Tag Archives: Carla Kirste

Short wedding dresses (and some shoes to match) – day 2

1 Mar

Continuing on from yesterday’s post about short wedding dresses (and some possible shoe suitors), today I bring you more littl’ dresses from around the globe.

First up is New York designer Matthew Christopher. His dresses draw a lot of inspiration from the old world glamour of Hepburn, Monroe and Kelly. To complete your outfit, pair a Matthew Christopher dress with gloves, pearls, a pillbox hat or a birdcage veil…. and of course some fabulous shoes!

Matthew Christopher - Josyln

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Jimmy Choo – Garland

Matthew Christopher - Arabesque

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Jimmy Choo - Tema

The next dress is from London-based Marchesa who you might remember from my blog about their latest haute couture collection. I love the lacework on this dress and the really strong silhouette. The asymmetry of the bust line and the v-shape detailing on the back view add some edge to what would otherwise be just a pretty dress. They have it spot on with the model having her hair tied back to accentuate the shoulders. The Louboutins that the model is wearing are a great match…. or you could add a bit of sparkle with Kate Spade’s fabulous gold (or silver for that matter) charm heels.

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Kate Spade New York - Charm Gold

Moving on to the Etsy set. All three Etsy sellers that I’ve picked out offer a completely personalised service. So the dresses are made-to-measure (you measure, they make), you will select the fabric colour and in some cases you will be able to instruct on other elements of the dress such as the length. Although I’ve never purchased from these three shops – I find it quite reassuring that they all have 100% positive feedback. If they’re like other Etsy sellers that I’ve encountered, they’ll work with you until you’re happy.

First up is a shop called ouma who is a girl close to my heart because SHE. LOVES. TULLE. Other than her tulle-loving tendencies, Ouma loves a bit of colour too. Her range is definitely worth a look – for brides and also for their maids. I couldn’t resist pairing this pretty little dress with Kate Spade’s charm shoes but this time in multi sparkle glitter.

Etsy - Ouma

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Kate Spade - Charm

The next dress is definitely channeling Kate Middleton and the bride’s tousled hair / fresh flower halo absolutely rocks this look. Brought to you by Bridal Bliss Designs – they have plenty more to offer in the elegant / vintage style.

Etsy - Bridal Bliss Designs

Etsy - Bridal Bliss Designs

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BHLDN - Elizabethan Heels

We finish up today with two sassy dresses from the incredible KT Jean (who happened to grow up sewing with the tulle-loving Ouma). KT also likes to use headpieces in her photoshoots from Mignonne Handmade – if you’re in the market for something a little boho band then she’s your girl.

Etsy - KT Jean

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Carven - Suede Slingbacks

Etsy - KT Jean

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BHLDN - Brilliant Axis Sandle

There you have it…. my snapshot of some short wedding dresses. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that you can often take designs to dressmakers and they will be able to create something that you want. If you’re in Melbourne try Alice Haute Couture or if you’re in London try Carla Kirste. Good luck!


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Cupitt’s Winery wedding of Libby and Tom – the hat-trick

9 Feb

We return for the last time to the spectacular Cupitt’s Winery to join Libby and Tom in their wedding celebrations. As with the previous two blogs about the day here and here, we have special commentary from Libby and the photos were taken by the wonderful Elise Hassey.

Stupidly stunning photo below!!!

Love how they’ve used records to lay out the table plan and in place of table numbers plus some little talented young thing had done pretty good cartoons of Tom and Libby!
Libby’s mum and her friend did a cake making course and made the cake themselves! It looks so professional and it’s also lovely that it was a true labour of love.
Boy I love wedding speeches. Time for everyone to relax, laugh and share happy memories. You’ll never feel as loved as you do during those speeches.
Tom plays trumpet so I expected him to do something with the band but I was very surprised when he sang ‘Lovely day’ by Bill Withers and had the groomsmen do back up vocals. The crowd went wild, particularly when he did his trumpet solo! It was incredible. 
The dance floor was heaving all night. It was so much fun. We always knew our wedding would be a party but even surpassed my imagination of how rocking it would get. So much fun. 
When I threw the bouquet, I was so excited that my friend caught it that I gave her a big bear hug – she was holding the bouquet and big glass of red. I was covered in red wine. The staff were very humoured when I was out the back tipping bottle of white wine all over me to remove the stain (is that some stain removal remedy that I’ve never heard about?!?)
Thank you so much to Libby and Tom for sharing so much of their wedding day. I wish them all the happiness and good times – especially as they work together on growing the family business.
Want to be as lush as Libby and Tom? Well here’s a list of their vendors:
Venue: Cupitt’s Winery, Ulladulla, Australia
Photographer: Elise Hassey
Jewellery: Kate McCoy
Bride’s dress: Carla Kirste, London, UK
Bride’s veil: Agnes Hart (Etsy)
Bride’s shoes: Sister’s dress
Flowers: Sydney flower market & Flowers by Stacy
Cake: Bride’s mum

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Cupitt’s Winery wedding of Libby and Tom – take 1

6 Feb

I think my ultimate wedding location would be to have it at home. So imagine if your parents happened to own oh I don’t know…. a WINERY. What’s that? On the pristine South Coast of New South Wales? Hmm, yes I think that would do.

