which is a stone that has a special meaning to us. He had told me to open his gift to me before I had my make up done on the morning of the wedding and I’m glad I heeded his advice as its significance brought on the first of many happy tears. My Uncle had also given me my late Aunty’s sapphire ring to wear as my ‘something borrowed, something blue’.”

“I chose four of my closest friends as bridesmaids, my girl gang. They looked beautiful in the clean lines of their pink scuba dresses from ASOS and carried bunches of blush pink hydrangeas tied with brown string. The girls all have impeccable taste so I asked them to wear their favourite shoes. I just wanted them to feel comfortable and look like themselves. I think Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin made an appearance!”

“Our florist was Chloe Robinson Designs. We wanted rustic, informal flowers in blush pink to tie in with the loose theme we had already chosen. Chris’ input into the flowers was that he preferred bouquets and arrangements that didn’t look like they could ‘knock someone out…!’. Chloe immediately got what we had in mind and the flowers were absolutely stunning.”

“We live in Liverpool city centre and were very keen to have a wedding that felt like ‘us’ rather than a formal off-the-shelf package and when we started thinking about the day both the church and the reception venue seemed liked obvious choices and had the added bonus of being in walking distance from our apartment. We also liked the idea that the our friends and family wouldn’t have to travel miles between venues or to the middle of nowhere to celebrate with us although many, necessarily, did make long journeys .”

“We booked both venues very quickly after we returned home and once we had booked the date we felt a lot more relaxed about the whole thing. We have very similar taste in most things and had the luxury of two years to let our ideas develop organically rather than having to make any snap decisions.”

“We designed and made our stationery ourselves and had it printed locally. I had drawn a cartoon for the front of the order of service and the table plan and table names were a labour of love and the culmination of many hours of heated ‘discussions’ about which maps to use. I glued together hundreds of wooden scrabble letters for the place name settings and one of Chris’ friends grew a rosemary bush specially for us to use to tie sprigs to the menus with brown string.”

“Chris chose a tweed suit from Groom at The Wedding House, with a Liberty print tie. I had given Chris three custom-made sets of cufflinks to choose from on the morning of the wedding as my gift to him.”

“I had intended to walk to the church but bottled it when I reminded myself that I was six months pregnant and that it was forecast to be the hottest day of the year. It was £50 well spent for the round trips for the older members of my family and the bridal party! I had been determined to arrive late to keep Chris on his toes and when we pulled up outside the church at 2.32pm and I expressed my half-joking disappointment at only managing to be 2 minutes late the driver offered to go round the block again!”

“Super Steve, my stepdad, accompanied me down the aisle to the sound of ‘Don’t Wait’, by Mapei, a song that means a lot to us. Our ceremony readings included  ‘We Will Not Wish You Joy’, by Brian Zouch.”

We will not wish you joy on this great day,
For joy is in your heart and goes with you
Along the fragrant, mystic, sunlit way;
We will not wish you joy while love is new.

But this is our wish: May you be strong enough
To shelter love, and keep it safe from harm,
When winds blow high, and roads are steep and tough
May you protect your love, preserve its charm.

When days are dark, may love be your sure light,
When days are cold, may love be your bright fire,
Your guiding star when hope is out of sight,
The essence and the sun of your desire.

May love be with you through the flight of years,
Then after storms, there always be calm.
Though you have cause for heartache and for tears,
Despair lasts not, where love is there for balm.

This be the wish we breathe for you today:
When you have reached the summit of life’s hill,
May it be possible for you to say,
“Married long years, but in love still.”

“My favourite part of the wedding day was walking into the church to a song that is very special to us as a couple. It had been the part that I had been most nervous about but seeing Chris at the end of the aisle and all of our friends and family looking so happy for us is a feeling that I will never forget.”

“Chris had designed and had my engagement ring made by Jeremy Fischer. Chris chose a platinum wedding band with rose gold on the inner surface. My wedding ring is a platinum diamond full eternity band with one of the diamonds replaced by a single sapphire to represent our baby as we had already found out that we were expecting a boy.”

