January can be a bit gloomy so here’s a whole heap of gorgeous ideas if you are planning your wedding this year. I think outdoor ceremonies are rather special and I love autumn weddings. Working with a fantastic team of suppliers we styled this shoot combining the tones and textures of autumnal flowers and foliage, the warm colours of the make-up and a floaty dress with beautiful detail to create a relaxed bohemian look with a touch of DIY – big trends for 2014 🙂
Many of the dresses by Eliza Jane Howell have stunning beadwork and we chose something delicate and ethereal to fit in with the woodland theme. This dress, called Joan, has a sleeved cape and beautiful beading on the edges and neckline – all of EJH dresses are stunning – pop over to her website and you’ll fall in love with the dresses! The ward winning Flo and Percy‘s new summer 2014 collection has just been released and I adore the ‘Spirit of Summer’ headpiece with its leaf-like shapes, a perfect fit for our bohemian woodland theme and looked gorgeous framing Michaela’s face. For hair and make-up the very talented Catherine – Catherine Bailey Make-up – chose warm golden tones for the eyes and a russet orangey-red lip complementing the richness of the leaves and berries. All the flowers on the day were supplied by the amazing Julia from Parsley and Rose who has styled a wedding for one of my clients. Julia sourced all sorts of woodland treasures, moss covered logs, large oak leaves and clusters of cobnuts – the selection of woodland style flowers and foliage was perfect. And don’t you just love the black Dahlia!
In keeping with the natural rustic feel of the shoot I knew a naked cake would be fabulous. And, oh my, what a cake! I’ve seen a few naked cakes at weddings already and to fit in with a rustic autumn woodland theme what could be better than a naked fruit cake by Rachel and Ella at Blueberry Hill Cakes. We kept the decoration simple with some white Wax flowers, Physalis and rich brown cobnuts as a topper.
To create the rustic woodland setting we used the grounds of the fab Gorse Hill De Vere venue – it was a beautiful sunny day in November so we shot the table setting outside underneath a copper coloured beech tree. The ver talented calligrapher Claire Gould from Calligraphy for Weddings provided us with beautiful hand written place settings. I keeping with the woodland theme, we used the latin names of trees like Quercus / Oak for the table name with an ink illustration of leaves and acorns at the end of a roll of brown parcel paper. Claire’s calligraphy is also shown in the beautiful detailed writing n the menu and chair tags for the bride and groom.
We used our own table linen and vintage lace napkins (they were my grandmother’s), with pretty crockery and candelabras supplied by Rural Vintage to complete the look.
So if you’re thinking of a rustic wedding, I’d love to be there!
You can also see photos from this shoot featured on Whimsical Wonderland Weddings, English Wedding Blog and Rock My Wedding.
The fantastic talented team >>
Venue – Gorse Hill De Vere Hotels
Photography by yours truly – Karen Flower Photography
Hair and make-up – Catherine Bailey Make Up Artist
Dress – Eliza Jane Howell
Headpiece – Flo & Percy
Flowers – Parsley and Rose
Cake – Blueberry Hill Cakes
Wedding stationery – Calligraphy for Weddings
BTS photography – Charlotte Bryer-Ash
Crockery / props – Rural Vintage
Shoes – L.K.Bennett
Earrings – Monsoon
Model – Michaela Ireland