Manor House with a Vintage Difference – Jessica & Raef – March 2013

The Manor House in the Southern Highlands staged a very different sort of wedding for Jessica and Raef in March this year.  It was vintage with a difference!

Now this is inspiring stuff, so get a cuppa and read on!

Not only did our bride look absolutely delicious in her unique style of vintage theme, but she made her own bridal gown!  She also made her three bridesmaids dresses. Jessica is very creative I admit but she hadn’t touched the sewing machine for ten years.

Jessica and her mother worked every weekend for three months making the dress, including the cut out and appliqué lace. Her dress was exactly what she wanted – a vintage inspired lace and silk gown. You could not find anything like it in any bridal store!

Then, she made the flowers.  Not fresh as normal but crepe paper roses (Maratha Stewart Weddings website) …700 roses! It took a team of work colleagues and bridesmaids (each single one had 12 individually shaped petals attached plus leaves).

Again, it was a lot of work, but now she would have a beautiful bouquet that doesn’t need preserving to be displayed! A lot of the guests loved the roses, which were cream, peach, baby blue, maroon, orange and yellow, and actually have them in their own homes! They also made 130 paper pinwheels for guests to hold up at the end of the ceremony when they were pronounced husband and wife.

If you are impressed or at least inspired, read more!

The Decorations – you know what I am going to say here – Jessica thought it would be fun to make a lot of the decorations herself (glutton for punishment maybe?).She made a set of free standing double doors to walk through during the ceremony. For the buntings they made a wedding sign out of old fence palings and made the table numbers out of MDF wrapped in twine, as well as a matching ‘Mr. & Mrs.’ sign. They then made a guest book, menus, guest seating list and the wedding favours. Her sister made the most of the sweets in the candy buffet and the wedding cake. In fact, the only decorations they didn’t make were the vintage teacup sets, vintage books and the glass jars for the table centrepieces.

I think the newlyweds deserved their mini  honeymoon at Paperbark Camp in Wollollamia (Jervis Bay)…its beautiful!    Their real one will be to NZ in October and then to Japan in February next year!

Jessica chose me as her bridal makeup and hair artist because she wanted someone local to the area without the risk of travel problems from someone coming from Sydney net.”Because I was researching from Sydney, it was difficult to get a lot of information from most websites that I visited. Your website gave me all of the information I required and had a fantastic gallery of hairstyles, which made me a lot more confident. At the time, it was also possible to have my trial in Sydney, which made it so much easier for me. At the trial, you seemed genuinely excited about trying things other than ‘classic’ wedding hairstyles, and created something very unique which suited the theme of my wedding.

Jessica said:

I liked our professionalism, creativity and willingness to come up with something original and unique! At no time during our trial did I worry about things not turning out the way I wished, and on the actual day, you kept everyone, including myself, relaxed – there was no rushing about at all! You have a great knowledge of what works and made me look flawless with both my hair and makeup – a difficult task given my complexion – but you made it look extremely natural and made me ‘glow’!

I did not have to reapply my make up or touch up my hair at all during the day! It stayed on beautifully, which reflected well in our photos. Even though I did remove my make up after the wedding, my hair stayed in (and perfect) until I got home the following night and took it out!

You are incredibly brilliant at what you do. I was so amazed at how we all looked on the day! The products you chose also felt fantastic on our skin (even my bridesmaid who was breastfeeding at the time, which had previously caused issues with allergies when applying makeup, had no trouble at all with her skin). Again, your professionalism and calm nature relaxed us all, and I couldn’t have asked for more!”

I am quite sure that Jessica’s wedding will be featured in many bridal magazines in the future, and I hope many brides-to-be will be inspired by her.

Its a special day for you all and everyone has their unique way of going about creating it.

It”s what you put into life that brings so much happiness to so many, and I am very touched by Jessica’s words …makes my vocation very special.

Watch out for Jessica in those magazines now!