How to Accessorise your Vintage Wedding Dress... and the super new-look 'Love My Dress'

Dear Reader

Do you already know Love My Dress? It's a wonderful wedding blog, full of ideas and inspiration by brilliant blogger Annabel. Well, today it's all looking rather new and different... Check out their pretty new design here.

And it reminded me about a post I wrote for Annabel a little while ago, all about accessorising vintage wedding dresses. Just scroll down to see it below. (Some of these beautiful dresses may no longer be available, but do call me to check!) Or visit LoveMyDress to see the original post and admire the lovely redesign at the same time!

HOW TO ACCESSORISE YOUR VINTAGE WEDDING DRESS…

BY ANNABEL

AFTERNOON LADIES :)  I'D LIKE TO FEATURE AN

ADVICE PIECE FROM ONE OF MY FAVOURITE
VINTAGE BRIDAL WEAR SPECIALISTS, HELENA
BUTLER OF HEAVENLY VINTAGE BRIDES.

Helena has kitted out many a Love My Dress bride in one of her gorgeous original vintage wedding dresses, so knows a thing or two about how to team vintage dresses with different bridal accessories…

♥   ♥   ♥

I often get asked by my lovely brides for my advice regarding accessorising 

their vintage wedding dress. With this in mind I have some images to share – 

all the dresses are vintage and are from my own stock at Heavenly Vintage 

Brides, but the accessories are a mix of old {original vintage} and new.

Shoes…

with a short wedding dress like the first few photographed  here, there is  

great scope for fabulous statement shoes, which don't have to be ivory or 

white.  Lots of my Brides wear coloured shoes, red or pink in various shades 

being the most popular.  Several of my lovely brides have chosen the Melissa 

shoe, by Vivienne Westwood {below right in various shades}, and in the 

photo below {left}, the model is wearing Lady Dragon by Vivienne 

Westwood in red.

The sweet little 50s tiered lace dress the model above is wearing is 

unfortunately sold, but I will be making some copies of it in the Spring in 

fabulous French lace – keep an eye on my site for news of my own little 

collection of vintage inspired wedding dresses.

The shoes that my model Patience is wearing below are very modern 

but go well with the dresses, they are in a great nude pink colour which 

make her legs look super-long.

The lovely knee length dress here is 1960s Tulip style and has a very 

elegant, couture look and feel. It is approx a size 10 to small 12 and 

priced at £900, and is currently available to try on at the Heavenly 

Vintage Brides studio.

When my clients ask me for shoe ideas,  I often suggest a Spanish 

designer called Chie Mihara, her designs manage to look both vintage 

and contemporary at the same time. Take a look at Chie's website – 

her price start from around £240.

Another shoe designer I often suggest to my clients is Rachel Simpson 

whose dainty little shoes have a very vintage feel. I particularly like the 

Ginger style, in gold or silver as seen here. This designer has also just 

collaborated on a new range of shoes for dance-wear specialist Freed of 

London. 

A more cost effective alternative is to have a look at Next wedding 

shoes. The prices start from £30 and the shoes are really very pretty, 

and fantastic value. 

Vintage Bling…

I do love a bit of bling, so I often add a vintage brooch to a dress, 

the 1940s brooch Patience is wearing goes well as it's the same age 

as the dress and adds a bit of subtle sparkle, and the diamante pattern 

is quite lacy.

A great place to buy affordable vintage jewellery is the Hammersmith 

Town Hall Vintage Fair, run by Paola of P & A Antique Fairs, I get lots 

of great accessories, and petticoats there.

The little white flower and heart hat is by Cherished Vintage and the 

cocktail ring is from Top Shop and is just added for fun…

In one shot we have the ultimate accessory -  the 'handbag-sized' dog….! 

In this case JJ, who behaved very well considering she is only a few 

months old!

This dress by the way, is in beautiful cotton lace original vintage number, 

that was worn by a bride in Richmond back in the 1940s. I love the fact 

that I know her name and the year it was worn.  The Bride stored it so 

carefully with a little mother of pearl Bible and a coin dated 1940. It is 

in fantastic condition so it was obviously a treasured possession.

The dress is approximately size 8/10 and priced at £900.

