Weddingbee Blog

Ophelia, my dress, hanging in the conservatory where I got my hair and makeup done

I’m a details kind of girl. I hoard small, seemingly insignificant things because they have so many special memories attached to them…a single earring, a scrap of fabric, an old brooch. Now every single item I wore on my wedding day is imbued with memories as well, if they weren’t already before, and they all have the power to bring the emotion of those moments rushing back to me.

I think many of us have dress doubts at some stage in our planning, especially if you bought your dress as early as I bought mine. Right up until the wedding day I still had a few niggling worries about Ophelia…but then I put her on. I laughed in her, danced in her, got grass stains on her. By the end of the day I was completely in love with her. And I *may* have shed a few tears when it was time to take her off. She was definitely “the one.” It just took me until my wedding day to have that “moment.”

But my dress wasn’t the only part of my outfit I fell in love with…

You might be able to see in the above photo that Mr E ended up choosing “Flowerbomb” as my wedding day scent. It smelled great all day, and now whenever I get a whiff of it I can’t help but smile.

Mr E gave me something else a couple days before the wedding that you can see in that photo. Need a closer look? As you wish:

It’s my “something blue”: a sapphire and white gold necklace that used to belong to Mr E’s grandmother, who passed away last year. I already had a necklace to wear with my dress, but this one looked perfect wrapped around the stem of my bouquet.

In the background of this photo you can see my other “something blue”: my mother’s garter. She found it a few weeks before the wedding, gave it a wash to get rid of some stains, and it was as good as new! I also carried a lace-edged handkerchief in my purse that was made by one of her great-great aunts. My parents gifted me with the pearl bracelet in the photo, and I wore that along with my grandmother’s pearl necklace that I wrapped around my wrist. The pearl bracelet, plus my silver earrings and necklace were all from Bali, as a reminder of my Indonesian upbringing. You will be able to get a better glimpse of those when I show you some of the portraits Jane took later.

The silver flower pin for my hair was also a gift from my parents, and from Indonesia:

My shoes deserve a photo all of their own!

Purchased from whichgoose, they turned out to be just the right height for my dress, and I got plenty of comments on them throughout the day!

You can’t have a details post without the rings squeezing in a glamour shot:

In this post  I hinted that Mr E’s mother was stitching something special on the Thursday before the wedding. Well, that something special was a heart sewn out of one scrap of fabric from his maternal grandmother’s 50th wedding anniversary dress, and another scrap of fabric from the dress his paternal grandmother wore to Mr E’s parents’ wedding.

As neither of his grandmothers were with us in person, the heart was sewn into the lining of my wedding dress so that they could still be a part of the day.

Phew! That’s a lot of details. I have one more to share with you: my veil. It was simple, one-layered and went to my fingertips, and it was just the final touch I needed to turn me from girl to bride.

Aww, you know I couldn’t resist sneaking in one more photo of my dress as well.

Choosing my wedding outfit details was probably one of my favourite parts of planning, and seeing how they all came together on the day was the cherry on top!

Next up: I finally get into my dress

*All photos taken by Jane Sanders

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So far in our midsummer dream…

• We welcomed our guests with pizza on Wednesday, DIYed our flowers on Thursday, and had a nightmarish Friday
• The girls got ready