The Details...

Hey Everyone,

Sorry you have had to wait so long for the next installment, but the good news is there is still plenty to show you! Today is a lovely one - all the details of our wedding...

I found my shoes very early on! I had seen lots of beautiful ones in all the wedding magazines and I loved the idea of something sparkly on them - when I saw these from Dune, I fell in love. If you look closely you can see a little silver sixpence in my shoe. It was given to me by my friend Shona and it stayed there all day!

My beautiful tiara was a one off creation by Lily Millicent. Again I had seen her work in the magazines, and when I couldn't find a pearl tiara I liked, I decided to push the boat out and have one custom made! It was well worth it, she tailored it exactly as I wanted it and used a gorgeous vintage earring as the centrepiece, which I like to think had a history of it's own.

The beautiful vintage bracelet was bought by my the fiance. I stopped it in a shop in Primrose Hill and remarked how beautiful it was. He was going to keep it for the wedding as a surprise, but he gave it to me early, when I was having a particularly tough week. I was so touched that he remembered it.

We made a lot of our little details ourselves - I plan to save the story of that for another post so for now here is just a snapshot! Our photobooth props - we had seen a photobooth at a wedding fair - it was so much fun we really wanted one, but they were way out of our price range, so when choosing a photographer, providing a trigger camera with their package was a pre-requisite. Our photographer had never heard of the idea - but she loved it!

We used a vintage hamper for our confetti cones, which I made from doilies and filled with dried petals!

The cake was the only real disaster of the day! I'm sure you wouldn't guess from these lovely pictures, but we were so disappointed with the quality of the decorations after having had some amazing samples. In the end though, we were offered a full refund.

If you hadn't guessed by now from some of the previous posts, we had an afternoon tea themed wedding (Aren't I predictable?) and so the little sugar decorations on top of our cupcakes were tea cups and tea pots...

On the top tier I sat a little doll's house china tea set along with our initials!

There were cake stands galore, with our evening buffet - you guessed it - afternoon tea - served on them all...

Each place setting had a doilie, topped with a vintage plate. The ladies also had a set of my afternoon tea recipe cards, wrapped in lace and pearls...

And of course the centrepieces were tea cups! We spent months collecting tea cups from everywhere possible and placed them on mirrored plates, which sparkled in the evening from the candlelight of little tea lights...

On the morning of the wedding, Andrew's best man brought me a beautiful gift...

Andrew bought me a stunning working singer from 1932, it was so beautiful, and the letter he wrote to go with it had me in tears!

The beautiful bridesmaid dresses were the perfect colour - dusky pink, our theme colour - perfect for a vintage wedding...

The flowergirl dresses were from the same company - and matched beautifully! The flowergirls really stole the show in these...

My dress was called Belinda - by Maggie Sottero. It was the first dress I ever tried on and I just knew it was the one. It had my mum in tears and I felt like a Princess. I tried on other dresses, but I came back to this one! Even two years after I chose it, it still made me feel so special...

Our rings were one of the first things we bought for the wedding. Mine a plain thin platinum band from Tiffany - engraved with the date of our wedding on the inside. His a matching but thicker palladium band, with the same date inside...

Dusky pink and pearls were everywhere, these beauties adorned the bridesmaids and flowergirls heads...

I decorated two little baskets for the flowergirls, spraying them white and adding paper flowers and ribbon...

The bridesmaids and groomsmen all had gifts in these boxes, handmade earrings and a name necklace for the girls, personalised hip flasks and handmade scrabble cufflinks for the boys, plus they all had a little bottle of something...

We decorated the ceremony room with pink and white bunting. It really didn't need much, it had such a stunning view over the castle...

We designed and printed our own order of service, and decorated them with dusky pink ribbon...

And our table plan, was a beautiful ornate mirror, which I decorated...

The favours were little jars of soil, with a tiny envelope inside, bearing some seeds. I sewed the Cath Kidston jar tops and we attached handmade tags bearing the words 'Sow this seed with love and something beautiful will grow...'

Instead of guest book we decided on a wish tree. Guests wrote messages on tags and hung them on our pretty tree...

My bouquet was perfect, vintage pink roses, studded with gorgeous pearls, and inside a few brooches, some of my own and some from friends and family - my something borrowed...

We also found a vintage typewriter, which the fiance fixed with a new ribbon, and we left for guests to type on as they pleased...

One of my button heart frames helped adorn the gift table!

And the cards went into a post box I had made from scratch - decorated with white ribbon and pearls!

It was a lot of effort, and it took a lot of time, but these little details made the day so special, made the day US and made us smile...

I will never regret putting so much of our life and personality into the day - it made it so perfect!

To Be Continued...