Nicola and Chris — Vintage Themed Derbyshire Wedding

York­shire wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Andy Hook sub­mit­ted the pic­tures for Eng­lish Wed­ding blog — thanks Andy! — and Nicola wrote a wed­ding report for me to share with you all. It’s one of the best wed­ding reports I’ve seen — let alone been able to fea­ture on my blog!

With­out fur­ther ado (as they said, I believe, in ye olde vin­tage eras…) here’s Nicola and Chris’s gor­geously creative…

vin­tage themed wed­ding in Der­byshire — part one

Chris and I are very influ­enced by vin­tage 1930’s – 40’s style, in the fur­ni­ture we buy, the clothes we wear and even in the new busi­ness that we are set­ting up (a pro­hi­bi­tion style jazz bar in Chelsea). We really wanted to reflect this style in our day.

We really did not want the boys to be in for­mal morn­ing suits as we didn’t feel that it fit the theme of the day or our own style. Chris loves to dress in tweeds and cra­vats nor­mally and so we thought we would carry that style through on the wed­ding day!! The style also car­ried prov­i­dence in that my deceased grand­fa­ther was a game-keeper in the area, and so my father had been brought up in a shoot­ing fam­ily, who all wore tra­di­tional tweed shoot­ing out­fits for for­mal events. We really wanted to bring this fam­ily his­tory out in the theme.

The tweed jack­ets and waist­coats were actu­ally a bar­gain from a shop­ping out­let near us! The shirts were from Brock­le­hursts in Bakewell, a men’s cloth­ing shop spe­cial­is­ing in coun­try style cloth­ing. The sum­mer cords were M&S and the ties and hand­ker­chiefs from tier­ack! All the boys bought their own brogues – Chris’s were from Por­to­bello mar­ket – a bar­gain at £30!

The dress is called Dakota by Enzoani. I bought it at JS Cou­ture on Bland­ford Street (an area near Baker Street with hoards of beau­ti­ful wed­ding dress shops!) This dress is actu­ally from 2 sea­sons ago but they con­tinue to stock it as it is a clas­sic shape and is so pop­u­lar! We added the detach­able straps our­selves as the dress­mak­ers sent us some spare lace, which the seam­stresses at JS cou­ture used to bril­liant effect! It was made to mea­sure for me because alter­ations of the vin­tage corded lace would have been extremely time con­sum­ing and expensive.

I actu­ally tried on the dress for the first time on my own, as I had dragged so many peo­ple dress shop­ping and not found ‘the one,’ that I started to eel guilty! I there­fore, started to look for the designs that I liked (not strap­less, fig­ure hug­ging, with a large fish­tail) and then looked for the shops that stocked them. When I found the dress and the shop, I only nipped in for 10 min­utes on my own to try it on. The groups of brides, brides­maids and moth­ers in the shop felt very sorry me for being all on my own, which made me feel very sorry for myself too!!! I knew it was the one for sure when I look mom to see it later and it was the first one to make her cry!

My shoes were from LK Ben­nett and I loved them from the moment I saw them! I was under strict instruc­tions to buy only 3 and ½ inch heels as the length of the dress was to fit this heel height only! Luck­ily they were perfect.

The neck­lace was made by my dad who is a jew­eller. The pearl bracelet belonged to my mom. The head piece was made by my mom with off-cuts of the lace, bits and bobs of neck­laces from my dad and brooch from a flea mar­ket. The brooch that I wore on my sash I picked up 5 meters away from my front door on Por­to­bello market!

I knew I wanted to wear a veil on the day and bought this beau­ti­ful silk fin­ger tip veil from JS cou­ture. I was toss­ing up whether to wear it over my face to walk in but felt it may be too for­mal and chick­ened out in the end and wore it back for the whole day!

Because peo­ple were trav­el­ling from sig­nif­i­cant dis­tances in some cases, and because we knew it would be over in a flash, we wanted to make a whole week­end of the wed­ding! There­fore we planned a Fri­day night get together in an inter­est­ing loca­tion! We chose Peak Cav­ern in Castle­ton, which is an under­ground series of caves! We hired a local jazz band and can­dle lit the whole cave, which made for a truly incred­i­ble atmos­phere! There was a bar and we served up a fish and chip tea from the local Castle­ton chip shop.

Back home to bed and out of Chris’s sight by mid­night! Chris stayed with his best man in some beau­ti­ful cot­tages in Great Longstone.

The next morn­ing, I was still putting fin­ish­ing touches to the fete and the tent right up to the point of hav­ing my makeup put done! We had a hair and makeup artist do the mother of the bride, brides­maid (my sis­ter), my aun­tie and myself.

My sis­ter wore a cream / gold silk dress and a head dress to match mine. I did not want a whole row of brides­maids as I thought this may be too for­mal for what we were try­ing to cre­ate. For sim­i­lar rea­sons, we only dressed the groom, best man, father of the bride and mas­ter of cer­e­monies in match­ing out­fits. Our other broth­ers wore sim­i­lar themed out­fits, which looked great in the pictures.

After the very hec­tic wed­ding morn­ing (and it was hec­tic!), sud­denly every­one has left for the church, every­thing becomes quiet and it is just you and your dad left. We sat in the car and he asked ‘are you ready then?!’ It is quite a spe­cial ride to the church as father and daugh­ter before he gives you away and I won’t for­get it!

My dad and I drove to the church in his friends bor­rowed jaguar XK150. The ser­vice took place in Ash­ford in the Water, in a beau­ti­ful church that we packed out! I cried as soon as I saw Chris’s face at the altar and spent the whole of the first 2 verses try­ing to sort myself out ready for the vows!

The moment I saw Chris at the altar I was over­whelmed by the whole expe­ri­ence. I think that was what started the tears! Every­one in the church was there for us and was wish­ing us well! It was really quite hum­bling. I had a moment of panic when I thought, I hadn’t turned off the phone in the bag I had given to my sister’s boyfriend… then I thought, who would ring me???… every­one that I know is here!!!

How beau­ti­ful has this all been… so far?! Let’s leave the lit­tle one to sleep for now, and come back in the morn­ing for more. Nicola has much more to share with us, and there are some incred­i­ble images of the Der­byshire coun­try­side to show you tomor­row too.

Pop back at 11am tomor­row for:

• a roman­tic drive across the Der­byshire moors
• ice cream
• an old fash­ioned Eng­lish fete
• more vin­tage cars!
• out­door games
• hay bales
• the loveli­est lit­tle dog­gie eyes!
• Nicola and Chris’s mar­quee with bunting
• moon­rise

Thanks to Nicola for a won­der­ful wed­ding report, and to wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Andy Hook for shar­ing images of the day so far.

Part 2 in the morn­ing. Till then, have an amaz­ing day!

Claire xxx