More vintage wedding photographs part three

Recently I was lucky enough to find a few more vintage wedding photographs. I snapped them up; I enjoy looking at them so much. I always wonder about the stories that they are telling: how did the bride and groom meet?, how long had they been together? did they marry for love? who is everyone? how are they related? did the bride make her dress? what did the bridesmaids think of theirs? I wish it was possible to know some of  the answers. The most pertinent question is were they happy? I hope that they did all live happily ever after.

I was really pleased to spot this large group photograph, 4 bridesmaids, a flower girl and a page boy is good going. I think this dates from the late 1920's or early 1930's. The bridesmaids all have shawl collared dresses, the collars are edged with frills as are the bottom of the dresses. I think it is very interesting to see that they are all wearing the same hat but have styled them quite differently, like a bit of their personalities peeking through. I think I like the one on the far right best.

It is very hard to see much detail of the bride's dress. There seems to be quite a lot going on with the bodice and she possibly has a belt on. What amazes me is her tiara/headpiece. It is huge, really like a full on crown. I wonder if it was heavy? The glimpse of lace in her floor length veil looks gorgeous and very intricate.

The groom and the two men on the right are clearly related, they have the same nose and mouth shape. All the men have three piece suits on with differently patterned ties and in one case a bow tie. I wonder if he insisted on being different?!

The woman on the left interests me for a couple of reasons. Her dress is more 1920's in style than the others. It could just be an old one? If you can see her expression she actually looks quite cross! Was she? Or did she just not like having her picture taken?

This is only a tiny little snap that is a bit creased and wrinkled. I very much like it because it is such a candid shot. I like how it captures the bride and groom just as they exit the church, having a little chat or a joke before heading off to be congratulated and to pose for photos. I think this is from the 1930's although it is hard to tell with so little detail of the outfits visible.

This is a lovely picture, everyone looks happy, even the girl on the left who isn't beaming but does have a little smile going on. I think this is from the late 1930's/the early 1940's. Both men have very dapper double breasted pin striped suits on and very well stuck down hair!

The two older bridesmaids are in the same dresses, puff sleeves, centre button bodices and what look like large collars with small ruffles that tie with a bow. I think that it is interesting that they have tiaras similar to the brides and which have small veils at the back. The other two bridesmaids have floral headpieces and no veils. The bridesmaid with glasses has a Peter Pan collar dress and the youngest bridesmaid has lots of ruffles. I am wondering if the dresses are different by design or if it was because it was wartime and you had to take what you could get.

I think the bride is very pretty and looks radiant. Sadly we can't see many details of her dress because of the enormous bouquet and the lucky horseshoe. Her mid length veil seems to be made of a stunning piece of lace.

Oh. Did I mention the bridesmaids shoes? No? Take a look at their shoes!

I was very pleased to find these two pictures as I am always happy to find more than one photograph from the same wedding. It makes me feel like I am getting to see more of the story. The first picture contains the bride and groom's parents, the second just the bridesmaids and best man. I think that these date from the 1940s.

The bride's dress appears to be quilted on the yoke and shoulders and also appears to have amazing big 1940's shoulder heads on the sleeves. The dress has a collar and maybe has a pattern down the centre of the bodice but that is all the detail that it is possible to see, again, due to the enormous bouquet. This contains a lucky horseshoe or two and also a lucky black cat. Her veil is almost floor length and has floral motifs around it's edges. She looks very beautiful.

All of the bridesmaids are in different style dresses which makes me think it is wartime. I didn't see that at first, somehow my eye merged them all into something similar until I took a closer look.  Maybe the fact that they all have gathered muffs with flowers in the centre helped bring it all together. These are quite amazingly poofy! The bridesmaids have two different headpieces - a floral garland and some sort of wire work tiara. Look at the expressions of the bridesmaids on the left in the second photo!

I do like the groom's happy expression and the fact that you can see his and the best man's jumpers sticking out of the tops of their jackets. Maybe it was a cold day and the gathered muffs were not just for decoration.

I have really enjoyed looking at these photographs. I hope that I find some more soon.

More vintage wedding photographs

After some successful trips ferreting around in antiques centres and junk shops I have a few more vintage wedding photographs to add to my collection. My virtual collection is growing too, you can see it on my Pinterest board.

