The Dress

HELLO! I’M MARRIED NOW!! HOORAY! I’m still slowly coming back down to earth after what was truly the best few weeks of my life. I’ve got so much to talk about and share but I wanted to start with my wedding dress because it’s definitely garnered the most interest out of any of my wedding details and it’s completely amazing and I can’t stop talking about it! So without further ado…

Isn’t it just perfect?! Here’s the story:

The weekend after I got engaged I was perusing my local RSPCA op shop and found a beautiful, if slightly dusty and moth eaten, vintage wedding dress. It was love at first sight and I bought it for $50. Given my propensity for shopping and wearing second hand, the idea of spending a 3rd of my wedding budget on a dress never appealed to me. I LOVED the idea of wearing something vintage and giving it my own spin, plus I was totally overwhelmed at the thought of shopping for a wedding dress in the tradition manner, so picking something up at an op shop suited me perfectly.

The vintage 1950’s dress was beautiful, but it was slightly too small and the full length lace sleeved bodice just wasn’t my style. So I went to see Erin and Kate at Ilka to talk to them about re-designing it. They were SO AMAZING. I cannot rave enough about how wonderful Ilka are. The took my grotty op shop dress with no judgement, listened to my vague ideas of what I thought I wanted (Valentino/Elie Saab on an op shop budget) and turned it into my dream wedding dress.

Ilka created a whole new bodice for the dress, re-sized and re-lined it so it fit like a dream and left the original skirt intact. I wanted to add some colourful details to it and after going through a few different ideas with Erin and Kate, I eventually sourced the embroidered lace myself from China and Erin painstakingly cut it up and hand sewed it on to the dress. The end result was magnificent.

So my wedding dress is a combination of everything I love and value about sustainable fashion. It is vintage, op shopped and re-designed by a local designer in Perth. It was the perfect representation of what is important to me. Plus it’s god dam gorgeous!

I wore it with my aunt’s incredibly dramatic veil from when she was married in the 70s, some statement Christie Nicolaides earrings and flat gold sandals from Loeffler Randall (which were SO comfortable, I danced the night away and didn’t get a single blister).

I didn’t know what vibe I wanted for my wedding, but my beautiful dress really did set the tone for the whole day. It was a show stopper, but also relaxed and down to Earth. A true representation of Luke and I. I would 100% recommend other bride-to-be’s think outside the box when it comes to choosing their wedding dress, shopping second hand and supporting local designers shouldn’t be niche, it should be your first choice! It was certainly mine! 

Dress: vintage from RSPCA op shop, re-designed by Ilka

Shoes: Loeffler Randall

Earrings: Christie Nicolaides

Veil: vintage, gift from my Aunt

Photos are all by With U photography (they are fabulous!) 

Engagement Photos

Oh hello! I haven’t blogged for one whole year and I wasn’t actually sure if I would come back to it. But in the past months I’ve been lucky enough to meet and be inspired by some fellow thrifty fashion lovers and just couldn’t resist the urge to talk about my op shopped outfits. So here I am!

Also I’m getting married next month and I’ve been meticulously planning all my wedding outfits (including my honeymoon wardrobe) for literally a whole year, so god knows I want to talk about them! Starting with this one, from our engagement photo shoot.

Our wonderful wedding photographers thought we should do a practice photo shoot before the big day, to make sure everyone (ahem, Luke) was comfortable in front of the camera. So we traipsed down to Fremantle on a blustery Saturday arvo and shot these pictures. I’ll be forever grateful for them.

It was incredibly challenging to choose an outfit for the shoot, I wanted to look casual, but also vaguely bridal. I wanted to match Luke, but not too matchy. I wanted to wear something that looked like ‘me’ and also I wanted it to be second hand… so I did make it a bit hard for myself! After trying on pretty much everything in my wardrobe twice, I landed on this white Camilla and Marc dress which I haven’t worn for ages because it needed to be ironed… it’s literally been sitting in my wardrobe for 3 years waiting for the day to come where I felt like ironing. Well, the day finally came!

