Brides wearing non-white dresses are becoming more and more commonplace (yay!) and nothing thrills me more than seeing and sharing a beautiful babe rocking her own style on her wedding day. When Carina married Jay she decided to wear an original 1930s black floral dress from Hope and Harlequin. It went perfectly with their autumnal theme!
“My dress was an original 1930s metallic lame gown with replacement vintage black lace for the back panel”, she explained. “I think wearing a non-traditional wedding dress made the wedding feel very personal to me plus the choice of reception venue was quite unique. My earrings were the letters ‘C’ and ‘R’ to represent my new married initials and I made my flower headpiece myself. I foraged some of the foliage as well as bought some.”
“Our wedding was relaxed and informal, bringing the autumnal countryside into the city with a vintage feel”, she continued. “Autumn is my favourite season so that and my dress inspired a lot of the design and colour choices.”
“We planned the wedding in four months which is a fairly short amount of time, however I much preferred this as the small budget and short time frame meant there was less to factor in and organise. I’d do it exactly the same way again (not that I’ll be doing it again – he’s a keeper!). I enjoyed the whole process, particularly the design and crafting aspects.”
Their ceremony was at Brighton Town Hall and the reception was held at Tempest Weddings. “Due to the fairly limited budget we had and wanting all our loved ones present, we knew it had to be a local wedding. We discovered that Brighton Town Hall catered for large ceremonies in their Council Chamber room which has a capacity of 120 people. I have a large family, so already we were in excess of 50 people without even considering our dearest friends. The ceremony was very relaxed (although I was a bag of nerves!). We chose our own music and even had our 11 year old friend Chella, sing a live acoustic piece whilst we signed the register.”
“The whole wedding felt vey homemade and personal as we had enlisted the help of friends to decorate the venue. All our suppliers were local and friends; from the Florist to the DJs. We’d been out foraging around Brighton the day before for all the foliage to decorate the reception venue. The night before the wedding, I made my floral headpiece as well as all the gents’ buttonholes – again all foraged. I watched a YouTube video on how to make my headpiece and the buttonholes.”
“The best thing about planning the wedding was the scope for creativity and putting my design skills into practice”, she concluded. “I love organising things like this and enjoyed every moment of the planning process. It never once felt stressful. I think planning it in such a considerably short time and small budget made it far less complicated and more enjoyable.”