The next dress is a 1950s tulle prom style dress. I have used a dainty 

little vintage diamante necklace which belonged to my model Cordelia's 

grandmother. I think it's lovely to try and use a family piece of jewellery 

- it doesn't need to be a valuable piece, just go through 'Granny's' 

jewellery box!

The headdress the model is wearing is made from vintage gold leaves 

and delicate diamante jewellery – a design by Cherished Vintage. The 

dress is priced at £850 and is size 8.

Headpieces…

The headwear is of course very important an accessory, particularly for 

my photoshoots. I have used a range of styles made by Abby and Debbie 

at the wonderful Cherished Vintage.  They use original vintage jewellery 

to make lovely unique headpieces and bands, and to my delight - great 

little hats, which are a recent addition to their range.  All the headpieces 

I used on my shoot were made by Cherished Vintage.

The dress here is a 1960s very classic style with a beaded neckline, and 

tulip skirt. The headdress made from vintage pearl jewellery was perfect 

with it – I needed something very simple in shape, to reflect the simplicity 

of the dress and the beaded neckline, and  It had just the right kind of 

beading and just the right 'weight' to it – again, from Cherished Vintage.

I though the style demanded a simple Audrey Hepburn style hairdo, but  

I made it a bit loose, to keep it modern.  The dress size is approximately 

a size 8.

Hairstyles are of course very important and I feel that they should echo 

the period of the dress but with a modern feel. Hair styles of the past 

were very fixed and lacquered and these days, girls don't want anything 

quite as stiff. 

Here, I again used a cute little hat from Cherished Vintage, and false 

eyelashes, which are great for capturing that vintage feel.

The dress, again modelled by Cordelia is silk organza from the 1950s 

with French Lace appliques, priced at £1200, it has a long sweeping 

train and a beautiful sash and fits approx a size 8. The little hats are 

hand-made on new bases using vintage flowers and textiles, and will 

be a feature of Cherished's ready to wear collection, or can be made 

bespoke to order.

The dress shown below is again from the 1950s and is beautifully 

constructed with  many panels forming the skirt.  It almost has a corset-like 

effect to draw attention to a neat waist.  It is approximately a size 8 or 

small size 10, and priced at £1100.

The final dress is a cute sparkly tulle and lace 1950s prom dress with 

pearls and sequins following the pattern of the lace around the neckline.  

I have used a great headpiece which has a sparkly vintage brooch at its 

centre, as of course the sparkles on the dress demand a bit more sparkle 

in the hair!  The dress is a size 8 and priced at £1000.

All these dresses are available at Heavenly Vintage Brides, and I love 

to meet Love My Dress brides, so please feel free to contact me to book 

in for an appointment sometime to try some on!

My prices range from £350/400 to around £1250 for an original 

vintage wedding dress. Unfortunately I don't have space to stock many 

accessories,  but I do have some nice original vintage wedding veils, 

and some great cocktail veils – designed by Helena Talbot of HT 

Headwear, that compliment my dresses in the most wonderful way.  

Helena can also create headpiece designs to match your specific ideas.

I hope you've enjoyed this post. Do check out Annabel's blog,
LoveMyDress. And please do visit me later this week when I'll be 
featuring some fabulous 1930s wedding dresses!

Love

Helena 

Heavenly Vintage Brides

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100 Things I Love This Week Part 1- Pre-wedding Festivities

1. Getting our Nails done at Timmy's at Bahama Breeze- He didn't even make me get fake ones this time, because I did better at not biting my nails. It was such a fun afternoon with my Mom and Melissa! I did not find it relaxing though. I just don't get why manicures are supposed to somehow be restful. But Timmy is kind of like the hair salons in that he knows everybody.
2. Red toenails- they are so cute! My mom makes fun of my prostitute colored toenails, but they looked pretty on her too so there. I have very few beauty preferences, but this is one of them.

3. Red polka dot shoes! These are my shoes, my mom's shoes, and my bridesmaid shoes. I love them all together!

4. My beloved Melissa! I could say this one about a million times. As my dad said, she has the perfect amount of enthusiasm every step of the way and she made every step fun. You think wedding festivities will be a romantic kind of love fest, but I found, in general, it was a lot about all of the other loves in our life. We came out of it feeling super super lucky. For me, a big part of that was Melissa!
5. My Mom's sense of timing- she thinks things take even less time than I do! It cracks me up, but the two of us together make for a pretty chaotic day!

