Ruth in Edwardian lace wedding dress – an enchanting vintage bride for 2016.

Dear Reader,
The Happiest of New Years to you! 
I'd like to start our 2016 with an enchanting vintage bride in the prettiest Edwardian wedding dress. Meet Ruth!

Ruth and Conor were married in late Summer at St Mary's Parish Church, Kilmood, County Down in Northern Ireland. Befitting this wonderful couple, their whole day has a beautiful handmade and simple vibe that perfectly suited the innocent charm of Ruth's beautiful Edwardian cotton lace wedding dress.

To complement her vintage wedding dress, Ruth wore a charming floral crown together with an elegant fingertip–length veil in silk tulle (the veil was handcrafted by the bride's talented mother!) The overall effect is simple and stunning.

The lovely, personal feel of their day continued inside the Church. Conor comes from a musical family, so Ruth walked down the aisle to a live performance by two family members of Simon and Garfunkel's The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy).

Their reception was held at Field of Dreams in Bangor, County Down. It's a stunning rural location – with a Scandinavian-style wooden lodge decked out in beautiful garlands, as well as marquee, meadow, lake and even a standing stone circle!

Inside a traditional canvas marquee – handsomely decked out with wooden tables, hay bales and floral garlands – a good friend played mixologist for the night, creating fresh juices and cocktails including Rhubarb Margaritas and Apple, Elderflower and Gin Rickeys. So good!

Groom Conor is a Fine Bench Joiner and Cabinet Maker and made the stunning maple and birch wood tables himself! (He's since sold half of them to a bar–restaurant in the French Alps, but the couple are determined to keep one as a memento of their fab day.) 

A wonderful, casual meal was followed by many hours of dancing to great music, courtesy of a band of friends and family. The first dance was to Twist and Shout by the Beatles and Ruth reports that after that she didn't stop dancing until the very end of the evening!

What a beautiful day! I'll leave the last word to our fabulous bride Ruth...

"Thank you again for helping me find the perfect vintage wedding dress. It was amazing – just wonderful! So comfortable, flowed beautifully when I walked and danced (and I did a lot of dancing!!) and it felt like it was made just for me. I received so many compliments. My dress really was such a big part of what made the day so special."

Thanks for visiting my vintage wedding blog, dear reader. I hope you'll pop back again. If you'd like to see more of Conor and Ruth's magical day, click here. And meanwhile, I wish you a magical 2016.
Love 
Helena 
Heavenly Vintage Brides

If you like this post, check out…
Sophie in pretty 1950s lace wedding dress – and sneakers!
And try more Real Vintage Brides on my website, here.

Groom's suit by ASOS
Bridesmaids' dresses by In One Clothing
Flowers by Floral Creations
Photographs with thanks to Honey & the Moon Photography

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Wedding Wednesday- Vendor Love- Jeremy Ganss

 

Ok, now it is time to sing the praises of another one of the vendors that helped for our wedding. This one matters a lot, I think, because it's not like we will have the chance to hire Jeremy too many times in our life (I mean, I am not sure if he dj's 2 person dance parties), so the best way we can show him support is to highly recommend him, which we definitely do. He is based out of Clarion, and works a lot of Pittsburgh weddings, but if you are planning a wedding in Western PA, you can't do better. He was our big splurge for the wedding, and it was totally worth it. 

 

Jeremy keeps up a blog of his own that you can find here-  http://jeremyganss.blogspot.com/ To be honest, this blog was what won me over in the first place. I never saw a dj who was that serious and enthusiastic about his weddings that he kept track of song choices and took pictures himself. He clearly cares. Then, when I called him to chat (actually the first time we talked I was just getting his opinion on Wanango, but we talked for practically an hour), he was generous, funny, and a well of information. He knew about all the sites, all my regular wedding complaints, and how to best strategize his weddings. He was genuinely a pleasure to deal with every step of the way.

 

These are all pictures from his blog- for real, check it out! Jeremy knows his stuff, but he has a very humble, open, and generous Western PA personality. He is not hungry for the spotlight. I have been to those weddings too.  The whole night the dance floor was full, and everyone told us that they had a good time. We didn't have to worry about the schedule, because Jeremy was on top of all of it.

