WWW real bride Melissa married Rob back in August and I am too excited to share their beautiful wedding day in 2 parts today :-)

Mel and Rob planned their Ireland wedding set at Coolbawn Quay from abroad and had a 4 day holiday before the wedding to allow their families to bond. With a vision of a pastel, rustic and patterned wedding day they selected the most stylish attire.

Mel looked incredible in her Claire Pettibone dress, with Whichgoose flower crown and natural hair. Rob wore chinos, a Paul Smith jacket, home made bow tie and quirky buttonhole with his grooms men in coordinating outfits. The bridesmaids looked super pretty in mismatched pastel dresses too.

Wow wee!

Thanks so much to Campbell Photography for sharing their amazing images with us today.

 

 

The Proposal… Rob proposed on New Year’s Eve 2011. We had gone to Primrose Hill (one of my favourite places in London) to watch the fireworks over the Thames and he got down on one knee as the clock struck midnight. Cue hysterical crying from me! The ring was a beautiful antique sapphire and diamond cluster that dates from approximately 1900. Once I’d gotten over the shock (although in truth I didn’t recover for months!) we took a taxi to meet our friends at a bar in Shoreditch where we partied for a few hours, before hopping on Boris Bikes to cycle home at 5am in the morning. Good times!

 

 

The Vision for the Day… We’re a pretty relaxed pair so we just wanted a day that felt quite chilled out, but would be lots of fun for all our friends and family. With Rob’s family flying over from New Zealand, we decided to turn our wedding into a bit of a holiday and 16 of us arrived in Tipperary four days before the wedding so that both sides could bond before the big day itself. This was a huge success, I’m pretty sure we nearly drank the local village pub dry! But it was the perfect build up to the day and some wonderful new friendships were formed.

When it came to style, I think our both our tastes leaned towards a vintage/rustic aesthetic. Although there was no distinctive colour palette, pastels and patterns – such as gingham, stripes and florals – started to emerge early on and in the end we just went with whatever we liked the look of. Pretty much none of the décor and outfits were seen together until the day so it could have been a disaster. But everything just seemed to click together perfectly, phew!

 

 

 

Groom’s Attire… Rob’s jacket was by Paul Smith and was purchased from Terminal 5 at Heathrow, which was pretty typical of our way of picking up things on the fly. He is a keen bow tie wearer but was a bit disappointed by the dearth of bow ties available in the UK and unimpressed by the quality of those imported from the U.S. So he proceeded to make his own, kitting out the entire bridal party and numerous family members in his own distinctive neckties.

The groomsmen’s shoes were from ASOS, trousers from H&M and the jackets were from Austin Reed. As a little thank you present Rob bought the groomsmen old-school shaving kits made in Ireland that smelt amazing. I gave my bridesmaids pretty teacups with cute little tins of tea from Fortnum & Mason.

 

 

The Planning Process… We were engaged for about eight months before we started booking suppliers. In the meantime, I had been devouring wedding blogs on a daily basis (thank you Whimsical Wonderland Weddings!) so I had started to form an idea of what I liked and what I didn’t, which I kept track of using Pinterest. Luckily Rob was on the same page and we forged ahead. Planning from abroad meant we were unable to see lots of our suppliers face-to-face until the day itself, so although it sounds a bit risky, if I had a good gut feeling about them, I just booked them and moved on to the next thing! We had most of the major things sorted by about six months in advance and from then we worked on the décor and details, which was a lot of fun. Generally I really loved planning it all, it was so much fun to be so creative every day and I’m still reading wedding blogs!

 

 

 

Budget…  My parents contributed the largest share of our wedding costs, about half, while me and Rob and Rob’s dad took care of the rest.

 

 

The Readings + Music… Because we had a Catholic ceremony, all our readings were religious. We chose A faithful friend is the elixir of life from the Old Testament and If I am without love, it will do me no good whatever from the New Testament.

During the signing of the register, the band sung Pokarekare Ana, which was much appreciated by the kiwis!

For our first dance we chose Fresh Feeling by Eels. We didn’t have a specific song that we felt represented us so during our engagement we listened out for songs that we liked and put them into a Spotify playlist. This one emerged as our favourite; we loved the melody and lyrics and it now brings back wonderful memories of lazy weekends wedding planning with my husband, as well as the dance itself!

 

 

The Dress + Accessories… My dress was Queen Anne’s Lace by Claire Pettibone. I also wore a soft silk tulle veil from Faulkner & Carter and a flower crown from Whichgoose on Etsy, which was made from dried gypsophila. I had originally intended to wear my mom’s veil, but unfortunately it was too white against the ivory of my dress. I had given up on finding the right kind of veil until I saw this one online a week before. Katie at Faulkner & Carter was amazing and somehow managed to make sure it was delivered just before we left for Ireland! My shoes were sparkly heels from Carvela and as I don’t wear jewellery very often I just stuck with my engagement ring.

 

 

Finding the Dress… I knew quite early on that I’d like my dress to feature some lace and when I came across Claire Pettibone, I instantly loved the dreamy romanticism of her designs. I made an appointment at Blackburn Bridal Couture to check them out and Queen Anne’s Lace quickly became a front runner. Even though I tried on some others that looked amazing (I was a big fan of Belle & Bunty and a Cymbeline number too), this was the one I felt most like me in. I spent a couple of months mulling it over and tried on some more show stopper dresses at some shops in my home town of Solihull with my mom and my brother (having a boy around was very enlightening!). But it was quite an easy decision in the end.

 

 

Credit Where Credit is Due…

Venue – Coolbawn Quay www.coolbawnquay.com

Photographer – Campbell Photography http://campbellphotography.co.uk

Florist – The Wild Bunch www.thewildbunch.ie

Cakes – Emma Topsom (friend!)

Makeup – Lucienne Meehan www.makeupbylucienne.com

Hair – Joanne Kelly www.facebook.com/JoanneKellyHairStylist

Videographer – Peter Clyne http://vimeo.com/user6079776

Transport – Heritage Wedding Cars www.heritageweddingcars.com

Evening Band – Firestar http://firestar.ie

Church Band – Encore

Dress – Blackburn Bridal Couture www.blackburnbridal.co.uk

Veil – Faulkner & Carter www.faulknerandcarter.co.uk

Flower Crown – Whichgoose www.etsy.com/shop/whichgoose

Ekkk! I bet you cannot wait to see part 2 of their day now :-) Pop back at 2pm for Mel and Rob’s gorgeous reception XOXO Lou