6. Meeting Liam- Man, I was so pumped to see this baby! He was just so adorable and sweet. He has super big eyes and a really serious face, so when he is just looking around everywhere he looks so curious, which has to be one of the best qualities you can have as a baby (and a person in general!) I was just so happy to be near him!

7. Watching everyone else with Liam- Honestly, this was one of the biggest pleasures of the whole event. About the only thing cuter than an infant is watching the people you love interact with them. They are just magic in tiny human form, because they pull the joy and love right out of everybody else around them. Liam had that magic in spades, and it was so nice to watch my Uncle Doug and Nana interact with him. Not to mention it was crazy to see Shelly being a mommy!

8. Moffitt Cookie Nights- I love these, because they give us an excuse to be silly and weird, but what I like the most is just when my grandparents house is full and loud. I miss the times when it was like that at least once a month, but this night on its own could have been the best night ever. For reals.

9. Frosting Time- People were not as excited about cutting out cookies (mostly just Zach Natalie and I did that) but once it was time to frost people were all over the place. Plus, this part is funny, because people have to try to figure out what the heck it was we were trying to make. And my Nana always looks like she is having so much fun.

10. Big Foot Cookies- God Bless younger cousins with Big Foot obsessions, because the cookies really do turn out awesome. Well, not this one in particular, because we forgot about a pan and burnt them all. But, all was not lost!

11. Burnt cookies- Perfect for lopping up all of the extra Nana frosting after we finished the cookies. It shouldn't have been as amazing as it was, but I think we all enjoyed that part the most. That frosting is seriously the best frosting in the whole world, so if you have to use a piece of burnt cardboard to eat it off of, you won't complain.

12. Mars Rover cookie fighting Big Foot- Do you know when you try to print out a picture of the Mars Rover from the NASA website, it just sends you a faint image of Mars? Ah well, perfect to stage an epic faceoff between the two icons. I just hope that this catches on as a widespread bridal tradition. Maybe if I pinterest it.

 

 13. My cousin Hannah- She and I were talking weddings, and she told me she was going to wait until she was older-like maybe 20 or 21- to get married. Then she was pretty shocked and disgusted to find out I was already 26! Just ancient! It just cracked me up! I love just hanging out with the girl cousins!

14. Sleeping in- You really start to appreciate it when you don't have it any more. Kind of like dry clothes, which I was also having trouble getting a hold of.

 

15. Hibachi "firemen"- the only stripper at my Bachelorette Party was a tiny little plastic guy that this guy used to wash off the grill. It was a very special moment, that sadly no one got on camera. Glad some innappropriateness snuck its way in.

 

16. My now Sister in laws- You have to love two women who force feed you swiss cake rolls and accidentally order 6 meals when you go out to eat (they were only shooting for 2). They completely crack me up with all of their sassiness, though they will never be as sassy as Aubrey! 

 

17. Pottery Painting as a bachelorette party- With 2 pregos, 2 underagers, and a new mommy in the group, it was a bit of a challenge to figure out what to do, but the final decision was a nice surprise. It was super relaxing and really fun. 

 

 18. Ye Ole Sweet Shops new Cupcake truck! Melissa got this to come to the pottery painting place as a surprise and it was AMAZING! I blew my wedding diet a few days early but it was so worth it.

 

19. Watching all the girls pig out and my bride cupcake- Everything was really good and they had even worked out the flavors to bring in my Italian fiance (they brought canolis) and our wedding colors. I cannot overstate how much I loved the surprise. Plus, they gave me three boxes of treats and everyone moved right through them because they were so good!

 

20. "Soon to Be Mrs. Alfeo"- This creeps me out, because in my head, I am somehow going to morph into my Mother-in-Law, who has always been Mrs. Alfeo to me. It just feels so weird!

 

 

21. Elizabeth's demented leprocy cat- She had a real vision to execute. Loved it.  I actually tried to paint something normal, so I was pretty jealous of her.

 

22. Shell's blazer- I am not sure if there is a blog specifically for post-baby fashion, but this girl should be on it. She looked so cute constantly, and I think the blazer was a serious highlight. You have to love that Forever 21! 

