Peter and Liz were married on 10th July, making them our first couple to wed following lockdown. They were married at All Saints Church, Witley, and under the new rules the wedding was a small, intimate gathering of 20 guests. The ceremony was followed by a socially distanced celebration at home in the bride's parent's garden, with beautifully decorated individually packaged picnics for each of the guests.
Liz wore the wonderfully simple, perfectly fitted Darya wedding dress by Suzanne Neville, which she accessorised with a custom shawl made from her husband's family tartan. Beautiful thistles were also added to the bouquets as a nod to Peter's Scottish heritage.
Read on for more images of the day, and some words about the planning process in Liz's own words.
Suzanne Neville Darya wedding dress
I wore the Suzanne Neville Darya dress and it was absolute heaven to wear. It has beautiful lines and is very classic which I loved. It fitted perfectly.
I brought my mother with me for the first visit to Miss Bush and then for the later fittings it was just myself due to the pandemic. I think it really helped having one person I trusted with me and who I knew would be honest with me when I first found the dress, it was really reassuring to see that she loved the dress as much as I did.
Dress Shopping
I was a bit hesitant about going dress shopping as I had no idea what I wanted and I was really nervous about it. Miss Bush were the first shop I visited after a recommendation from a friend and in the end it was the only shop I visited. I loved it from the second I walked in. Everyone was wonderful, warm and calming.
Everything was going very smoothly until lockdown and our wedding reception at the end of May was postponed until July 2021. However, Peter and I knew we wanted to get married as soon as possible and when we found out that we could get married in July this year we decided to go ahead with two weeks notice which meant when we hopefully celebrate with all our friends next year it will be on our one year anniversary. Despite the last minute rush, Emma and her team were fantastic and made sure my dress was ready with plenty of time with PPE fittings arranged to meet guidance requirements. They made a stressful situation surprisingly calm!
Styling
Having scaled our wedding down from 120 people to 20 people, it did make our wedding suddenly more relaxed. However saying that, I always knew I wanted to wear my beautiful dress for both occasions. I borrowed my mother’s gold and sapphire earrings and Peter’s grandmother’s veil (although it did get caught on the door on the way into the church so didn’t make it down the aisle!). For shoes, I am a lover of all things glitter so I had some very sparkly silver glitter shoes which downgraded to my sparkly gold trainers later in the afternoon. Peter’s family are Scottish and so he had trews made for the day in ancient Hamilton tartan. After we were married, I wore a stole we had made to match.
A socially distanced garden party wedding
We were married in the local church where I grew up and had been christened. When weddings were allowed again we thought we were only going to be allowed 5 people present so when they said 30 we were thrilled. We had both our immediate families, my four bridesmaids and Peter’s four ushers. We had separate socially distant picnics by household in the garden after.
The best bits
At dusk, Peter and I were sat on a sofa in the garden drinking the leftover champagne. It was a wonderful moment, realising we were married and everything had been even better than we imagined.
Liz's Advice
Remember what’s important. When lockdown started happening, we went through a phase where I think we planned 8 different wedding options in a week. It became really stressful. Then we stopped and realised what was important for us and what was non-negotiable. Once we realised that, the other little bits resolved themselves. What I would say, is that when we started planning our wedding, finding my dress was the most stressful part for me, however as soon as I walked through the door of Miss Bush that stress disappeared and since then my wedding dress was always the one thing I didn’t have to worry about. Final bit of advice, having a good photographer was such a blessing. We had Marcus Dawes who I can’t recommend enough, his photos are beautiful and really capture the day and us as a couple. He is also so calm and discreet on the day, most of the time I wasn’t even aware we were being photographed.
Suppliers
Photographer: Marcus Dawes
Blow dry: Sultan from Andy’s Salon
Church: All Saints Church, Witley, Surrey
Bridesmaids Dresses: JJ’s house - we chose a colour and then it allowed all the bridesmaids to pick their own dress style. It worked really well.
Wedding Cake: Sophie Boardman, Peter’s sister
Florist: Margaret Ashwell, local florist. Her bouquet was so beautiful we have sent it to Infinity Flowers who are currently preserving it for us.