Emilia and Jackson’s glorious July wedding was held at the bride’s family home in The New Forest.
Simplicity was key in all design aspects of this gorgeous wedding, from the soft, neutral tones of the floral decor, to Emilia’s minimalist plain, cathedral length veil – a discovery at The Wedding Veil Shop, to the simple bridal gown design by cult London label, The Own Studio. Even Emilia’s shoes were a $3 steal from Vinted!
The couple chose well when it came to their suppliers, including photographer Lucy Dracott and film maker Nate McNeilly, who both documented this sweet English country garden wedding most beautifully. Enjoy!
Bridal Beauty & Accessories
I wore my mum’s pearl necklace and the hanging pearl earrings are from Mango. It felt really special to wear something sentimental. I never intended to go for double pearls but as soon as I put on the pearl necklace with the earrings, I knew it was the perfect touch to complete the look.
Jackson and I both picked out a wedding perfume/scent that we saved for the day, to forever remember the day through a scent. We created them ourselves in a little vegan perfume shop called Eden Perfume in Brighton.
I found my shoes on Vinted for $3- a white pair of kitten heels, super simple!
My wonderful friend Holly Smyrk did both my hair and makeup and she made me feel beautiful, so grateful for her incredible skills! It was special to have a friend do her magic on the morning of the wedding. I wanted to feel natural and comfortable on the day, we went for a golden, pink dewy look and it was everything and more.
I ordered my veil off an online via The Wedding Veil Shop. I went for the Cathedral Veil called ‘Jessica’ in Light Ivory with a simple edge.
The Dress
The Own Studio
I got my dress from The Own Studio in London. The dresses are custom made and the staff were so wonderful at capturing my vision and bridal dream.
The moment I slipped into the sample dress, my mum started tearing up and we both knew it was the one! I would 100% recommend this experience to other brides wanting a similar classic, timeless look.
The team were extremely helpful in the lead up to both appointments and with the alterations six weeks before the wedding.
I really loved the elegant and timeless style of this dress, it felt completely me, nothing too crazy and extravagant. I loved the delicate button details and the low back. The dress had a little hook on the back, so I was able to hook it up for dancing in the evening – a very important touch!
I wanted all the bridesmaids to feel beautiful and love what they wore on the day, so I gave them the colour palette and they picked their own dresses. I had a vision of the girls in a blend of colours and dress cuts, it really came to life on the day. A couple of the dresses were from ASOS and a couple from Show Me Your Mumu.
I gifted the bridesmaids little pearl earrings from Oliver Bonas (a mini version of what I wore), these with the flowers, tied all the bridesmaids together. As an option I got some Gypsophelia for the girls to put in their hair and style however they wished!
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The Ceremony
My Dad drove us to the wedding and walked me down the aisle, I adored the drive to the church. We listened to… to shake away the nerves. I will never forget it!
This was to the song ‘Instead of myself’ by Sleeping at last. I loved how dainty but also moving it was and how the song built as we walked down the aisle.
Jon Finch from Saint Mary’s Church, Southampton lead our ceremony. He was so incredibly thoughtful and helped us put together the ceremony in a meaningful and beautiful way whilst also making it so engaging and memorable for our guests.
We are both Christian and felt it was so special to share parts of our faith with all our friends and family. This was reflected in our scripture readings, our worship songs and our friends that prayed blessings over us after we were married. My father wrote a poem that was based on Numbers 6:24-26, we had it on the back of our ceremony booklet.
We asked a few guests to bring cakes and baked goods for after the ceremony, we had this with coffee and tea before the confetti exit.
My sisters made a mini replica wedding cake, as we split the day into three parts and not all guests would be there for the cake cutting. I have such fond memories of the girls baking in the kitchen and decorating the cake the day before the wedding.
Our readings were Psalm 128:1-4 and Lamentations 3:21-24. Both verses shine hope on the foundations of our faith and the importance of keeping our faith at the centre of our marriage. Psalm 128 speaks to the wife being a fruitful vine and the children being olive shoots around the table, I love the imagery of this, I have always read it and dreamed of one day being this for my husband! Our wonderful friends Neve and Dave read the scripture.
The rings were from Executive Diamonds in Calgary, Canada. Both our wedding bands have the wedding date engraved on the inside. My engagement ring has white gold on the interior which Jackson custom made represent God at the center of our marriage.
All my bridesmaids were sisters or sister in laws and it felt perfect!
Photography
We picked the wonderful Lucy Dracott to capture our wedding day. She effortlessly captured the people, the ambience, the ceremony, every moment of our wedding. Lucy made us feel so special on the day, it felt so natural and she instantly makes you feel at ease.
Throughout the whole process Lucy is so encouraging, wise and she even sent our complimentary wedding pictures to Canada.
Her photography is to die for and we could not recommend more.
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Nate McNeilly was incredible to work with from start to finish, his work is a testament to that. We had a thirty-second highlight video that came back super quick after the wedding and a 3-5 minute video capturing clips of the speeches and it was just wonderful.
We have re-watched the video hundreds of times. We feel so grateful to have this video forever.
How They Met
We met on a tiny magical Island off the coast of British Columbia called Keats at a Family Ministry Camp. We were volunteering for a couple weeks, but I am from England and Jackson is Canadian so we said goodbye we thought forever at the end of those two weeks (Looking back now I remember the day after I met him texting my sister saying I think ‘I could marry someone like this one day’, – I think I just knew).
