Hasty vintage flowers

I did some bridal bouquets and hair flowers for a vintage photoshoot at the end of last year. There was a wonderful sixties-inspired shoot, with a Twiggy-esque model, Kat O'Mahoney, and hippy-esque model (as well as teacher and blogger), Kay Joon, and a fifties-inspired shoot with a wonderfully glam actor, Elizabeth M. Quilter.

The beautiful dresses were all by Tobi Hannah, for a chapter in her book about short wedding dresses, the amazing photos were by Garazi Gardner, and the stunning hair and make up were by Becky Hunting.

The flowers were bought and arranged very hastily. I was horribly ill the day before and thought I wouldn't be able to do the flowers, but I managed to drag myself to get flowers from a local florist, wire the hair flowers on the train (one of my stupidly risky moves), and do the bouquets at the studio while the models were in hair and make up! I didn't get the exact flowers I'd planned to use because the unexpected illness meant I was not fit enough for a trip to New Covent Garden Market on the trains, but I did manage to stick to the colour palettes I wanted: white and pale pink roses with blue delphiniums for the fifties, and bright, flower power sunflowers, orange celosia and pink snapdragons for the sixties. I also used Thlaspi 'Green Bell' and garden herbs, and the acid green worked well for the sixties shoot, but I think I should have just stuck to the more muted green of mint and sage for the fifties shoot.

500 Days of Summer: Day 1

So, what if I'd gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I'd gotten there 10 minutes later? It was...it was meant to be.

500 Days of Summer is one of those films that became an instant modern classic in my mind when I first saw it. I remember going to the Odeon West End after work one day in 2009, and I really hoped that it would live up to the hype that I'd read about in film columns. It did. I was smitten with it and counted down the days until its DVD release so I could watch it relentlessly. I'm not that bad in reality though; I've only seen it about 17 or 18 times. That's not relentless, is it? Just mildly obsessive!

Anyway, since my mind runs around making strange links between flowers and films and books and art, it didn't take long for me to imagine a 500 Days of Summer inspired, flower-filled photoshoot. As Summer's outfits and apartment and the way Tom sees her are so important to how the film looks and feels, I wanted to see if I could channel that into a photoshoot, without being too obvious and just replicating scenes. Her style is quite vintage, so Tobi Hannah's modern vintage wedding dresses are perfect for a Summer bride. There were several dresses from the new collection which would have been very Summer-esque (Briggs, Carter, Fairy and Vanish), but in the end I went with Tobi's suggestion, Gold, which works really well.

So I had the dress, I had a model (my fabulous dancer friend, Helen), I had several locations in mind but opted for Mayfair Lavender. The lavender is going to be harvested in the next few days, so we were cutting it fine when we went there today! I knew I was going to use blue flowers and blue accessories (see the costume designer Hope Hanafin's interview to see why blue is so important in the film), but later I decided to get sunflowers, some delicate yellow dill and lots of seedheads and grasses, to represent summer and autumn. The English lavender had started to go grey, but it still looked beautiful. We took photos among the grey English and bluer French lavenders.

There are several references to the film, but I'll come back to them, with more photos, on another day. But on day one, you can see these. Oh - but I will tell you where the non-lavender flowers are from: the hydrangeas, sunflowers, rosemary and myrtle are from Tregothnan, the sweet peas are mine, and the scabious, dill and other flowers in the bouquet and Helen's hair are from Blooming Green. Yes, that's right - I used entirely British flowers and foliage for this!

Robed in snowy white

As I see it, there are two kinds of successful people: people who climb up a ladder and then ignore the ladder and the people who are still on it, and people who climb up a ladder but turn around and give other people a helping hand. Tobi Hannah is the second kind.

As an innovative wedding dress designer, she provides a haven for brides who want a wonderful and varied selection of shorter wedding dresses. Her latest collection was inspired by the Pink Floyd album, The Wall. I swooned at the lot of them, but I especially like the Hattie dress. There's something about a dress with a collar that makes it smart and pretty.

