love shoot #58: practically perfect {clementine & olivier}

Good morning weddingista’s! I hope November is treating you well so far? It’s taking a while to get used to these darker nights isn’t it? Today’s real wedding will inject a little light back into your week, a pretty French-inspired celebration with plenty of personal touches. Submitted by one of my favourite wedding people, wedding coordinator Stacey-Marie from Cherry Topped Bespoke Weddings, I knew this wedding would have an attention to detail like no other, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint.

This wedding took place at the beautiful Nonsuch Mansion, in Surrey (also the venue for Nadine & Dave’s wedding featured last week), I can certainly see why it’s such a popular location with it’s beautiful interiors and gorgeous gardens providing the perfect backdrop for an intimate wedding.

With inspiration taken from the bride & groom’s international heritage and adventures, and their favourite film Mary Poppins, their day captures the fun and spirit of the movie with a touch of French elegance and sophistication. I’m so in love with bride, Clementine’s, frothy San Patrick dress, a texture picked up in the light as a cloud baby’s breath bouquets carried by her bridesmaids and lining the aisle in the ceremony room. My favourite detail has to be the amazing stationery! The candy stripes reminiscent of a French Patisserie, stylish graphics and the wonderful silhouette’s illustrating the bride & groom and their favourite places add a personal and beautiful touch.

The light & pretty images from photographer Kerry Morgan only add to the ‘practically perfect’ atmosphere of the day.

I spoke to Clementine about their day ~

Olivier and I used to leave in Norway in Oslo and work in the same engineering company. I realised one day by spending some time on Facebook that 2 of my friends both knew Olivier: one was my colleague at work, a Spanish girl and the other one was my best friend from high school in France. I found it was a funny coincidence as, at first, they had nothing in common except me! I decided to go and meet Olivier in order to find out how he knew my best friend from high school. He actually was also a very good friend of hers as they went skiing at the same place during every holiday! Following our first discussion, we happened to meet more and more on the bus, in the city or at work but without planning anything. And then came the Christmas party of our office, and Olivier took the first step! Unfortunately, at that time, I had already decided to move to London 2 months later. We had a really lovely 2 months together and decided not to plan anything at first. When I moved to London, we continued to stay in touch, meet during the weekends and for holidays. After 6 months, Olivier started to look for a job in London and asked for a transfer within the company. And so we were reunited in London!

We got married in Nonsuch Mansion in Surrey. We loved the venue from the first moment we saw it as it was a good size for us (we did not want anything too big) and also the gardens are really beautiful. I also loved the room where I could get prepared!

The most important thing was The Dress of course! And also we wanted to make sure that all of our guests would have a good time. We wanted everyone to have excellent food and champagne and for the dance floor to be full in the evening. Our wishes were granted! I chose to have a bouquet made from fabric and brooches which would have meaning to me and would be something to keep. My bouquet was made with fabric from my Mother’s wedding dress, fabric from my best friend’s wedding dress, some handmade flowers by my mother and some vintage glitzy brooches. It was made by Brooches Buttons and Bows.

We did not want something too extravagant. Stacey-Marie from Cherry Topped Bespoke Weddings, who helped us organise the wedding, suggested a couple of options after we talked through our likes and dislikes. We wanted something using summery pastel colours and to incorporate a subtle Mary Poppins theme (a film we both enjoyed as children) together with hints of French and English and to use the places we have travelled to together somewhere in the design. We chose sky blue and mint green as our colours, this ran through the ribbons, confetti, outfits, stationery and even into the personalised cocktails we had in the evening (“The Clementine” blue lagoon & “The Olivier” mojito cocktails!). We commissioned a silhouette artist Alison Russell to do silhouettes of us both (with Olivier holding a fencing sword as he enjoys fencing) which we then used throughout our wedding day stationery. The silhouettes provided a nod to Mary Poppins and the stationery style and design was called “Ooh La La”, giving a nod to the French style. We also had parasols hanging from the chandelier and door handles as well as one for our photos, again providing a light connection to Mary Poppins.

I like animals, and with penguins featuring in Mary Poppins we had silhouettes of the penguin waiter on the menu place cards for guests. As table names we had silhouettes of landmarks from countries we have travelled to and called the table plan our “Jolly Holidays”. Other Mary Poppins quotes were used throughout the stationery on the wedding day such as ”Practically perfect in every way” on the Order of Day, “Come along children, spit spot!” on the children’s play room sign and “A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down” next to the miniature bottles of Vodka and Rum which were provided as favours at the start of the evening reception. We also had a Polaroid camera together with some ‘props’ such as a Mary Poppins hat, a straw boater hat, some bow ties, penguins and lips for guests to use for fun. We had little notecards next to the camera for guests to write messages on and clip to their photos which were then posted into a white English post box which we hired.

We also had a personalised cake topper made of us in our wedding outfits to go on top of our delicious tower of dessert cheesecake! I had to keep it a secret from Olivier so that he didn’t see a mini version of my dress. As favours, we had miniature tins of English Breakfast tea bags from teapigs and Berlingots . The tea provided guests a taste of England and the Berlingots are candies from the French town where Olivier grew up. It was nice to have a reminder of it at our wedding. We provided little notes inside the tins to explain. The tins also had a little label on the front to match the stationery with our silhouettes and the wedding date. Some of our guests don’t drink wine with their meals as this is not part of their culture, so we placed bottles of vodka and shot glasses on these tables so that they felt ‘at home’!

What was your first dance, and how did you choose the song?

Our first dance was “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King. We chose this song as we wanted to have something with some rhythm (not too slow) and also because the words are perfect!

Any advice for future brides?

We are very glad that we hired a wedding planner as this meant that with our very busy work and social lives the amount of stress was greatly reduced. Stacey-Marie did the research and provided options to match what we wanted to make the day personal and special for our guests and then we made the choices, but this was the fun part and we were able to fit this in our busy schedule. The detail, the thought and the planning that went into our wedding was all worth it as the day was so amazing and memorable – we had the time of our lives!

Félicitations Clementine et Olivier! I’m sure your marriage will be as ‘practically perfect in every way’ as your wedding day!

Of course a big thank you to both photographer Kerry Morgan and Stacey-Marie of Cherry Topped Bespoke Weddings for sharing your work!

{suppliers}

Dress ~ San Patrick’s ‘Capricho’ from Mariposa

Shoes ~ Perdita’s

Veil & Accessories ~ Chez Bec

Bride’s bouquet ~ Brooches Buttons and Bows Made with fabric from Clementine’s Mother’s wedding dress, fabric from her best friend’s wedding dress, some handmade flowers by Clementine’s mother and some vintage glitzy brooches by

Groom’s Suit ~ Mariposa

Bridesmaids dresses ~ Light in the Box

Venue ~ Nonsuch Mansion

Catering ~ Bovingdons

Photographer ~ Kerry Morgan

Coordinator ~ Stacey-Marie at Cherry Topped

Flowers ~ Wild About Flowers

Stationery ~ Apple of My Eye

Silhouette Artist ~ Alison Russell

Hair & Makeup ~ Claire Portman

Cake ~ My Sweet Tooth Factory

Music ~ Your Boogie Nights (DJ) and Guitarist