Mary and Jo.

*I'm reposting this from our Lillian and Leonard blog. I know, that's lazy blogging and I'm sorry. But it kind of actually meant a lot to me and I wanted to share it here too. What I didn't say in the original post is that the post on APW is chock full of pictures Widdle & Puke looking alternately cute, mental, chic and then mental again. Which is, I know, what a lot of you come here for.*

Today we're really happy to share something a little more personal than usual. In April Nye's brother and his girlfriend told us that after many (many) years together they were going to be getting married; next month. They were planning a tiny wedding in south London, with just their close family, a ceremony in Wandsworth Town Hall and a very relaxed Italian meal at Corellis cafe in Battersea, scene of their first date all those years ago and many excellent meals since. 

To say I was excited was an understatement. Being closer to these two was one of the main reasons that we moved south and helping them to plan such a lovely day was a huge honour. There were 6 weeks of giddy pinteresting, shopping and planning and it being a small and relaxed wedding wasn't going to get in the way of it being exceptionally stylish; within the space of a week I'd found myself shopping both in Vivienne Westwood with the bride and on Savile Row with the groom. 

On the morning of the wedding I put together a simple hand tied bouquet of Lily of the Valley, left a house bustling with twins and Nye and Nye's parents and scooted over to Jo and Mary's house to travel to Wandsworth Town Hall with them. They'd had a hair-raising morning of finding out that Corellis wasn't expecting them until the following week but in true Sicilian fashion they told Mary 'don't worry about it' and swore everything would be fine. Which it was. More than fine. The whole day was a beautiful, relaxed, personal celebration of love and the quintessential Little City Wedding. 

Mary wore a red Vivienne Westwood dress with a gorgeous Japanese inspired blue jacket, Jo wore a ridiculously dapper Savile Row suit. We ate pasta and meat balls and mountains of antipasti, we drank the fruitiest most delicious wine and ate ice cream and tiramisu until we almost burst and then finished up with shots of grappa and amaretto. 

Afterwards we walked through Battersea Park, drank tea by the pond and then headed to the pub where we drank fancy gin until it was time to wave Mary and Jo off on their honeymoon. 

Pop over to A Practical Wedding to see the day in photos and to read a little of the bride & groom's words on the day. Many thanks to Meg and Maddie of APW for featuring the wedding, especially to Meg who as soon as she saw the photos back in May demanded that we send Mary and Jo to her asap. 

balloons are so not over.

Last month we did a photoshoot styled by an event planner (Jillian, American, adorbs, hire her). It was a total departure from what we usually do (moments, emotions, stories) and kind of chaos with two small (hilarious) models, but we had a blast and our small hilarious models couldn't possibly have enjoyed themselves more: Flowers! Mud! OH MY GOD, A BALLOON! 

Needless to say, these aren't the official photos, the official photos are going to appear on an official blog, one that doesn't talk about poo and stuff. These are the behind the scenes photos and personally I think they're spectacular. 

MINE! 



"I SAID, balloons are so not over. OKAY?"

Hugh Fernley Weddingstall.

Guys, did you know that you can get married at River Cottage? And have Hugh Fernley Wittingstall cater your wedding? River Cottage. Fernley. 

Amazing.

(I'm aware that this will mean absolutely nothing to you if you don't live in the UK, but trust me, it's a big deal to a British eco foodie type.)


*Image from a spectacular River Cottage wedding, by Aneta Mak via Reverie magazine. 

A cream cake...

I hated the long version of this dress when it appeared in that movie, it was awful, unflattering, over the top and badly badly fitting. But this version on Net a Porter proves what I have always thought about puffy wedding dresses - most of them can be entirely redeemed by having 20 inches hacked off the bottom.

(Oh god, I've just seen the back. Why Vivienne? Why would you do that to a perfectly lovely dress?)

Image courtesy of Net a Porter.

And in a puff of tulle, she vanished....

I saved this picture months and months ago because I love it. I don't particularly like veils but this one is so crazy I'm smitten. I can just see the bride ordering it from a veil maker (veilier? Tulle Artist? Froth Fancier?) "no bigger, I want it bigger. Big I tell you! Big! Huge! Enormous! Yes, now you've got it. Thank you."

