Last Friday, a glorious day, was Naomi and Christian’s wedding day at the stunning Sussex venue of Buxted Park. The fabulous photographer Anna-Marie Stepney covered the boys getting ready, while I went to the bride’s room to cover Naomi getting ready with her lovely bridesmaids. When I saw her beautiful Pronovias lace gown, I thought it would look amazing with some light behind it rather than just hanging on the back of a door. The windows in the Elizabeth Browning suite are about 12ft high but the ever helpful Marc provided a very tall stepladder and even hung it for us. Naomi is a natural beauty and looked amazing considering she hadn’t managed to sleep the night before. For their portraits, we went back to the car park walls, which I am loving right now but also to a gorgeous country lane for a softer backdrop. The whole event was beautifully styled by Jennifer Sue Weddings with a vintage tea party theme and there were lots of gorgeous little touches everywhere. The flowers were by the very talented Nicola at Florian who hadn’t been at Buxted since her own wedding that I shot back in March.
Posts Tagged ‘vintage wedding sussex’
Pretty Sussex Vintage Wedding / Naomi & Christian
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
Vintage Sussex Country Wedding / Bec & Matt
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010Remember Lauri & Staurt’s gorgeous vintage wedding in Lewes? Well Matt is Stuart’s cousin and last weekend he married the very lovely Bec in the Assembly Rooms just around the corner from where they live in Chichester. The streets all around them are all Sussex flint walls and old buildings that look amazing as a backdrop for the photography. We had some fun doing some jumping shots, though Bec’s dress did break, eeekkkk! Luckily we were just around the corner from a bridal shop who happily helped out with a needle and thread, phew! After pints and scotch eggs in their local, we all headed up to Duncton Village hall for a blessing ceremony featuring some amazing African drummers. We popped up to nearby Petworth Park for some portraits of the Bride and Groom before their vintage picnic reception. The DIY details from this wedding day are absolutely gorgeous – Bec’s Nan did all the flowers, a friend made the ceiling decorations and the couple scoured car boot sales for the hampers and crockery. They even picked up Bec’s shoes for a bargain £2(!) but what made this day so special was Bec and Matt, who are incredibly laid back and seemed to just have the best day ever!
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Vintage Wedding Sussex / Lauri & Stuart
Thursday, July 29th, 2010I love it if a bride shows me her dress before the wedding as it gives me a sense of what the day will be like and their style. Most will have it on their phone or in a wedding file but Lauri’s amazingly pretty vintage dress was in a shoe box in the boot of their car! She had picked it up in a retro shop in Brighton not long after they had first got together but it took Stuart a few years to get around to the proposal. This was a DIY wedding done with lots of style but not a big budget, though they did stretch on the photographer as they realised how important it is to have a great record of your day. After the Town Hall ceremony, they had a champagne picnic in Southover Gardens in Lewes where we had been for their cherry blossom e-shoot. The meal was in the super funky Needlemakers cafe in the middle of a vintage market. There was a Morris Minor, balloons, floral mismatched bridesmaids’ dresses, Victoria sponges, vintage crockery and meadow flowers. Just my cup of tea and I had been really looking forward to this one, not least because I knew that Lauri and Stuart would look gorgeous. The best man finished up his speech by leading everyone in a rendition of ‘All You Need is Love’ complete with gazoos. When I left, Stuart and Lauri were taking turns to DJ and dance. This couple are seriously cool and seriously in love.
Oh and before anyone asks me where they got the beautiful bunting from, Lauri’s Nan made it.
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Wedding at Upwaltham Barns / Naomi & Hanif
Sunday, July 11th, 2010Naomi got in touch last week after a last minute decision to find a wedding photographer. Despite having 170 guests, she didn’t want the wedding to feel like a big production and they are not very comfortable being photographed. They just wanted to make sure that they got some good portraits of themselves and a flavour of the party as it happened. I love Upwaltham Barns, there is a homely friendly atmosphere and the owners are usually around helping out. The courtyard looked very pretty in the sunshine with a lovely old fountain trickling away and the fantastic Les Musettes playing. Naomi’s Dad gave a very charming speech followed by the welcoming ceremonies performed by Hanif’s Mother. It was another wedding where friends and family all helped. The bridal party did the pretty flowers and Naomi’s vintage inspired dress was designed and made by her friend Liz Manso.
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Vintage Wedding Album by Queensberry
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010So what to put all this gorgeous Vintage Wedding Photography in? I was looking for an album that had the Vintage feel but could match the craftmanship of my Queensberry albums. After much research and contacting other album makers, I still hadn’t found ‘The One.’ I was chatting to the very lovely Jo Newman from Queensberry who suggested looking at their Vanilla Bean cover material which is the one that Amy and I both loved from the newest swatch book anyway. It is very soft and tactile but looks weathered so tick for the Vintage cover. Jo then reminded me of the Barcelona album that the mighty Johannes Van Kan had shown at his talk back in September that had completely blown me away. This album is relatively small but chunky and lots of the images are tiny so it has a precious feel to it. Another Vintage tick. So I merrily went about designing a new sample in Photojunction, using images from Nicola and Daniel’s beautiful Sussex country house wedding. I wanted to add their names or the date to the cover but embossing doesn’t work with this material. My great friend Katharine is in the process of setting up a company offering Vintage inspired stationary for weddings so I asked her and her partner Debs to design a label for the Vintage Queensberry. Being the creative types that they are, they have come up with a gorgeous range which can be personalised for each wedding and the ribbon will be sourced to match. I showed it to some sets of clients on Saturday and one of them spent a while subconsciously hugging it, which has never happened before! So here it is, would love to know your thoughts.
