You might remember a certain gorgeous smile, which I fell in love with during Jill & Gareth’s engagement session. The first thing to greet us after walking through the door of Gareth’s parent’s house, where Jill and the girls were getting ready, was Jill’s infectious laughter, which instantly let me know that this was going to be one special day.
Jill’s beautiful Alfred Angelo gown had the coolest pockets ever, and I probably don’t need to tell you that I spent way too much time with her gorgeous Charm heals by Kate Spade, talk about shoe heaven! Earrings by J. Crew, and that stunning smile, finished off Jill’s look for the day. Since Jill and Gareth planned the wedding from overseas, it was easier for Jill to let her bridesmaids choose their own dresses – the one guideline was the colour black, which pulled the whole colour scheme together with a splash of green. A family friend made the flower girl dresses and page boy’s tie, and Sophia the flower girl’s adorable button bouquet came from Etsy.com vendor kottonkandy52.
The ceremony of Jill & Gareth’s wedding took place at the Holy Trinity Church in Rothwell, followed by a reception at Kilworth House Hotel. I’ll let Jill tell us about the preparations:
‘We tried to do as much as possible on our own, as we wanted the wedding to be a true reflection of us, even though we planned it from another country. I designed all of the paper products (invitations, programs, menus, escort cards, push pins, and favour tags), and Gareth helped make my ideas come to life by putting the invitations, programs, and escort board together. We chose to have Washington DC as our reception “theme”, since it’s the city where we met and still live. Gareth took all of the photos in DC for the table plan, and we came together in a major team effort to make all of the green topiary balls and paper flower bouquets. (Of course, getting them from America to England was a bit of a challenge!)’
‘Of the things that we had to purchase, I wanted to keep the vendors either local or independent, so I used Etsy.com quite a bit. I always loved Jones Soda when I was growing up, and I thought that the colours would add a fun pop to our tables and serve as the perfect place card. I worked with Jaime at TheButterShop to create all of the soda bottle labels, and I couldn’t have been happier with how they turned out.
About three weeks before the wedding, Gareth and I decided that it would be nice to add another favour that was specific to each table location (burning bookmark for the Library of Congress table, FBI badges and spy glasses for the FBI table, etc). It took quite a bit of thinking and quick planning, but it felt so much more personal to us.
Gareth and I couldn’t have been happier with our wedding day. It was perfect in every way, and completely us!’
I couldn’t agree more. It’s a huge feat in itself to plan a wedding from another continent, and to do it with such flair and attention to detail is nothing short of a miracle! I feel so very privileged to have been a part of this wedding, and for the opportunity to get to know Jill and Gareth who are such lovely people. I will forever miss the sound of Jill’s laugh – I hope you two will have decades of laughter ahead of you. x
As ever, a huge thank you to Susanna for having my back, and thanks also to Mark Brown for keeping us entertained on the train journeys!