Her sister company, Lara Hannah, makes stunning and ethereal-looking long dresses, many inspired by Waterhouse paintings. Her latest campaign for her new Magic Circle Collection includes a dreamy photoshoot inspired by the painting of The Lady of Shalott. This is the Infinity dress.

All of Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott paintings are amazing, but the one on the boat is one of my favourite paintings...and after it came first in the Art Everywhere poll, it's clearly many people's favourite! I took this photo of the Art Everywhere poster at Regent's Park station.

And I have to include a photo of some David Austin Lady of Shalott roses, which grace the rose garden in Regent's Park.

Getting back to Tobi. She learns about up and coming people in the wedding industry and supports those whose paths have crossed with hers. I've had some fantastic chats with her over the last year about everything from Coco Chanel's impact on the fashion world (her wedding dress was short!) to the highly underrated film, Elizabethtown.

I dropped in to see her this week and left some flowers for her, her team, and her visiting brides to enjoy: cosmos, phlox, sweet peas, salvia and 'Blue Dress' flax in a pretty Tiptree jar. The sweet peas, salvia and phlox smelt gorgeous!

The One

I didn't find a 'The One' when I was having fun trying on modern vintage-style dresses at Tobi Hannah's studio and actual vintage dresses at Fur Coat No Knickers (great name, great dresses, great service; just not the right dresses for me). But today I got to try on the dress that Tobi and her team made for me, and I absolutely loved it. Argh...I wish I could say more about it, but I can't.

Wedding dress by Tobi Hannah

I have picked my wedding dress, and although I am going to keep the actual design a secret (or at least, I’ll try to), I do want to share the name of the wonderful designer who will be making it.

My wedding scrapbook includes pictures of Kirsten Dunst’s outfits in Marie Antoinette, Ali MacGraw’s wedding dress in Love Story, and Audrey Hepburn’s black and white Givenchy gown in Sabrina – I am definitely not someone who could always picture the exact dress they wanted! After a lot of searching, I came across Tobi Hannah’s website. Her dresses are amazing – short or tea length, modern but vintage-style, and inspired by everything from Degas’ ballet dancers to Haruki Murakami book covers.

I must have tried on nine or ten dresses during my first appointment. I wanted pretty much all of them, but Tobi and my friend Grace helped me to narrow my choice down (and the first dress I tried on was called Grace, which was a nice start to the appointment). I’ve made my final decision now, and it felt a bit sad to have to say ‘no’ to so many of her gorgeous dresses. There wasn’t a ‘the one’ in my case, but hopefully I’ll feel like my dress is the right one on the day.

In the meantime, here are some of Tobi’s stunning dresses. I’ve even had trouble narrowing the number of photos down to ten! These dresses are (in order): Tutu Ballerine, Dahlia, Grace, Nataliya, Amaze, Goddess, Running, Bratt, Julianna, and Lin. Running reminds me of Stephanie Seymour’s wedding dress in the music video for November Rain (one of my guilty pleasures) and Goddess, as well as looking beautiful, has an incredible softness – it felt like the Chantilly cream in a Ladurée dessert. Texture is a key element in Tobi’s designs.

But if you don’t want to bare your legs on your wedding day, Tobi’s sister company, Lara Hannah, does ethereal-looking long dresses, many inspired by Waterhouse paintings. As Waterhouse did one of my favourite paintings in what I call ‘The Miserable Women in Literature’ trilogy (along with Millais' Ophelia and Mariana) at Tate Britain, Waterhouse wedding dresses were bound to be a hit with me! It’s hard to pick a favourite, but I think the Alberta dress is particularly gorgeous.

If you are looking for something modern but vintage-inspired for your wedding, I highly recommend a visit to Tobi’s studio. As well as being super talented, she is very friendly and honest – I’ve enjoyed my meetings with her and, as the designer, she can see which of her dresses will suit you best.

Her company turned four years old last month…but the designer at the helm is still in her twenties! I’m kind of in awe.