A snowy bleak mid winter wedding inspired shoot

A few years ago on an incredible snowing January day, a little group of us braved the icy roads in Dorset to put together this beautiful wintry shoot. The shoot was featured on Love My Dress and as such for one reason or another I never got round to featuring it here, on my own blog. So here it is!

Exquisitely captured by Jennie Hill Photography, seasonal winter wedding flowers by The Flower Field, wedding pies by Tricky Treats, a Sabina Motasem wedding dress (plus a vintage one), and shot at Portesham Vineyard. All the extra bits were brought together by myself and Jennie Hill, and our bride and groom were a real couple, Jennie”s brother Nick and girlfriend Kerry.

The photoshoot team

Jennie Hill and I first met at the Eco Wedding Fair in Bristol, got chatting and soon realised we had shared ideas about creating a beautiful, natural and seasonal wedding shoot. We wanted to celebrate the bleak mid-winter English countryside in all its seasonal glory, whilst bringing together and showcasing the talents of a small team of British businesses.

When Jennie isn”t photographing weddings she”s a real life shepherdess with her collies Pip and Twig, so it was her initial idea of a shepherd inspired winter shoot that got us dreaming. We had a Pinterest board full of woollens and knitwear, twiggy and berry arrangements, and fruit pies. Not too dissimilar from my ideas of what a cold English winter should be like!

Eco chic wedding dress and accessories

Possibly the best surprise of the whole day was the heavy snowfall – of course initially it threatened the whole shoot, but ultimately it produced the most stunning evocative backdrop. I can”t imagine these photos without the snow. These are the shoots I love being part of most, ones where you go with an idea and a selection of great elements, but you leave the creativity up to the moment. If the snow hadn”t fallen, we”d have simply changed to what the setting provided us, and produced a shoot with no doubt a very different feel.

As you can imagine it was flipping freezing out, and unlike some wintry shoots you see where the bride is in a skimpy dress despite the weather, we wanted to keep it a bit more real and bundle up our bride Kerry and groom Nick in blankets and country coats. The vintage fur coat worn by Kerry with the strapless Grecian style wedding dress from Sabina Motasem actually belonged to our make-up artist.

Beneath the dress bride Kerry wore her own funky leggings and wool knee high socks, and groom Nick wore his own coat and workboots. We tied in a few select chosen wool accessories – the pale blue knitted necklace was from A Alicia Handmade and the moss green knit tie was from vKnit who I found on Etsy.

Wild winter seasonal wedding flowers

Claire from The Flower Field bravely accepted my request to keep the bouquets and arrangements completely seasonal, either British grown winter/spring flowers or foraged from her garden and field. She put together two different by beautiful bouquets – one a colourful spring bouquet with yellow Narcissi, white Anemones, ivy berries, Witch hazel, and hedgerow ferns – and the other a wild hedgerow bouquet a mixture of Paperwhite Narcissi, Hellebores, Rosemary, Garrya elliptica, Magnolia buds and lichen covered twigs.

Bleak mid winter colourful wedding tablescape

For our little tablescape we tried to reflect the season and landscape keeping to cool blues and pale yellows. The vintage plates and cutlery I brought from home, along with the earthenware pots. The beautiful fruit pie from Tricky Treats sat on one of my old bread boards, and the chairs were covered in our sheepskins and wool blankets.

Winter wedding stationery

The paper details came from Artcadia, one of our recommended stationery designers from the directory that I”ve known for many years. At the time they had this beautiful twiggy design that couldn”t have fit more beautifully with our shoot. They produced table numbers, place cards and invitations for us to use.

Winter shepherdess inspired wedding photoshoot

The final highlight of the day (apart from a delicious homemade lunch in front a wood burning stove) was a snowy walk up through a field of sheep! Kerry switched into a 70”s vintage wedding dress that had belonged to Jennie Hill”s mum, accessorised with a thick leather belt made by a local artisan and a thick green wool coat. She carried the wild hedgerow bouquet made by The Flower Field. Nick our groom went more casual (and practical!) with a grey knitted jumper, peak cap and a shepherds crook.

The photos captured by Jennie Hill couldn”t have been more stunning, truly capturing that essence of the bleak mid-winter that we had first dreamt up. Winter weddings in this country do not need to be supplemented with exotic red roses and gold and silver glittery bits to be beautiful, to me (and I hope others), embracing what this season has to offer can be just as lovely.

More winter wedding inspiration here.

{ Details }

Photography: Jennie Hill Photography
Styling & Props: Jennie Hill & The Natural Wedding Company
Venue: Portesham Vineyard
Wedding Dress #1: Sabina Motasem
Wedding Dress #2: Vintage
Flowers: The Flower Field
Stationery: Artcadia
Knitted Necklace: A Alicia Handmade
Knitted Tie: vKnit
Tweed Jacket & Waistcoat: Snooks
Pies: Tricky Treats
Hair & Make-up: Sara Bethwaite

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