There is something decidedly retro chic about todays little bundle of Big Day perfection. I’m not sure whether it is because the bride Natacha’s whole look reminds me of young Bridget Bardot (who is like one of my most worshipped icons of all time)….. or the fact the whole affair reminds me of the totally uber cool W-day my parents had way back in the 70’s.

Either way I absolutely love it.

Totally and utterly ADORE it.

Small is indeed beautiful.

Natascha and Matt were married at Stanford church followed by a reception at The Kings Barn, all of the gorgeousness was captured by David Long.

Small And Gorgeous

I always knew that I wanted a short dress. Small wedding, short dress, lovely shoes…… everything small and gorgeous. I started looking in shops and online from the beginning of the year….one day I typed in ‘tiered lace dress’ to google and there it was – ‘just perfect’ I thought and from www.oli.co.uk .

Just to make sure it arrived I bought two! – madness at the time, but I later realised that the dress colour wasn’t going to match any shop bought veil, so I bought a veiling pattern & material and with the aid of a dressmaker asked her to cut one of the dresses up and make a veil, some cuffs and a handbag – which she did beautifully. Before I saw the whole outfit I was slightly worried – but when I saw my ideas come to life it was wonderful, just perfect!

BIG hair BIG Shoes

I went for hairstyle that suits me – BIG – I have big hair, so made the most of it! I don’t like having make up applied by someone else, I wanted to do it myself, but to make sure it looked good, I had a make up lesson with a make up artist, Natasha Wiggins. She’s great fun to be around and put me at ease, we tried several ideas until I was happy and I knew the exact routine – so no panic on the day.

My shoes were from Reiss I love a wedge shoe, they are always so comfy and the colour had to be right for the dress.

In Love With Lavender

Originally I had the idea of getting married in Provence surrounded by lavender fields…. a lovely dreamy idea, but the reality was just not practical. However I didn’t completely abandon the idea, I kept the Lavender theme and bought lots of dried lavender (not only does it look good but smells lovely).

My florist was Charlotte of Flower Vogue. What’s really lovely is that I have all the dried lavender around the house.

Pretty Purple

The bridesmaid dresses were from Debenhams, they were the right shade of purple and had pretty flowing material. They loved their dresses and spent the afternoon pretending to be fairies.

A Surprise Groom

Matt decided to keep his outfit a secret and wanted to surprise me on the day. And what a surprise! He looked extra handsome, I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked up the aisle – he bought it all from Reiss and I know they were really helpful and he had a lovely silk scarf, which was a lovely touch – the colours he choose went beautifully with mine and the bridesmaids outfits too.

Sugar Violets

We wanted to have some fun with cakes and asked a friend Jenise to make us some cupcakes. We had a raspberry sponge base with an Ameretto icing on top, complete with sparkles, small sugar violet flowers and gorgeous filigree wrappers. Jenise was a star, she made several combinations until we were completely happy with the cakes.

Tiny Wedding Huge Impact

Because our wedding was small, the focus of our day was to speak to all the guests and we managed to do this and have a lovely time with everyone. When the evening came we decided on a disco, to play some great songs that everyone would love, mostly 70’s and 80’s disco tunes like ‘heaven must be missing an angel’ there were some modern classics and everyone loved it.

Our first first dance was to ‘the look of love’ by Dusty Springfield. It’s just a song that we both really love.

The Best Wedding Buy

Our photographer was our best wedding buy – his name is David Long. I had seen some of his work and was very impressed…he did an amazing job – a truly talented man. Our brief to him was that we wanted a lot of natural shots nothing too staged.

On the day he was very professional and unintrusive, I couldn’t believe what great photographs he took and I didn’t even realise that he had taken half of them. A nice touch was that he posted some of these on his blog very soon after, so it meant that we could show friends and family, also it was so nice to see them so soon after the wedding as it keeps the excitement of the day going!

D.I.Y Favours

I made the favours myself, I am very creative and loved making these and all the other little finishing touches. I bought plain favour boxes, and ribbon from cox and cox, and some little wooden hearts from eBay and painted these with a tester pot of colour from Farrow&Ball.

The ribbon and hearts were then used on the invites, order of service, menu cards and favour boxes. Inside the favour boxes were little chocolate hearts of varying colours.

The Perfect Day

We both loved our wedding, for us it was the perfect day. I felt it was unique and personal to both of us. The great thing was that all our family and friends thought it was special and unique too. My best advice would be to think long and hard about what you want your day to feel like…. put a scrap book together of all the things you like and any of your own personal ideas (you don’t have to do all your ideas), buy things over the months leading up to the wedding so that you haven’t got one big cost nearer the time.

Be realistic about what you can and can’t do and don’t overstretch the budget and yourselves – after all, your wellbeing is more important!

Small but indeed PERFECTLY formed.

Anyway, who said big was better?

Not us.

Happy weekend folks.

Big Retro Chic Love

Charlotte xxx

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