Natasha & Lloyd’s Autumn Wedding at Elmore Court, Gloucestershire – Featuring a Bespoke Hermione de Paula Gown

We’re so excited to share Natasha and Lloyd’s sublime October wedding at the iconic Elmore Court in Gloucestershire.

Natasha, Operations Manager for Dearborn Estates (the team behind Kin House, LIMEKILN, Millbridge Court, and Hyde House), and Lloyd, Executive Steward at the Four Seasons in Hampshire, planned a day filled with elegance and warmth.

It’s a real joy to see that the couple collaborated with four Love My Dress recommended suppliers to bring their vision to life; the talented Carrie Lavers captured every magical moment, Rewritten bridesmaids provided contemporary style, Furniture on the Move added statement pieces to their chic setup, and Elmore Court set the stage for an unforgettable celebration.

Natasha’s breathtaking bespoke and delicately embroidered gown by Hermione De Paula perfectly reflected the autumnal charm and creative spirit of the day, making this wedding a true masterpiece of love and inspiration.

Immense love and thanks to this beautiful bride for making this feature possible and sharing such kind words about Love My Dress – Natasha, you have no idea how much this means! Enjoy!

Bridal Beauty & Accessories

I took way too long contemplating my scent. I opted for Eleventh Hour from Byredo after finding it in Space NK the day I chose my dress and I bought it in Heathrow airport a month before the wedding after smelling it again and knowing it was long lasting.

I’ve always been a bit of a shoe addict; however, the length of my gown dictated the height of the shoe and Instagram Ads suggested the exact shoe, thanks no doubt to algorithms of me searching. I ordered them online and they were in the sale, winner. They were by Monsoon.

Olivia Mills was the very first supplier I booked, even before the venue! I have had the pleasure of working with Olivia at many, many weddings at Millbridge Court and she has become a dear friend of mine. I cannot recommend her enough and my mum after having her make up done on the day asked if we could take her home with us.

I have seen time after time Olivia go above and beyond on a wedding day, she’s like having another bridesmaid in the room. One who is calm and can help with any morning nerves all whilst making you feel your very best.  My hair accessories were by Tilly Thomas Lux.

Venue & Location

We got married at Elmore Court located in Gloucestershire. After presenting Lloyd with an epic spreadsheet of wedding venues (I feel this could be my Mastermind subject), he asked me to whittle it down to three. I had already budgeted the lot and only showed him venues I knew we could afford.

Having worked in venues I knew exactly what I wanted. We got engaged whilst we were developing Kin House so it was a really tough call not to opt for Kin but I knew that I wanted a place that would be special to us and somewhere I could switch off and just be a Bride. 

Photography & Videography

Having worked with so many wonderful suppliers over the years working in weddings & events I found this a real challenge so for all our suppliers I worked out a short list and Lloyd made the final choice.

We had Carrie Lavers shoot our day, we were drawn to her romantic moody style and after booking her it was only when I was catching up with my friends that it clicked that she had shot my friend’s wedding and months later we had bumped into each other at a A Most Curious Wedding Fair and she recognised me from the dance floor (I have a habit of dropping into a split). 

By the time I had convinced Lloyd to let me book a videographer my shortlist were fully booked, so we turned to Elmore’s recommended list and after speaking to Craig from Amazing Dayz we felt in very safe hands and are so pleased that we have our loved ones captured to rewatch over the years to come.

How They Met

We met in 2017 when I was cast as Captain Scarlet at Pirates Mallorca, Lloyd was working on the same show and said my name jumped out at him when he seen the cast list for the coming year…he said Hi at the staff water cooler and the rest is a romantic summer!

After my contract I came back to the UK and got back into the wedding industry, and we kept our relationship going with thanks to EasyJet. Lloyd moved back home in 2019; we moved in together in January 2020 and got in engaged in the crazy summer of 2021. 

We were both working in hospitality and knew that a wedding in 2022 would be out of the question, so we gave ourselves plenty of time to plan and opted for October 2023. 

The Reception

Our caterers were Kalm Kitchen. Having worked closely with the Directors we simply had to have them caterer our day. I am so grateful to Jen, James and their team for looking after us from initial enquiry to delivering the event. The wonderful Jen even created a dried floral backdrop for our top table.

Their ethos is to leave guests feeling utterly delighted and they did not disappoint! Guests are still talking about our pudding. 

Although I’m a huge fan of cake, Lloyd isn’t so we opted to just have a big stash of Lindt truffles for guests to help themselves to throughout the evening. 

Our florist was Nicky Doodson – I also met Nicky working at Millbridge Court, she created the beautiful florals for an intimate wedding for 15 before putting on a beautiful hot pink dress and becoming a guest herself. 

I was really impressed and approached her to ask her to become a Partner at Millbridge, she said she would love to but was relocating to Gloucestershire, so when we booked Elmore, she was top of my shortlist. Having never worked at Elmore before we met Nicky onsite, and she really guided us taking our initial thoughts and creating the perfect design within our budget. 

We were both absolutely blown away by our florals and I distinctly remember walking down the aisle and clocking the florals before anything else (sorry husband!).

I naively thought to save money we would do all the stationery ourselves, but I really wasn’t happy with the options, so I reached out to the super talented Freya of Deabill & Quince another industry friend who I had met through working at Soho Farmhouse.

Freya took my initial concept and ran with it, creating something special for us and our guests. She was launching a William Morris collection; we wanted the stationary to complement our napkins that all existed within his prints / patterns, so it all pulled together rather wonderfully. 

Abi from The Knotted Napkin Co was another superstar supplier, she created use bespoke napkins based on our colour palette as each table had their own napkin to co-ordinate with the table plan rather than a table name or number.

Evening & Dancing

For the evening, we had the house band from New Power Soul Club. They played at my sister-in-law, Beth’s wedding, and we LOVED them so it was an easy choice and I nice connection! 

We chose ‘Lola’s Theme’, from Shapeshifters; we never were going to be a slow and romantic kind of couple and I even dragged Lloyd to ballroom lessons to boost his confidence and we spent evenings choreographing a routine to kick start the party.

Inspired by the fantastic Rachel from Salt and Scent, we wanted to make the dance floor pop, so we hired streamers from All a Flutter. Kate was incredibly helpful throughout, putting together colour combos and even sourcing a new colour for me! It couldn’t have been easier. She shipped them to the venue, the lovely staff at Elmore put them up and took them down for me and then a courier collected them. Seamless!

We hired cross back chairs from Valley Furniture Hire for our dining tables. In addition we sourced comfy seating from Furniture on the Move to create a lounge space by the bar and poseur tables for the dance floor. 

Words of Wedded Wisdom

This is oddly something I say at work a lot, ‘always remember the why.’ Wedding planning is a real rollercoaster. Firstly, it’s a full-time job, hence the importance of wedding planners in our industry, secondly, it’s a huge financial yet emotional investment which can be a real challenge to manage. Keep bringing yourself to the reason why you are doing something with every decision to stay true to what you want. 

I would consider a slightly earlier ceremony with a longer drink’s reception. I also wonder if a first look with Lloyd and couple photos before the ceremony would have allowed more time to be present with our guests. 

I think I would also have had an evening dress on my credit card – but only if it was a Hermione de Paula dress!   

I also think we would have had an on the day co-ordinator to take all my plans and make them fully realised. I am a huge stickler for detail and I think they would’ve taken some of these duties off me on the day itself and on pack down the following morning. 

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