The fact that she is fixing the veil in place with hairspray is just too brilliant.


After a long hibernation I'm starting to feel stirrings of interest in weddings again. It's been a while but I think I'm back.


Photograph by Jessica Claire.

Fairies in the garden....

“There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?”

Wise words from dear Meg, who sent me a little email to say that this wedding was a little bit for me as she knew I would love it so.

If any photographs can make you believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden it is Heather's. And if anyone can make you believe that fairies might just exist with their loveliness and kindness and ability to know just what to send you in the post to make you feel like just the luckiest, most touched by magic girl in the world it is Meg. A fairy disguised as a one woman powerhouse (evidence to be presented at a later date your Honour. Once the puter has been fixed.)

Gorgeous gorgeous photos by Heather of One Love Photo.

A puff of delight....

It's been a while since I've posted anything weddingy, because (to be honest) it's been a while since anything weddingy made me smile, truly smile.

But then I came across this Swedish (I think? There are a lot of sentences that look like this - 'Den 'bästa dagen i mitt liv var vår bröllopsdag' which looks kind of Swedish, right?) wedding and I grinned, I truly and utterly grinned. So I thought I'd share....

Doesn't she look like the most delicious cupcake?

I know it makes me some sort of savage, but I love a picture of a wedding dress covered in mud. It shows that the bride cares about more important things on her wedding day than keeping her dress immaculate.





Yum!

Photos by Thomas Ivarsson and via www.folkbladet.nu

Your head when you wed....

Check out A Practical Wedding today to see me go all encyclopaedic when it comes to wedding head wear. Hats, feathers, tulle, froth, sparkle, plastic.... there's a little of everything. Except porcupine quills, I don't know how I missed those.

Picture by Jessica Claire, of a couple with the most gorgeous wedding headwear I've ever seen.

a year in pictures, II (b)

(I forgot August in the last part. You know, because it just wasn't that memorable last year.)

h. august

















All photos by me.

The Story, part III

So, she knew what she had to say, a simple 'will you marry me' ought to do it, but where would she say it? When? And oh god, how? She really wanted to get on with it, but she had just brought home a wedding magazine (for work purposes may I remind you) and if she asked him after two days of dissecting the wedding industry he would think she was nothing but a victim of canny advertising, that the Evil Wedding Geniuses had succeeded in convincing her that her life would be forever incomplete if she didn't glide down the aisle of a stately home in a hundred yards of white satin to the majestic tones of the bagpipes while he waited anxiously clad in tartan and squirming slightly because his bow tie was cutting off the circulation to his neck and three hundred of our dearest friends who had gathered to wish us well and offer us kitchen utensils were watching him closely for any obvious signs of discomfort. Oh no, the question popping simply must wait until memories of that Tome of Bad Taste had faded. However she hadn't bargained for just quite how sticky those memories would be, quite how genius the Evil Wedding Geniuses were in their ability to infiltrate your consciousness, your life, your sanity for better or worse, till death do you part.

So she waited, and by the time The Magazine was no longer making its presence felt in their home it was a few short days until her birthday. The girl had never been able to ask for presents, always finding the question 'what do you want for your birthday?' really quite embarrassing. She had rarely managed to answer it with more than an 'oh, you don't have to get me anything' or an 'I don't know', the very thought of asking for something in particular causing her immeasurable pain. So asking her boy to marry her anywhere near her birthday was simply not an option. If she couldn't ask for a new pair of earrings she certainly couldn't ask for a lifetime commitment. And so, it would have to wait.

And then it was valentines day, and oh for the love of all things tasteful she couldn't possibly propose on or around valentines day. Which isn't to say that it didn't cross her mind. She did consider a card with bows and bunnies and hearts and flowers with a simple 'will you marry me?' inside and when she didn't quite manage to get a card in time and found herself on valentines morning writing a message to her boy on her tummy in lipstick 'I love you' almost became 'wanna get wed?' But she couldn't bring herself to be a woman who proposed on Valentines Day. Despite her love for kitsch and cheese and all things a bit naff (and what is valentines day if not a delightful combination of all three?) she simply did not want to be remembered as that woman who thinks that valentines day is so very 'romantic' that a proposal is in order. Besides, she didn't think that kitsch, cheesy and a little naff was the mood she should be going for with this whole proposing thing and so it would have to wait.