This is such a lovely photo set in a splendid panelled room with a huge fireplace that can just be seen on the right hand side. From the suits and dresses I would say it is a late 1930's wedding. The bride's dress has a high square neck with scalloped edging which is repeated at the sleeve edges. The sleeves are puffed and she is wearing a floor length veil. It is a simple and elegant dress. It is interesting that she is carrying a book (prayer?) rather than a bouquet.

The bridesmaid has a tremendous frilled heart shaped head piece, the centre of which seems to echo the panels on her bodice in colour. Her dress has a very high neck, it almost looks uncomfortable, and big puffed sleeves. She has a small pretty poesy finished with thick ribbon.

The men are wearing very dapper double breasted suits and the best man's suit has a pinstripe. The trousers are wide legged and they both carry gloves.

The photo is mounted and written on the mount in pencil is J.M. Turpie, Paisley. I don't know if this refers to the couple or to the photographer and haven't been able to find out.

I was very excited to find this photograph as it is such a relaxed and candid shot. It is very faded, bent and has funny reflections in it's original state so this is the best picture I could get of it. It is obviously a Second World War wedding from the groom's uniform and the bride's best dress rather than a wedding dress. To confirm it the picture is dated on the back which is lovely, I like it when there is any extra information. The wedding was on October 3rd 1942.

 I would love to know who the little girl is, could she be theirs (unlikely due to her age and social stigmas at that time), his, hers (another reason for a best dress rather than a wedding dress if it is a second marriage) or just a relative? All these possibilities are really interesting. I love the fact that it looks like the little girl has just run up to them and the photographer has quickly captured the moment.

There is always a certain sadness when at wartime wedding photographs as you have to wonder whether the men came back and whether everyone survived. I hope they had a long and happy marriage.

When I picked up this photograph I was absolutely convinced that I had seen this bride and groom before and it turns out that I was right. I featured a picture of just the bride and groom on my second post on my photograph bunting from my wedding. She is on the second photograph from the end of the post. I did get them from the same shop but a good six months apart so I was surprised that the two pictures were of the same wedding.

This is from the 1940s, in fact it is dated July 3rd 1945. The bride and bridesmaid are in their best dresses and everyday hats. The bouquets are massive. The groom looks very smart in his three piece suit. I like the row of terraces in the background, I assume they are standing outside the one that will be their home.

It is really nice to have three pictures from the same wedding here which each tell a slightly different part of the story of their day. The first is the bridal party outside the church just after the ceremony. I think the second one is the bride and groom leaving the church on the way to the reception. The third is of the cutting of the cake at the reception. It almost feels like you were there!

I think it is a late 1940s or early 1950s wedding. The bride is wearing a long sleeved, almost sweetheart neckline dress with a fitted bodice and slightly flowing gathered skirt. It is made of a heavy looking printed fabric, possibly satin or silk. Her veil is thigh length and is held in place with a hairband of flowers.

There are 3 adult and 2 child bridesmaids. The children are in bonnets and puff sleeved high neck dresses. The adults have dresses in a similar style to the bride but with short sleeves and different material. They have tiara style headpieces but I think they are probably floral. they all have wonderful bouquets.

It is hard to see much detail of the groom's suit but doesn't he look very youthful?! His best man is in a sailor's uniform, I like his buttonhole flower nestled in the ties of his sailor's collar.

It is really nice to have a picture from the reception, I have not come across many of them. The table setting is lovely, the tea cups have some kind of crest or writing on them. You can see plates of buns and cakes and possibly plates of sandwiches at every place. the wedding cake has 3 tiers with flowers and leaves as the decoration. Look at the vase of flowers on the top. It is on a big silver cake stand, like the one I had.

I keep on looking out for vintage wedding photographs so I imagine there will be another of these posts in the next few months!

Handmade wedding - how to make a bouquet, posies and buttonholes..

At last! I can write about the items I have been making over the past few months. I have been maintaining a state of secrecy as all the items were for my wedding and I wanted to keep some of the details under wraps. I also needed to wait whilst I was hounding guests for their photos. But, now that I have been happily married for one whole month, I can begin to write all the posts that have been stored up in my head for some time!

I was keen that our wedding would have lots of personal touches and that decorations and other items would be handmade wherever possible. That does not mean that it was all made by me, I would not have managed it and stayed sane. I have had help from a number of my family and friends for which I am massively grateful. The bouquet and posies are however, all down to me.

I got mixed reactions when I said I was going to make my bouquet, even more so when I said that I was going to knit it. I wanted to have a bouquet that I could keep and I just fancied the challenge so I decided to go for it. I had a Plan B of grabbing a bunch of whatever flowers there were in the nearest supermarket if I created something too embarrassing to be seen with.