Well that’s exactly the case for Tom Cupitt whose family-run Cupitt’s Winery and Restaurant is located on the east coast of Australia a few hours south of Sydney (one of those places that you look down on during flights from Melbourne to Sydney and you think – I wish I was lucky enough to live in an idyllic place like this!). It is quite simply the perfect setting for a rural Australian wedding and it would have been lots of fun for them to have free reign on the place! And as if Libby and Tom weren’t lucky enough by having a winery on hand for the wedding but Libby also made a great friend at uni, Elise Hassey, who is an incredible photographer. She’s captured the day so well with a mix of intimate photos and some breathtaking photos of the winery. Libby describes Elise as not in your face, like a commando with a camera!

Add to all this a beautiful bride, a trumpet-playing groom, stylish bridemaids and a family of DIY extraordinaires and you have a fun-filled magical weekend of celebrations. In fact I love so many stories and photos from the day that it’s going to take me THREE days to get through them all.

I start the Libby and Tom blog-athon with the pre-ceremony where we settle on in with Libby and her besties. Libby has provided us with a running commentary of the day – so over the next three days I’m sure you’ll feel like you were actually there to share the good times!

I got my dress made in London by Carla Kirste. I really wanted a short dress and struggled to find anything that was not tea length and/or with a billowing skirt. Or super short. My BM who lived in London and the flowergirls worked with me very hard to come up with the design I wanted. We trawled through wedding blogs picking dresses we liked and then I met up with Carla and pulled them all together. Carla was great, she could draw up exactly what I wanted and I decided to buy my material in Paris – the joys of living in London!

Shoe searching was pretty traumatic. They are pretty important when you have a short dress but I also had a fiancee who was 1-2cm shorter than me. It is a lot worse than it sounds! There is not a very good market out there for low heel shoes or nice flats. I ended up ordering a pair to be made in the states that had a thickish heel and when they arrived I was surprised that they were all patent leather but they worked out (I think they’re gorgeous and they’re from the randomest of random sites called Sister’s Dress – check out some of the dresses!!). I changed into a pair of white satin ballet shoes from Blochs for the dancing part of the night.

Instead of having young girls as flowergirls, Libby chose to have friends. I think they looked like a pair of nymphs with their fresh flower halos.

Libby took a trip down to the flower market in Sydney to buy up big on flowers to decorate (a great way to save a few $$$). A local florist made up the bouquets, corsages and buttonholes – the bouquets look so fresh with their mix of roses, ranunculus and lisianthus buds.

The bridesmaids. Oh the bridemaids! Libby’s brief for the bridemaids was: short dress, not bright, pink, cream, blush tones, can be plain or have a print. It sounded like an easy enough brief but I think a million emails were passed around. When my sister wanted a gold sequin dress I told her it was a vineyard not a casino – but she got it anyway because she loved it and it looked awesome! We all had no idea what each other’s dresses were until the day of the wedding.

You’ll remember my recent post on mix and match bridemaids? Well these girls are mixy and matchy to PERFECTION! They’ve worked within the designated colour palette and it all gels together perfectly while each of them has a unique look.
And the beautiful bride…. I’ve told you a little bit about the dress already but she also had the cutest little birdcage veil from a store on Etsy. I love how perfectly it sits over the top of her fringe (that would be bangs for ya’ll in America).
It’s good to see below that even short wedding dresses are hard to get into and require a bit of bridesmaid adjusting!
And just when you thought that Libby and Tom couldn’t have any more amazing friends? Well one of Libby’s good friends (Kate McCoy) is a jewelry designer who not only designed both of the wedding rings (more about that in tomorrow’s post) but she also made bangles for the bridesmaids from Libby which had engraved a nickname for them then the words love, gratitude, laughter. Such a good keepsake!
Well that’s got us to the point of having a bride ready to go meet her groom. I can’t wait to share with you the ceremony tomorrow – there are PLENTY more stories and photos to come!

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