Natasha Kaursland, 30, married Jack Harcourt, 31, on 3rd December 2022 at Tythe Barn. She wore the Lara dress by Rime Arodaky (from The Mews Bridal) and a silk jumpsuit from Dandelions & Pearls.
This is part 3 in a series of 6 articles that ask brides who married at this beautiful Oxfordshire wedding venue to reflect on their wedding day fashion choices – with insights that will benefit all readers on the hunt for their wedding dress or wedding day attire. You’ll find the other brides here.
I always imagined I’d have a beautiful summer garden wedding, perhaps at home, with a marquee or a cliff top in Italy
But that’s not what happened. Jack is very traditional, and I don’t particularly like to do things the way other people do. I’m not religious, I was never christened. Jack on the other hand was, he’s in the military and has a very traditional outlook on life
He wanted to marry in a church, provide for his family, have the 2.5 kids – we’re opposites. I had to think about how the dress could bridge our different approaches to the day.
www.thetythebarn.co.uk
In the directoryTythe
Listed inVenuesI always imagined I’d have a beautiful summer garden wedding, perhaps at home, with a marquee or a cliff top in Italy
But that’s not what happened. Jack is very traditional, and I don’t particularly like to do things the way other people do. I’m not religious, I was never christened. Jack on the other hand was, he’s in the military and has a very traditional outlook on life.
He wanted to marry in a church, provide for his family, have the 2.5 kids – we’re opposites. I had to think about how the dress could bridge our different approaches to the day.
I was trawling through Instagram and found The Mews in Notting Hill
It looked like a beautiful place to go and buy a dress. It stocks only French designers and was really different to anything else I had seen.
But not too out there and not something our parents would look at and say, what the hell are you wearing? They asked me to look at the website and select five dresses I would like to try on. This would be our starting point.
The Rime Arodaky dress was the first one on the rail so the one I picked up first. I tried it on, and my mum and sister burst into tears. I could have bought it there and then but I wondered if this is how everyone feels the first time they try on a wedding dress, so I kept going.
Every other dress got a flat no, they just kept saying, it’s the first one. I was the sensible one saying I should look at other places.
Then I went to Ellie Sanderson in Beaconsfield and I tried on a dress by RISH, an Israeli collection, which was beautiful but my family just kept going back to the Rime dress.
There was also a structured dress which would have been perfect it was getting married at a town hall in the city, but I knew it wasn’t right for the day we were planning at Tythe.
Everyone kept going back to the first dress at The Mews so I went back, tried it on again and it was magical, especially once they added the matching veil. There was a shimmer to the applique detail on the dress and the flared cuffs that I loved.
It was modest at the front so not too revealing but I had my whole back out. I felt it made the most of the figure I have. The only thing I wasn’t totally sold on was the skin-coloured lining.
It didn’t match my skin tone. I asked if it could be changed to an ivory one, but Rime doesn’t like to change her dresses. I didn’t have a problem with that.
By the time I had the dress and we were doing the alterations, I thought it was perfect, I didn’t have any doubts then.
www.thetythebarn.co.uk
I managed my first dance in it, but it was completely impractical for any movement
I had this vision that I needed a jump suit because I’m a big dancer and I knew I’d be on people’s shoulders. I went to the Un-Wedding Show and found Dandelions & Pearls the jumpsuit of all jumpsuits.
It was made with a silk crepe, slightly v-neck at the front but then hugely plunging at the back and long-sleeved with beautiful buttons on the cuffs. The fact she made that jumpsuit for me is amazing. I wore it with white Doctor Martens so I could stomp around. I would love to dye it another colour so I can wear it for the rest of my life.
I went onto the Tythe website and by the opening screen I knew it was where we would get married . . .
It’s the most beautiful place in the world. I loved the authenticity of the barn, I just fell in love. It feels almost like a church in its vastness and beauty without being one.
You still have what feels like a natural aisle but without having to be religious. They had also just opened the family farmhouse to guests – in fact it was still being designed during our first visit – and I knew it couldn’t be any more perfect. The stars aligned and it was obvious there was no point even looking anywhere else.
www.thetythebarn.co.uk
The image that told me I got it just right
Is one where I am next to the window in the farmhouse, just outside the bridal suite. It’s taken from behind and you can see the veil touching my naked back and the train. It’s just stunning.
The lighting for our couple shots outside was also just perfect. It was a winter’s day, bloody freezing, but the sun had just come out and to have that on 3rd Dec when it would have been lashing down with rain or cloudy was really magic.
I’m still so obsessed with the dress
And my advice to anyone would be to trust your gut feel and instinct. But also, don’t rush because there’s no need to. If you’re not 100% sure, go to some other places, enjoy the process of looking. You can always come back to the first one like I did. If I have any regret, it’s that I didn’t go to ten boutiques.
Not because I regret the dress I chose but I would have loved more of that experience with my mum and sister, drinking champagne together and trying on the sorts of dresses that I will never wear again. So just keep going until you don’t have any time left.
Take advice from your family but it’s not the be all and end all. I’m lucky because my mum is cool but if she had been very traditional, she may have questioned the dress and swayed me another way.’
www.thetythebarn.co.uk
The Tythe Barn
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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.