Two Years later we were back on the Island together and fell for each other all over again. We started dating that summer, but this also meant we were heading into four years of long distance.
A billion Facetimes, hundreds of letters and airport goodbyes later we were back on the Island for another summer working on the camp. In a full circle moment Jackson proposed on the dock we met on all those years before. We were engaged for a year before we tied the knot in July and moved to Canada.
Jackson wore a custom-made Navy suit from Indochino. The pockets had the wedding date stitched into the inside to make it extra special. The suit was fabric choice with waist adjustments, medium lapels, ticket pockets and lining. Jackson’s tie was from Brooks Brothers and the brown loafers are Weejuns from G.H. Bass.
I used Wildbunch Florists for the bouquets and a couple of the church arrangements. They were amazing to work with and perfectly captured the natural, loose, whites and soft pastel coloured wildflower look. I sent in pictures of my inspiration and they exceeded all my expectations, I was over the moon when we picked them up. All the bouquets were tied together with hanging satin ivory ribbon.
For the reception, my sweet Mother in Law worked her magic and put together flower arrangements and all the little bud vases for the tables. From the beginning I had imagined the tables to be covered with little delicate bud vases filled with pastel coloured flowers. We picked these flowers from a wholesaler in Winchester called Dutch Masters. The flowers included Peonies, Sweet Peas, Delphinium, Anthuriums, Cosmos.
My sister in law and little cousins picked greenery from the garden and made mini bouquets tied with Satin ribbon, we tied these to the seats at the church.
The Reception
We borrowed the marquee from my friend, Charlotte. The day we got married we woke up to wind and rain, despite our efforts to keep the marquee from blowing around, it completely tipped over and landed on a couple of our guests. It definitely made for an unforgettable memory – I can still picture one of our friends holding the marquee in one hand and his wife underneath.
We kept the décor minimal with bulb lights, pastel-coloured candles, simple delicate florals and I made a board with little envelopes for guests to write us a note instead of a guest book. We had paper lanterns hanging intermittently up the drive to the reception. It was a summer wedding and I wanted everything to look fresh and floral.
We had a jazz duo playing whilst guests arrived at the reception, it really added to the ambience of the day.
We also had a candle burning with a little note for our loved ones that are in our heart but not with us. This was a touch that I am so glad we had for so many reasons.
Jackson designed all our stationery – the menus, the day booklets, table numbers and table plans. It was all him, so grateful we were able to create everything from scratch to match our vision so perfectly.
We provided a hand-painted, watercolour painting for each guest on seed paper, with a handwritten letter from Jackson and I. We wanted to give our guests something personal, every painting was different and expressed our gratitude for each special person there.
My wonderful friend Holly Smyrk has a wonderful Mum, Penny who has her own catering company called ‘The Shed Twyford’ and she made our lovely and delicious cake. We wanted something to match the floral fresh spring style of the wedding and opted for dried edible flowers. We have a family sword on my mums side, we thought it would be hilarious to cut the cake with it!
We had a lot of fun at our food tasting wiih Chilli Pepper Catering, we got to try the whole menu and it was delicious, the food really was unbelievable. We had so many comments after the wedding asking for recipes and guests dreaming of the Dauphinoise potatoes and floral, fruit covered Pavlova.
Everything was dairy free to meet everyone’s dietary needs and they were so accommodating to all guests’ allergies. We had appetisers served before dinner with bubbly and then a taco bar after dinner whilst the dance floor got grooving.
Evening & Dancing
Our first dance was ‘Yours to Keep’, by Jordan Mckampa. I loved this song throughout our years of dating and it felt like the perfect song for our first dance. I saw him live before the wedding and he mentioned he sings this song at a bunch of weddings… didn’t quite get the live version but later found out my sister had got in touch and asked.
Oh, I love to dance especially with our favourite people, I did not want to leave the dance floor. Jackson being from Calgary meant we had to bring a western flair to the wedding, we got our cowboy boots on and line danced- very memorable and the Brits were trying to follow the Canadians crushing it.
I also adored having the three worship songs back-to-back instead of splitting them up throughout the service. It was special and holy and standing next to the man I was minutes away from marrying felt so surreal. I was in the moment so much my veil came off.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Someone once told me, put your back against the wall for three seconds and just soak in everyone in the room, you probably won’t ever have all these people in one room again – celebrating you.
I also recommend trialing all the beauty extras you might be doing for the first-time spray tans, nails, eyelash lift etc. beforehand as there were things I realised I wouldn’t want to do on the day but this was only through trial and error!
Truly everyone says it but on the actual day the stress melts, I was so peace filled the whole day. Joy really takes over, the little details you might have fretted over the day before don’t matter! You will want to relive that day for the rest of your life, enjoy every second.
I would have got the Taxi to pick us up later, I did not want to leave the dance floor and was literally dragged off it because our poor taxi driver was waiting. I kept saying one more song …! But that is it, everything went better, smoother, easier than I imagined but I’m sure that’s because my wonderful friends and family were running around behind the scenes!
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Additional Credits
The below suppliers and venues are featured in this article, but are not part of the Love My Dress Wedding Directory.
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.