So this is how I made it. I didn't have a definite plan, it was just in my head and I worked it out as I went along. Inevitably that meant that I made the odd mistake and some bits worked better than others so I am going to include what I would do if I were to ever make another (not for me though)!

The major decision is to pick your flowers. I decided to have all the same type of flower and to vary the colour of them. You could knit a mix of flowers, you could knit the same type but all in one colour. I found a knitted flower book was very helpful for generating ideas and for visualising the flowers. I went for dahlias as I enjoy the blowzy shape and they looked fun to make.

Next you need to decide on yarn and needle size. Many patterns do not give a needle size as you just need to pick one that gives you a flower in the size that you want. I started with 3.75mm, liked the size and stuck with them. I thought I was going to use cotton to knit the flowers as it would have produced a lovely sheen. I tried a couple, didn't like the effect as much and also thought they were a bit small. Changing the needle size would have produced a texture I didn't like. I had some cotton, silk, merino blend yarn, tried that and loved it. Also, here I had one of my two Bridezilla moments when I realised I wanted a big bouquet, bigger than my bridesmaids posies, a real stand out one! So they got the cotton ones. Which were still beautiful, just different.

Once I had knitted the flowers and made them up I needed to work on the bouquet and poesy construction. I bought a bundle of 20cm lengths of florist's wire and threaded one length through the stitches at the back of each flower, as you can see above.

I decided to use pencils as my stems but skewers or knitting needles or dowel would work just as well. I used new pencils and placed them in a convenient indent in the middle of the back of each flower. It occurred to me later that sharpening them and sticking the point into the flower would give extra hold.

I then wrapped the wire around the pencil, keeping it as tight as possible and catching it through a few stitches on the way. Using a pair of pliers to tighten the wire up would be a good plan here. I couldn't face rummaging through the loft to find mine (note to self - put them in a more suitable location). The objective is to attach the flower head to the pencil stem in a reasonably secure manner. Obviously the bouquet and posies are generally treated quite gently. If you are going to throw yours a spot of glue may be called for.

I tied some yarn around the wire to prevent it from slipping down the pencil, it acted like a kind of shelf. I did think about knitting icords to cover the pencils and if I had left myself enough free time I would have done. I think that would give the prettiest look. I used green grosgrain ribbon to wrap around the pencils to turn them into stems and it worked really well.

I grouped my flowers into threes and tied them together making sure that the flower heads were well arranged and not squashed. Odd numbered groupings tend to look most pleasing but you could play around to obtain the effect that you want. The posies were made of 3 flowers, my bouquet was made of nine. For my bouquet I then tied each set of 3 flowers together. Here it was really important to check that all the flowers could be seen well to get the full effect. I found varying the heights of the pencils and the angles at which they were tied achieved this. I then wrapped them in ribbon as mentioned previously.

At this point the flowers looked great, it looked like a poesy or bouquet, but I felt something was missing. I was thinking that shop bought flowers often have something wrapped around the stems and I suddenly though doilies! So I raided my vintage doily collection (that is your something old right there) until I found the perfect ones. Each poesy got one doily, the bouquet had one per group of 3 flowers. I tied them around the pencil stems with yarn and also stitched them to some strategic flower petals so that they didn't flop down.

I wrapped the stems in thick green ribbon which I stitched and pinned into place. I then got a couple of metres of thin velvet ribbon, because I love it, and wrapped that around the centre of the stems. I used colours to match our dresses and also used a pale blue ribbon on my bouquet (there is your something blue)! I stitched a small pearl button to the centre of the bows that I tied in the velvet ribbon. We were all wearing pearl jewellery and I had vintage pearl buttons on my hat so I wanted it all to tie in.

My bridesmaids and I with the finished articles!

I made the buttonholes from the carnation pattern in the same book. I choose yarn to match the ties worn by the groom and best man. I made each one a single carnation, following the pattern exactly, including the short icord stem, I just changed the length of it. When I had made up the flowers I attached a brooch back to each so that they could be worn on suit jacket lapels. Despite some last minute knitting in the car on the day before our wedding I was really pleased with how they turned out.

My next few posts will cover other handmade items from our wedding. In a couple of these pictures you can see my hat and bag which were made for me by a very clever and generous friend. I can't tell you how they were made as I did't make them but I want to point them out as they are absolutely beautiful and completed my outfit.