little bevan Archives - Smashing the Glass

On Monday I attended The White Gallery in London’s Battersea Evolution which is essentially the London Fashion Week of the bridal industry. It’s a trade event for UK and international bridal designers to showcase their 2017 collections to press and buyers, and it feels like stepping through a vortex into the bridal apparel future.

The show took place in the heart of a blossom-filled Battersea Park inside a pavilion that was transformed into an elegant showroom, complete with catwalks and press lounges. The event ran over three days and offered press and buyers access to a diverse range of designers, runways, and of course industry lovelies!

You may have already seen a few sneak peeks of my photos on Instagram, and live commentary and video on Snapchat (and if you’re not yet on Snapchat, you’re missing out on ALL the fun and behind-the-scenes footage!). This post takes it up a notch with my favourite wedding dress and wedding shoe designers, and my six key bridal trends for 2017 as spotted at White Gallery.

If you’re currently on the hunt for your wedding dress or shoes, I do hope that this post will inspire you. All the gorgeous images (unless otherwise stated) are by the super talented Kate Nielen who accompanied me to the show. Feel free to pin and share them to your heart’s content!

Below: clockwise from top: Sassi Holford catwalk show / Emmy London / YolanCris

Stephanie Allin Couture

Stephanie Allin designed my wedding dress and is genuinely one of the loveliest people in the business. What appeals to me about Stephanie, besides her wonderful service and giving nature, is her contemporary take on classic couture and her desire to create wedding dresses for the ‘real bride’ as opposed to what looks best on a model. Her latest collection is inspired by the Italian lifestyle and artistic flair, and incorporates compelling fabrics including metallic jacquard prints on silk organza, and concepts like bridal separates of bra-lets teamed with dramatic skirts.

One a side note, Stephanie definitely gets the award for the most inspired creative campaign (shot by Matt Bird). How uh-mazing is the shot below taken from Stephanie’s new Bellisima collection?!

In today’s castle weekend wedding we have bagpipe players, custom made Gina shoes, a seriously breathtaking castle venue, and the best favours / name plates I have ever seen: personalised tubes of chocolate Rolos with each guests’ name on them. I’d have loved one of those!

For this wedding, I’m thrilled to welcome photographer extraodinaire, Claudine Hartzel, to Smashing The Glass whose wonderful images capture the occasion perfectly. Happy Monday all, I know you’re going to enjoy this one.

VENUE
Sara, the Bride: We didn’t want a typical “Jewish Wedding” as we both aren’t religious. We wanted something different and also wanted to try and make a weekend of it. We didn’t wanted to get married in London and had gone to Edinburgh for Hogmanay in 2009 and loved it there. I started to research castles and stately homes to get married in in Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy.
Dundas Castle in Edinburgh was the first venue that appeared in my search and nothing else came close to it. When we visited it, we both fell in love with the Castle and not just because everyone who worked there was incredible and couldn’t do enough to help, which made organising a wedding quite far from where you live hardly stressful at all!

CEREMONY Our Rabbi had us facing the guests during the whole ceremony which was lovely albeit a bit scary! We didn’t know he was going to do this and had he suggested this beforehand, I probably would have said no, but in the end it was a very special touch. We wanted our wedding to be really modern and not be long and bore anyone but also have some traditional touches like me walking around Elliot seven times (with the giggles!).

For me, my favourite part of the ceremony was the badeken as it was so personal and emotional. Also our Rabbi was amazing with his brilliant sense of humour, his personality and the most incredible voice you have ever heard. I don’t think there was a dry eye whilst he sang.