And wait it did, until one day, one unremarkable day when the waiting became too much. When she couldn't keep it in any longer and holding out for the right time was starting to feel like a pointless pursuit. Any time would be right as long as he said yes and besides, she was becoming a nervous wreck and if she kept up this level of anxious weirdness for too much longer not only would he not be marrying her but he would be backing away from her altogether, slowly and with a minimum of eye contact.

And so, one afternoon, one dark dreary February afternoon she asked him. They were sitting on the floor, there was a rabbit under the bed. There was an unsuccessful attempt to talk the rabbit out from under the bed. And there it happened, among the dust and the occasional rabbit dropping, on a carpet they detested that the desire to get it over with, I mean marry her man, overwhelmed her.

“Boy” she said. “I want to ask you something...”

“Ok” he said. Looking bemused. Such proclamations were usually followed by a request for something terribly tempting that they weren't allowed, a puppy for instance.

“I wondered.... if..... um.... maybe....um....” she said.

“Are you ok?” he said.

“Uh huh” she squeaked. “maybe....um...if......um.....you.......”

“Are you sure you're ok?” he asked, looking more worried this time and feeling quite certain that a request for a puppy was not what was about to follow. Perhaps she wanted a pony? Or maybe she was leaving him? Oh crap.

“Mmmhmm” she gulped.

“I wondered if maybe.....um....you'd marry me.” she stammered, looking nervously the other way.

“Of course!” he laughed, “Bloody hell Pix, you scared me there, I thought you wanted a pony.” (or something along those lines)

And then they lived happily ever after.

....For a week or two, until they started trying to plan a wedding. At which point they realised that buying a pony and keeping it in their third floor flat would have been infinity easier. And cheaper.

The end.

The Story, part II

Part I

So, the girl wanted to get married? Oh what a contrary girl she was. Not that she regretted her contrariness for a minute mind you, it was made her special, interesting she told herself, it was what made him love her even. That was her story and she was sticking to it and when he told her she was impossible, well that just made her smile. But however delightful contrariness might be in a person she couldn't deny it had left her in an awfully awkward position, for she knew she wanted to marry him and he knew, without a doubt, that she didn't want to get married.

Now she didn't realise at the time that what most women do when they find themselves in such a situation is to drop hints. A diamond ring admired here, an allusion to the delights of matrimony dropped there, the merest suggestion that they do want to get married, they really do and that if the gentleman in question were to ask for her hand, well the answer would be a resounding yes. But that's not how this girl operated. Oh no. Hints were not her style, how very undignified such a game would be to her. In fact hints were so not her style that they didn't occur to her as a solution to her pickle until long after she had taken matters into her own hands and done the proposing herself.

Now she was aware of how a proposal should be carried out. Aware that it should be romantic, heartfelt, memorable and she had heard that at least one party should be kneeling on the floor. A rumour was circulating that jewelery should be involved but she decided that that was an unfounded myth.

The thought of asking her boy to marry her gave her flutters in her tummy and made her smile. This is a pleasant sensation she thought, I like this. At the same time she was carrying out some research of a professional nature into weddings and to this end she bought a wedding magazine. Oh boy, that did not go well and quite honestly it made her rather anxious about the whole wedding part of getting married. It was all so...tasteless. The men all looked the same, the women all looked the same. Of course that one was embroidered in a different place to that one, and that one's tiara was more modest that that one's which had a frankly papal air about it. That one had a bouquet of pink roses and that one over there had cream. One adventurous lady even had a bouquet of pink and cream roses. As she felt the panic rise in her chest she closed the magazine and put it down on the coffee table. Eyeing it suspiciously she used one finger to push it to a distance she considered to be safe and frowning she started to doubt that weddings were for her. Were she to get married there would be no long white dress, no walking down the aisle to a romantic tune, no tradition and most definitely no castles. Oh the poor pitiful fool, how little time it would take for her to lose her conviction.