“We had seen our photographer, Amy’s work on Instagram and really liked her aesthetic and the fact that her images seemed to document the day without looking too staged or contrived. Everyone commented on how they hardly noticed that Amy was there. “

“She was like a photography ninja managing to capture moments on camera that it didn’t seem possible to be able to. Amy completely put me at ease during the bridal prep and was able to impart pearls of wisdom about things that hadn’t even occurred to me like how soon to start putting my dress on.”

“The venue is absolutely stunning and doesn’t need much by way of dressing but we wanted to add a few personal touches to tie in with our travel theme so we bought a globe to use as the guest book and surrounded it with photos of us in the places that were special to us and used things that we already had like the L & C lights and scrabble bunting lights. Chris’ father also surprised us with a pink wedding card post box.”

“We wanted to include references to places that we had been together since we had met as we are well-known for our love of holidays and a travel theme developed. I came up with the idea of the scrabble letters for the place settings as I had been a bit of a geek as a child and loved playing it with my mum. The wood of the scrabble tiles, the brown string and rosemary we used on the tables and in the flower arrangements were in keeping with the rustic feel we were going for and we used blush pink as an accent to tie everything together.”

“We didn’t hire an event planner, but the event planners at Oh Me Oh My Katie and Dannielle are fantastic and on hand to assist with the planning, dressing of the room and on the day itself. The fact that the room looked exactly as I had envisioned it would when we walked into the reception is a testament to their expertise.”

“For favours, we had boxes of Charbonnel et Walker chocolates: blush pink hearts for the girls and silver top hats for the boys. Chris had been gently encouraging me to get things like the favours ordered months before and when I finally went online and they were out of stock I drafted in my Girl Gang and my chief bridesmaid sourced the lion’s share from various shops in central London by the end of the day.”

The couple chose to do a first dance to ‘Let’s Stay Together’, by Al Green.

“The DJ was provided by Oh Me Oh My but we had spent most of the two years of wedding prep refining our playlist for the drinks reception and evening reception as music is so important to us both.

“We didn’t want to go wild as we were very conscious that all of our money was about to be prioritised elsewhere, but we took the view that things ‘cost what they cost’, and that although we were able to do a lot ourselves there were things that we simply couldn’t do and that should be left to the experts.

We had set a loose budget of £15000 which we pretty much stuck to and we were fortunate to have been helped by both our parents and my uncle which meant a lot to us.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“If the year before our wedding taught us nothing else it was that the most important thing is each other and if our love could get us through the worst that life can throw at you then the wedding was really just the icing on the cake. When you boil it all down to its truest form the most important thing about getting married is the getting married bit so make that the focus and you can’t really go wrong. My mantra was, ‘as long as the church doesn’t burn down it’ll all be ok’. All the other stuff will fall into place, everyone there just wants you to be happy and there is so much love in the room for you it will blow your mind.”

“I loved following Love My Dress: the buzz of seeing each new wedding pop up was addictive. I like the idea of it being a supportive community for quality suppliers who have the Love My Dress stamp of approval. All of our suppliers were female and local and they did a bloody good job. Your blog is an amazing forum for showcasing their work.”

“You don’t often see larger brides on ANY of the bridal blogs/ social media let alone pregnant ones so I hope that the industry is moving towards a more inclusive vision of what it means to be a bride: whatever that bride looks like. And if nothing else this can be an open letter to wedding dress makers far and wide to stock bigger sizes.”

“I know it’s fairly controversial especially on a wedding blog! but I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s the ‘biggest day of your life’ but it’s an incredibly important day and if you remember why it’s important then the little things that go wrong won’t matter. Nobody will notice the ‘Mrs and Mrs’ cake topper you ordered by accident and didn’t realise! Enjoy it and don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Not at all, I actually completely agree and purposefully try to avoid the term ‘best/biggest day of your life!’. It would be pretty depressing if it was – I like to think that the adventures and experiences life throws you after the wedding are going to be pretty epic too 🙂

Lianne and Chris, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful day with us.

Annabel x