 

I could go on about Jeremy a long time, but The Boy wrote Jeremy a note that I think sums up his awesomeness pretty well:

 Jeremy,

Where to begin? You were absolutely phenomenal in every way, from the moment Barbara contacted you out of the blue to ask, not about DJ’ing, but for your opinions on Wenango (having seen your online review for it, not knowing you were a local DJ), it was immediately clear that you were passionate about your job and fully committed to delivering well executed, extraordinarily fun weddings. You always went above and beyond reasonable expectations to offer exceptional service, and it really showed.


You were always proactive, patient, and flexible to our schedule, not an easy thing to do when Barbara and I both were thousands of miles away for all but a handful of whirlwind visits back to Pennsylvania through the year+ of planning. You actively sought our opinions and took the time to meet us to get to know us, our tastes, and our goals for the wedding. You did more than pick a bunch of songs (though you did do that too, and your website made that easy to do in our own time!); you helped us to create the overall schedule of the night.


Once the reception began, you kept us on task and on schedule without ever being pushy or controlling or trying to take center stage; you gently guided us and our guests from dinner, to toasts, to cake, etc. without any jarring transitions. Once the dancing began, the floor was never empty—not even close—for more than four hours!  You transformed our eclectic requests (modern pop, Motown, obscure big band music, etc.) into the non-stop dance party we asked for.


You kept everyone, from the youngest cousins to our grandparents, excited, pumped, and moving the whole time. Unlike most of the DJ’s I’ve seen at weddings, you take your craft very seriously: your equipment is modern and your library and tastes are trend-leading rather than trend-following (Norah Jones: out; acoustic covers of the Bieb: yes, please). Most importantly, you actually know how to DJ: you did more than put together a giant playlist, press the ‘play’ button, and then walk away to eat cookies, take MySpace pictures of themselves, or fiddle on their phones for the majority of the night (yes, we’ve seen these before).

The level of service Jeremy provided was unparalleled, and he was key in making our night the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding. Thank you for making our wedding kick ass!

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Wedding Wednesday- It's AUGUST!!!!! What to Do, What to Do?

Ok, so now that it is the month of the wedding, you will have to forgive non-Wednesday wedding posts. I'll try to keep it to a minimum, but once I go home, all bets are off. These are the things we are going to try to get done before I get on the plane:

from www.stylemepretty.com

1. Pick up my dress! Actually, it still has a few alterations that need done too for the hem. And I just saw a picture of the dress on another bride, so now I really have a good idea of what needs done. Also need to remind the bridesmaids to all get their dresses fitted!

from www.weddingbycolor.com/tags/swing%20dance‎

2. Pick the Father/Daughter Dance song- Yes, this still isn't done yet. Finish putting our song choices on
line.
3. Finish bugging the people who haven't given us an RSVP- we have heard from a lot of people, but we still have 15 or so people who are question marks.
4. Revise day of timeline and the task lists. Try to make individual ones for different groups of people (bridesmaids, groomsmen, parents, grandparents, etc).

from beauty.lovelyish.com/

from www.lacqueristas.com/nails/red-white-tip‎

5. Get final beauty appointments. Time to get nails done!
6. Finish the photo wall.
7. Figure out how we are going to do first look pictures! This one really needs done before all the timeline stuff.
8. Write Thank You's for the wedding party and parental units. Finish buying gifts for them.
9. Keep up with white strips and practicing doing makeup!
10. Insurance
11. Doing the paperwork to change my Name (if I am changing it... is everyone this indecisive about this? I really have change. This whole thing seems like a pain in the butt).
12. Pay people! We want as many of the bills totally finished off before we come home as possible.
13. Make appointment with DJ.
14. Give vendors final head count.
15. Confirm final details for vendors (all of them! This is a huge one)

from itsabrideslife.com/tag/wedding-seating-chart/

16. Make our seating chart! Work out the layout of the room.
17. Finish our crafting we can do here.

24 days to go!

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