But while she doubted that weddings were for her her determination to marry the boy never wavered. She knew she would ask him and she knew he would say yes. She just knew it. In fact along with the thought of dropping hints, the possibility of being turned down never entered her mind. For in all their combined irritation with those who told them that they simply must get married, he had been distinctly less vociferous in his disgust than her. 'Really?' he said with a bemused expression when she told him marriage was a nonsense. In fact, she had the tiniest suspicion that actually he would quite like to get married. Not that he was going to admit it now. No, he might be romantic but he wasn't stupid.

She however was not very romantic (and possibly a little stupid, but that's by the by) and orchestrating any sort of 'awww'-worthy proposal involving rings, boats, beaches or champagne was never going to work for her. She simply had to ask him, to tell him that she had changed her mind and would he please think about marrying her. To pop the question. For she was not good at orchestrating, not cool, not calm, not very good at acting. And a decent proposal requires a little acting, a little 'Oh this is just a normal, run of the mill romantic outing, la la lah. Hang on a minute, No it's not, will you marry me? Oh you weren't expecting that? Well my job here is well done. If you say yes of course' And the girl was nothing if not dreadful at acting. And planning. And concealing a plan. Just dreadful...


Part III to follow (soon, I promise. No, honestly, I've already written it...)

Because...

...I want a dog (any dog, even a stupid one) and it's nice to be reminded of a day when my head wasn't full of snot nor were my boobs inexplicably damp.

A little something from the day after the wedding, when The Boy and I got all dressed up and went to play in the gardens.

Photo by The Boy

I can't decide...

I can't decide if this is gorgeous or if it looks like an unfortunate incident in a feather and glue factory...

Bijou by Elizabeth Filmore.

A little something missing...

So, those who have been following my bridal adventures may have noticed a little something missing from my wedding attire...

The controversial bird cage veil that I loved and The Boy, well The Boy did not, but that I was going to wear anyway because I loved it and it made me smile never made it to the wedding. About a week before the big day I'd had enough with playing bride, dressing up wasn't fun any more and I just wanted to feel like myself. The veil was fun, but it wasn't me. I don't wear veils, brides wear veils but I didn't want to be a Bride any more, I just wanted to be me, marrying the man that I love, in a wedding dress.

In planning the wedding it seemed that becoming a Bride for the day was pretty much a given and as such I had to do the things that turn a normal woman into a Bride - white dress, veil, bouquet, bridesmaids, lacy undies, expensive make up. It seemed that being me wasn't enough, that a woman without all that crap isn't special enough to get married and a week before the wedding I couldn't take it any more. So the veil was ditched and honestly, I was so happy without it. When I looked in the mirror I looked like myself. Sure there was a wedding dress, and a bouquet and two pretty minions with flowers to do my every bidding and that was enough to make me Bride, but those things actually made me a little uncomfortable and I wished that I felt a little more myself, a little less Weddingy. Me in a veil would just have taken the Wedding Game a little too far.

Playing Bride was fun for a while, but I didn't want to play on my wedding day. I was tired of dress up, I just wanted to be me, marrying him. Which as it turns out was quite special enough for both of us.

That's not to say I don't love a veil on other women, veils can be utterly fabulous and if you're comfortable playing Bride then I absolutely say go for it. Even if just for the reason that veils make for the best photos!


Photo by Lillian and Leonard and via the blog.

The love for The Shoes....

It started with this photo which I found when a lovely lady sent me a link to her lovely blog...

It continued with this dress...

(which with a sprinkle of magic turned into this dress...)

And all hope was lost when I saw these...

Then these tickled my sense of humour...

And these my sense of style...

This melted my heart...

And this filled me with wanderlust...

And when I saw these I knew I had been lucky enough to glimpse a heaven it was unlikely I would ever touch...

And then I dropped dead. For the love of shoes and other ridiculously gorgeous things.


All of these images were taken by the very talented Marie Labbancz and came via her blog, Art of Love.