Danielle wore two bespoke dresses by London based designer Paula Nadal, for her rainy day summer marquee wedding at Solihull School. Her sublime ceremony look combined a 1930’s vintage inspired aesthetic with a super beautiful statement fringed veil.
Though already legally married in Hong Kong during the pandemic, this was the wedding they had always imagined – full of family, tradition, music and meaning and surrounded by all their loved ones.
The couple embraced the rain wholeheartedly, with umbrellas for every guest and some cracking photos as a result. With a pretty modern colour palette of pinks and deep reds, vintage glassware collected by love and thoughtful personal touches throughout, this beautiful day was captured to perfection by the always lovely Luis Calow. Enjoy!
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The Dress
Paula Nadal
My dress was by Paula Nadal. I’m heavily inspired by vintage fashion, not from any one period in particular, but I always knew my dress would need to have a vintage look and feel, and the rest of the wedding’s aesthetic followed from that.
I started with the dress early on, knowing it would be central to how everything else was styled.
I worked with Paula Nadal personally on a bespoke wedding dress and a separate party dress – two in total – and the whole experience was magical.
We met in her London studio at the end of August 2023 and worked together for just under a year. She completely understood my vision, and I drew so much inspiration from her.
Paula creates the most beautiful, one-of-a-kind veils, and that quickly became a key part of my bridal look.
She’s heavily inspired by vintage fashion but adds her own elegant, timeless twist – she is incredibly talented.
Paula isn’t a traditional bridal designer; she fell into it when people started asking her to create bespoke wedding dresses.
If you’re looking to work with a true fashion visionary and want something unique and timeless, she’s the woman to go to.
I didn’t wear anything special with my wedding dress, as the dress and veil did all the talking, but with my second dress I wore my mum’s vintage earrings – the same ones she wore with her second outfit on her wedding day to my dad.
My veil was also by Paula Nadal and my shoes were by Sam Edelman. My scent was Jo Malone’s Velvet Rose & Oud. No particular reason – I just love it.
My bridesmaids dresses were from Cos.
My father accompanied me to the ceremony to the sound of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. We had two ceremony officiants, Reverend Rachel Hill-Brown and Reverend Nick Parker – and the Solihull School Chamber Choir sang during the service, which made the ceremony feel that extra bit special.
We had two readings, read by the two witnesses from our Hong Kong wedding; 1 Corinthians 13 and ‘Love is a Great Thing’ by Thomas A. Kempis. We felt both reflected what love is, and what it means to us. We didn’t write our own vows, and the ceremony was adapted to reflect the fact that we were already legally married. The church still allowed it to feel like a traditional ceremony, just with a few gentle tweaks – it was very special.
Our rings were from Royal Exchange Jewellers. Charlie is a huge watch lover and often visits there on his lunch breaks. They had a gorgeous vintage half-diamond eternity band, which I now wear as my wedding ring, and Charlie chose a classic, chunky gold band.
Photography
Our photographer was Luis Calow – his name was given to me by a friend who works in photography, and the moment I saw his style, I was praying he’d be available. We chose him because his work feels editorial, candid and natural, yet it’s also highly curated and beautifully aesthetic.
Luis was an absolute pleasure to work with and made us feel completely at ease. We would highly, highly recommend him to anyone looking for the same style.
We also had a Super8 film videographer, called Mat Laroche of Mariage à la Mode.
It truly was the best day of our lives. But two specific moments come to mind. First, when we left the church, it was pouring with rain and our reception drinks were supposed to be outside. Luckily, we had umbrellas for everyone (you can’t trust the British weather).
I didn’t want to stand in the quad and get my dress any dirtier than it already was, so we went into the school theatre to take pictures – and we were so glad we did, because we ended up with the most beautiful photos, better than we could have imagined.
By the time we finished, the sun had come out and we were able to enjoy the rest of the reception drinks outside. Everything works out in the end!
How They Met
Charlie and I met on my first day at the University of Exeter – as I walked into my student halls with all my boxes, he held the door open for me. It was love at first sight. Twelve days later we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend, and we’ve been together ever since – nearly nine years now!
We have quite a unique engagement and wedding story. After university, Charlie moved to Hong Kong to play rugby, while I had one more year left, so we did long distance for around eight months. Just before Covid hit, I moved to Hong Kong too.
About a year later, I needed a visa, so we decided to elope in May 2021. We always knew we’d get married, so we had a small registry office wedding with just two witnesses – no family, because of Covid – but we always planned to have the traditional English wedding of our dreams.
Our Hong Kong wedding was a big, fun party with friends, but we didn’t change our names because we wanted to wait for our ‘proper’ wedding. Even though we were already married, we still wanted a traditional engagement (Charlie hadn’t proposed before the Hong Kong wedding) and to do things the way we’d always imagined. We moved back to London in May 2022, and while we were in Skiathos, Greece with his family, he proposed – with a ring he’d bought in Hong Kong. We got married two years later.
The Reception
My colour palette was always going to include a dark, deep red, and the lighter pink just felt right for a summer wedding. These two colours are everywhere now, but back in 2023 when the planning really began, they weren’t nearly as on trend.
Charlie’s mum, Rachel, collected over 200 second-hand glass vases and 200 glass candlestick holders from various charity shops in the year leading up to the wedding, as we wanted them to be the centrepieces for our tables – filled with flowers and candles, they added to the vintage feel of the overall decor.
We also made our own seating chart, and every guest had a keyring with their name and table name.
Our flowers were by Vi Stevens, a florist local to Solihull who has sadly since closed her business. My main wedding flower was an Anthurium and then the accompanying. Our flowers were baby pink roses, baby’s breath and some green foliage from the school grounds.
I designed all of our wedding stationery and signage – you name it, I drew it on my iPad!
Our cake was made by a very talented pastry chef called Dylan Ziemons.
@cwtm1 Bride & Groom in shock when Hugh Jackman storms the marquee during best man speech… #wedding #weddingtiktok #bestman #fromnowon #greatestshowman ♬ original sound – cwtm1
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Don’t stress about the small stuff – things might not go perfectly, and that’s okay. What truly matters is having your closest friends and family by your side. The love, laughter, and shared moments are what you’ll remember – not whether the flowers were exactly right or the playlist went to plan.
Focus on the joy, the people, and each other.
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