 

23. Silver Cornet Band Concerts in the Park- Best thing in the world is hearing the Silver Cornet March and smelling the popcorn. It makes me happy just thinking about it now!

 

24. The Courthouse- So Pretty.

 

25. The Last Late Night with the Lego Card Box- I went to sleep before it was done (so before that stormtrooper began to massage Voldemort) but the project just got bigger and bigger, and it ended up being pretty amazing!

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Weddingness- Top Ten Wedding-related Websites for Planning

10. Emmaline Bride-Emmaline sometimes has cute posts, but mostly they schlep for a bunch of independent (read- mostly etsy) sellers. If you have something in particular in mind, sometimes you will have better luck starting here and then getting linked over to Etsy.

9. The Perfect Palette- This blog is the best for the very beginning of your wedding planning, when you are trying to figure out exactly what you want the feeling to be. She even organizes her blog by color, so if you have one color that your really love you can start thinking about combos. I personally think that color is the heart of all happiness, so people should really keep it in mind when they are making those big picture decisions in the beginning.
8.WeddingBee-I have to say, I never really navigated WeddingBee as I site on its own, but if you type in an angsty question on Bing, often weddingbee chats will be the first thing to come up. It is nice to realize that other people are going through the same thing, hearing these things won't matter in the long run, and even hearing actual solutions! It helps for making decisions and moving on.

7. Style Me Pretty-  Pretty classic WeddingPorn. Nothing too outside the box, but the photos are beautiful and they put up more than anyone. You can definitely identify the trends by going through the pictures.

6. Love my Dress wedding blog-Great British wedding blog- since they are European, you of course can count on them to be super fancy and fashion forward. This blog also is great because it offers a lot of different body types without congratulating itself for doing so. If I wanted to see what a dress looked like on a model, I would just look at the pictures with models. I like seeing women with curves- even more so, I feel like this blog is encouraging because it is mostly women who are genuinely cool with who they are and choose dresses that correspond accordingly. They show off their bodies and personalities in a way that you can go through the blog and see a ton of women who look amazing, but you don't want their look, because they totally look like themselves.
5. Ruffled- Wedding Porn if your favorite store is Anthropology. Also, if you want all of your wedding pictures to look like instagram. In all seriousness, their photographs are often so pretty. They also talk about people's song choices and which have reminded me that we will never be cool enough to be on this blog.

4. Green Wedding Shoes-A little bit quirkier than Ruffled, and they often feature cool how to's which are very simple and useful.I have so many pictures saved from that site. My favorite part is where you hear the couple's favorite memory and advice for the big day. So important to see what people can come up with while simultaneously maintaining having a life and being a couple.
3. The Knot-sign up. If nothing else, you will love actually getting to check things off their online task list. It shouldn't be as satisfying as it is, and yet, I love it. Also a good choice for etiquette advice. Or you can read some of their chatboards if you want to feel better about your dramas.

2.Pinterest- Pinterest is a clear window into every woman's psyche, but it also can be very useful in early brainstorming phrases. My main advice would be to use the search as much as possible, rather than just browse the wedding section. That area gets repetitive (really, how many of the cutesy picture of bridesmaids butts do I need to see? definitely between 0-1), but if you use it to look up retro hairstyles or wedding shoes, you will be impressed with things you find. Remember, it's all about maintaining inspiration!

1. Offbeat Bride- When you are going through the heavy blog, always always always check Offbeat Bride. First of all, some of the ideas there inspired the ideas we are most proud of in our wedding. Way more importantly, you need to see the 99% of the content you would never use, because it is totally them, not totally you. I mean this as much as I have meant anything in planning- the more you can throw out what you should do for what you want to do, the happier you will be not only with the wedding but just enjoying the planning itself. Even if you don't want a super retro backyard lesbian polka dot wedding (I mean, I do, but I get not everyone does), this blog and all of its super fun posts serve as constant reminders and inspirations to do what is actually true to yourself and your relationship. They also write great, very thoughtful posts on everything from brides who want to wear their glasses to secular wedding readings and more. Plus, it is just way way more fun than other blogs. If you want to wade in, try following them on Pinterest, and just see how many of their ideas you love, you closet nerd!

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