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Vintage Engagement Shoot / Lauri & Stuart Part 1
Friday, May 14th, 2010Lauri and Stuart are having a laid back vintage inspired wedding in July which involves a picnic in Southover gardens in Lewes, Sussex. So it seemed fitting to have a picnic e-shoot and I have been wanting to use the last of blossom that is around, just as it is falling from the trees. In a mission to find a suitable location with just the right blossom tree we ended up in Lewes and set up in the same gardens that they are using for the wedding picnic. It really is very pretty there and it was great to get to know more about these guys. For anyone that follows me on Facebook, Lauri is the Shoebox Bride (!) and I have split this shoot in two parts as there is a whole other, very important part of their story ……..
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A Tale of Two Weddings, Part One……
Thursday, May 13th, 2010Shooting a wedding photographer’s wedding is quite a challenge but luckily Clare, my second photographer was very laid back and of course I was thrilled to be part of her big day. I hadn’t realised that Clare was a secret glamour-puss and her fantastic dress from Blessings in Brighton was very sparkly and slinky. She seemed very calm but I think it all felt a bit surreal for her after helping so many other brides get ready. She looked truly beautiful and I was incredibly proud of her. She had three very sweet little flower girls and the morning seemed to whizz by. Suddenly Susanna, one of our other photographers was there to drive them to the Seattle in her very funky, very decorative soft top Beetle. The flowers by the talented Mr Casey from Pollen were gorgeous posies of old fashioned garden roses, wild orchids and fresh flowering herbs. They looked and smelled sensational. The Maid of Honour, Leanne’s dress was from Monsoon and looked fabulous. Clare had a theme of English Eccentric meets the Orient which was inspired by the ceremony venue, the Royal Pavilion and was great for the wedding photography. The reception was at Bartholomew’s Barn in the Sussex countryside and looked splendid. We had fish and chip canapes and fortune cookie favours. At dusk they released some fire lanterns which went off for miles. Such a very lovely day.
Engagement Shoot Sussex / Sarah & Andrew
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010One of Sarah and Andrew’s first dates was on the Pier in Andrew’s home town, Worthing. We rearranged this engagement shoot 3 times as we all wanted lovely early evening light to shoot into. Sarah loves all things vintage and a bit shabby, which really sums up the Worthing seafront. The wedding is later this month at a gorgeous old church near their flat and then the Royal York in Brighton. It has a champagne theme featuring corks that the couple have been saving ever since they first met, can’t wait!
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Vintage Wedding Photography / New Queensberry Album
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Click on the link below for a new Queensberry sample album from Nicola & Daniel’s stunning Buxted Park Wedding, let me know what you think. (You need Quicktime)
Its 10 x 7 inches so will have a small and precious feel to it. I also wanted it to have a retro look to accommodate the Vintage Wedding Photography.
Nicola&DanielFV
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Brighton Wedding / Rachel & James at The Royal Pavilion
Monday, April 19th, 2010Rachel and James first got in touch through the enquiry form on my site but it turned out that they were my neighbours. So I had the easiest ever journey to work, I just had to stroll over the road! When Rachel opened the door she was looking great in full make-up and rollers but confessed that she had barely slept all week. She then showed us the dress and veil which had been stashed in the spare room away from James and their two cats. Rachel’s dress from Pronovias was very classic and elegant but the veil was amazing. It was the longest one I have ever seen and was covered in tiny polka dots and edged in lace. I immediately thought that it would make a great silhouette shot against the windows in the Pavilion Music Room. I caught a great shot of James just as Rachel walked in, looking very overawed.
Their theme was mint and chocolate. When they suggested to The Talented Mr Casey from Pollen that they needed brown and green flowers they thought he might be stumped but he came up with chocolate cosmos and flowering mint. Their flowers looked great and smelled yummy, the man is a genius which is why I rave about him. After the ceremony and family groups, I thought it would be a grand idea to take the bridal party to the front of the pavilion for some wedding photography in what I think of as my “Vanity Fair” style. After a short time lots of officials appeared telling us that we were not supposed to be there as the scaffolding was being taken down above our heads and it was dangerous. However the shots we did get look great so although I was in a little bit of trouble, it was worth it.
As the reception was at Due South we also took some portraits of the Bride and Groom on the beach, making the most of the glorious sunshine. We took some very cute pictures in the deck chairs and of Rachel throwing her bouquet. We left as they began eating what looked like a very delicious meal while the sun set over the West Pier.
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