Kirsty in Yolan Cris for a casual Spring wedding at the Rosendale, London

Yolan Cris Tilo Wedding Dress

The idea of 'traditional' dress shopping totally stressed me out, I am terrible at making decisions, have no faith in my decision making and I found the whole thing totally overwhelming before i had even started!!! I have a strong sense of my own personal style in the day to day, but the whole idea of buying THE ONE left me in a total tail spin. All the dresses I liked on Pinterest were by French or Australian designers and were normally backless and whispy - something which my ample 34F boobs were certainly not going to play ball with. I got in touch with Emma through a recommendation of a friend who had bought their dress at Miss Bush, and I was so glad I did (in fact, Miss Bush was the only dress shop went to!) After a few emails back and forth with Emma, i eventually sent her some photos of the kind of dresses i liked - and she wasnt backward in telling me that she didnt think they were quite the vibe that was going to work best
.

When I eventually went into the Chapel, Emma made me try on 6 or 7 totally different dresses so I could see what different shapes would look like etc. Low and behold, a lot of the shapes i thought i would like on the peg, didnt look great and there were a few ones i would never have have dreamed of looking at, really surprised me... Including THE ONE - the Yolan Cris, Tilo!!

It was the last dress I tried on, and when i saw it hanging up, I made a joke about it just being so 'not me'. It was a sample dress, so it was cheaper (bonus) and i was already a set size and in the changing room, i could only see the top half of the dress and I was laughing that it actually seemed to fit me like a glove and maybe this dress was meant to be. Then I walked out and saw myself in the Chapel full length mirror and something changed. I started shaking. I couldn't quite believe how i looked in the dress. It look my breath away and I just felt special. It was not like any dress i had been looking at, I would not have picked this dress out in a million years, but there you go - Emma certainly knew what she was doing, because without me even realising, she found my One!

I took my maid of honour, my bridesman, my oldest friend and my two year old with me. When I walked out in the Yolan Cris Tilo dress, my maid of honour declared she thought I looked like "the corpse bride!" which made everyone laugh, even me. But something kept telling me it was the one. It was this reaction that i think made me wary of listening to my instinct, and why it took me so long to commit to the dress.

Styling + Accessories

I kept it pretty simple to be honest. I have very pale pink hair, so i wanted shoes to match. I found a pair of brand new, pale pink, velvet platforms on ebay for £4!! So i snapped them up and they were perfect! I didnt even need to take the dress up! Another 'meant to be' moment.

I wanted my hair in a Hollywood style wave, and had a pearl hair slide at the side.

I loved the lace on the high neck so much, that i didnt want to have any necklace underneath, so the only jewellery i wore was my antique opal engagement ring, and then my newly acquired wedding ring!!

The only other accessories were red lipstick, red nails and a red bag.

Dress Shopping

My favourite part of the experience was just the relationship I forged with Emma and Jo. They were so brilliant. Emma at helping me find the dress and being so accommodating with my indecisive decision. (I came back and tried it on 3 times with different people before committing!)

I also loved working with Jo to change the dress to fit my style and need to wear a bra. We gave it some edge by completely removing the underneath slip dress, adding a shorter lace skirt so you could see the silhouette of my legs through the layered lace skirt, and we built up the lace in the top half the of the dress to completely cover a bra (that i needed to wear) but without wearing an additional layer underneath. It was very intricate lace work and Jo smashed it! I couldn't believe that I was able to wear a lace back dress, with a bra, without anyone realising! She's incredible. THANK YOU TEAM BUSH!

A casual Spring wedding at the Rosendale, South East London

Tom and I had been together for 9 years and have a daughter together already, so we wanted the day to be a casual celebration of us, rather than anything stuffy and very formal.

I am from South East London, its where we live, where our daughter was born and where we have spent most of our relationship, so it seemed very apt for us to get married in South East London too. We liked the idea of a pub where all the food and the drink would be sorted, and it would create a very chilled vibe. We had been to The Rosendale a number of times (they do the best Veggie Roast in london!) and so when we started our venue search it was up there. We looked at other venues but kept coming back to The Rosendale, so we booked it. I couldnt recommend Sue and the staff more - they were fantastic and really went above and beyond to make our day exactly what we wanted - a casual day full of fun, laughter and love plus good food and drink and great music and dancing!!!!

We didn't have any theme as such, but as we were getting married at the start of Spring, I wanted flowers to be the focus. We went to New Covent Garden Flower Market ourselves and my mum and I filled bottles with flowers to decorate the tables and the rooms. We had the most amazing mix of seasonal spring flowers which smelt incredible. As we were spending all the day in one room, we also wanted something to make the ceremony stand out, and our florist, George at Rust Bloom, made us an incredible flower screen which we stood in front of to get married. When i first walked into the room i remember the smell of fresh flowers was overwhelming!!

All my inspo basically came from pinterest - I had boards on boards on boards! (too many at times!)

The best bits

I absolutely LOVED the whole day! I cant believe how happy I felt all day! Walking down the aisle with my mama was amazing and I loved the ceremony so much and walking back down the aisle and seeing everyone's happy faces was deffo a highlight. And I loved how emotional everyone got! My uncle was in bits all day!

We really didnt want any specifically posed photos as we're both very awkward, but our amazing photographer who is a good friend, convinced us to take 15 mins to ourselves and get some photos and it turned out to be one of my favourite parts of the day! Just Tom and I together in the sunshine with a beer and a glass of champers! I adore these photos as they really take me back to how i was feeling at that moment - ecstatic and so in love!

I also made the first speech of the day - my dad is sadly not with us anymore and my mum was too nervous to make a speech, so I took it upon myself to do it! (Although i hate that i read it from my phone) i am so pleased i did it! And of course, Tom and the best men's speeches were ace too!

The weather was definitely a lucky surprise! Getting married at the end of the March, we didnt have any expectations for the weather, but on the day it was 20 degrees and sunny! It was perfect and our guests were able to be outside in the garden all day!