Blog: Mark Tattersall Photography
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Our rustic country wedding – afternoon tea in the garden before the ceremony ~ part 1

Charlie

For us, dreaming up an afternoon tea in my parent’s garden before our wedding ceremony was probably one of the best ideas we had.  So often at weddings you have travelled for a couple of hours, often arriving at lunchtime or soon after, having not had a chance to eat anything and feeling a bit out of it from the car journey.

We wanted our guests to feel as relaxed as possible and well fed before getting down to the serious business of witnessing our marriage.  For a start, on the invitation we told people they could arrive from 3pm, rather than saying ‘you must be here at…’  This meant there was a nice staggered arrival of family and friends, and hopefully it meant people weren’t under too much pressure to arrive by a specific time.

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Our rustic country wedding – the boys get ready

Charlie

So we’ve done the girls getting ready, and you always see loads of photos of the bride and bridesmaids.  For today, it’s all about the boys.

On our wedding day there were four key men in my life: my dad, my little brother Freddie (aged just 15), Alex the best man, and of course Nick (the groom and my ‘husband-to-be’).

With Mark taking photos at the house of us setting up the garden and my gorgeous antique lace dress, I asked my good friend Kate if she would take some photos of the boys getting ready.

She took all these lovely photos – I’ve only just seen them and it’s so exciting to see new photos from our wedding that I’ve not seen before.

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Our rustic country wedding – the veil, the hair and make-up, and pretty accessories

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Today it’s all about my wedding accessories – from my vintage inspired shoes to the heirloom lace veil, natural make-up to a gorgeous garters.  It’s all here including the details of how I came to choose them for our wedding.

The Shoes


Mark Tattersall Photography

I spent ages looking for the ‘right’ shoes.  So many wedding shoes are elegant but modern, and my dress was so delicate and had a country feel to it, that I wanted something with an old-fashioned feel.  I also didn’t want really high heels as most of our wedding was spent walking on grass.


Mark Tattersall Photography

In the end I came across the gorgeous designs by Diane Hassall and fell in love with a pair called ‘Liliana’ – I managed to track them down to a bridal shop in nearby Knutsford and despite being loads more than I’d ever imagined spending, they came home with me.  They came with a choice of floaty organza or velvet ties – I went for the velvet ones.


Mark Tattersall Photography

I particuarly love this picture above of my shoes on the windowsill in my parent’s bedroom, with all those personal bits you find in people’s houses in the background.

The Veils

I hadn’t planned on wearing any veil…and I ended up having two!  My mum spent ages trying to track down the family veil, which she had worn when she married my dad, and my granny before her, and so on back through the generations.

I love this photo of my little sister Izzy holding my parents wedding album open at a photo of my mum wearing the veil, with it hanging behind Izzy from the cupboard…


Mark Tattersall Photography

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Our rustic country wedding – my antique lace wedding dress

Charlie

Whilst a lot of brides spend hours getting ready, I had just over two hours to cool down (I was so hot from dashing round all day getting the garden ready!), have my hair and make-up done, and get dressed.

I was finally ‘removed’ from the garden and banished upstairs at 2.15pm when Nick and the boys arrived – although we’d spent the morning together, we’d decided we wouldn’t see each other after that.

‘The Dress’


Mark Tattersall Photography

I never intended to buy a wedding dress, I have a friend who is a dressmaker and I’d always planned for her to make one.  But I wanted a little of the fun of trying wedding dresses on, so off I went to Cheltenham with my mum and little sister to try some dresses on and see what style and shape suited me best.


Mark Tattersall Photography

We’d been to two generic wedding dress shops before we entered Cocoa Couture owned by Cara Wagstaff.  We were instantly blown away by this tiny upstairs room stuffed full of gorgeous dresses all handmade by Cara and her team from antique fabrics and lace.


Izzy Burton Photography

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Our rustic country wedding – setting up the garden on morning of the wedding

Charlie

It has been so lovely to have our wedding featured on Love My Dress, but I know that some of my readers would like to see more detail, and there’s so many lovely photos it seems a shame not to share more of them.

Our wedding ceremony was due to start at 4.30pm, but we’d invited our guests to have afternoon tea in the garden from 3pm.  This meant we had all morning to get ready, which for a wedding at home was all about everyone pitching in to help set up.  So with less than an hour before people were due to start arriving this is what we were doing…

The tents were already up, but we had to get all the tables laid up. This is our lovely friend Kate, who along with her husband Tim set out all the crockery and place settings (among a long list of other things!)…

We hung lots of the jam jar lanterns we’d made from the tents, tying them on with twine…

Here’s Tim setting out more lanterns around the garden and hanging them from trees…

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Our “Rustic, Outdoor, Eco-Chic, Country Garden Wedding” is featured on Love My Dress

Charlie

Such exciting news to tell you all – our wedding is featured on Love My Dress today!  You can (finally!) see the photos from our wedding – the lovely Annabel who runs Love My Dress has called it a Rustic, Outdoor, Eco-Chic, Country Garden Wedding.

I would love to know what you all think.  There are so many more lovely photos from our wedding and other details that I will be sharing here on my blog, so please check back or stay in touch by adding your email address to the mailing list (you can find it on the righthand side of this page).

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A sneak peek of the first of our wedding photos

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Yes, this really is a photo from our wedding!  Bet some of you can’t believe it (some of my friends are ready to start a mutiny if I don’t share the photos soon!).

Really soon there will be loads of photos from our wedding here, and on Love My Dress (so excited we’re going to be featured on Annabel’s lovely blog!).  She’s posted a few sneak peek photos so do have a look.

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A lazy summer picnic photoshoot with cakes and sweetpeas

Charlie

On Wednesday I had so much fun.  I drove up to Lancashire to meet Mark Tattersall, we had lunch and caught up, then we set up a mini photoshoot.  Mark took the pictures and I brought along a boot full of ‘bits and pieces’ from my home, some beautiful English sweetpeas and delicious cupcakes.

I suppose in the world of weddings you would say I ‘styled’ the shoot, but it feels rather odd, as it was more just a collection of pretty things made to look nice.  With this gorgeous (and sometimes stifling) hot weather we’ve had, I wanted to create a small lazy summer picnic.

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A special post delivery this morning – our wedding photos from Mark Tattersall

Charlie

I’m being told off by Mr Rigg for not helping tidy the house, but I was so excited by a parcel in the post this morning that I had to share it with you all.

A wonderful package arrived from Mark Tattersall, who did the photos for our wedding – two discs of our images, a booklet of all our photos in mini size, and a gorgeous black box with a stunning recycled wood memory stick of photos.

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