Can we also just take a moment to appreciate how adorable Blue is?! Luke was so embarrassed to be having a photo shoot with our dog, but I insisted she come along and she ended up being the star of the show. Her little red bandana is just the cutest thing ever, I’m definitely going to keep any eye out for more when I’m op shopping!

I’m wearing:

Camilla and Marc dress, op shop

Vintage hat, Vinnies

Boots and socks, both so old I can’t remember where they are from!

Luke’s wearing:

Linen shirt, Vinnies $7

Leather boots, Vinnies $8

Jeans, Nobody denim

Blue’s wearing:

Red bandana, Salvos 0.50c  

All the photos are from WithU photography, they are an awesome husband and wife team who can make even the most reluctant subjects comfortable and happy. I’m so excited for them to shoot our wedding next month! 

Long Time!

Hi there!! Long time no talk! This has been the longest I’ve gone without blogging since I first started. I even missed my 3 year blogger-versary which was at the end of July (check out my first post if you want a giggle!). Life has been full on for the past few months and I realised I couldn’t keep burning the candle at both ends, so having a little break from blogging was much needed. But I’m back and ready to get into the swing of things again.

These pictures were taken at my engagement party a few weeks ago. That was just one of the things keeping me exceptionally busy. My fiancée and I also bought a house and moved, we travelled down south to scout for wedding venues, had friends from over east come and stay with us and we’ve just got back from 10 days camping near Coral Bay. So yeah, things have been full on, but wonderful.

Our engagement party was so much fun. A blurr of friends and family and champagne and lovely moments that we’ll remember forever… such a cliché but it’s all true! Now on to my outfit (which is what you’re all here for right?!), I loved it so much. Although I have a number of dresses that I could have worn, I decided I wanted to look a bit ‘bridal’ (haha), so after seeing this Lover dress in David Jones I knew I HAD TO HAVE IT. Unfortunately the $700 price tag was way beyond my reach, so I set about trying to track it down on eBay. Which I did! For not even a tenth of the price too. I was stoked! It fit like a glove and was the perfect thing to wear. I teamed it with some patent black brogues (which are awesome but sadly didn’t make any of the pics) and some glitzy earrings.

Thanks for sticking around (and coming back) after my un-planned hiatus! Next week is National Op Shop Week so you know I’ll be getting on board with that!

Dress: Lover the Label, eBay

Shoes: Wittner

Earrings: Save the Children Mosman Park, $3

Photos: With U Photography (thanks Darek and Aggi!!)

Life Recently

Howdy friends! Well this has quite possibly been the best month EVER! My wonderful Luke and I got engaged! Nine years after meeting on a Thai beach and I couldn’t be happier! We were celebrating our seven year anniversary down south and he popped the question while we were playing Scrabble in our PJs. I am beyond excited and still can’t wipe the Cheshire cat grin off my face. You can see a picture of my ring below, it’s bloody magnificent and he chose it completely on his own. Considering I’m so particular about what I wear, I’m very impressed that Luke was brave enough to choose something without consulting me, thrilled as well… obviously!

So any way this has been my life recently…

Eating: Way too much bread, but I just love it SO much!

Drinking: Champagne darling… people keep wanting to toast our engagement, I’m certainly not complaining

Wearing: Faux fur

Buying: fun socks

Dreaming: of all things wedding related, YAY!

Avoiding: the rain, winter has started in Perth and my suede shoes are not happy about it

Watching: Game of Thrones

Reading: English gossip mags (boy do I love a ‘celeb living in a sprawling estate’ photo shoot)

Aside for all the above I’ve mostly be basking in the glow of my engagement, it’s so nice! The main questions I’ve been getting are people wanting to know when we’ll get married (hopefully end of 2017) and will I wear a second hand dress (um, duh!). Although I’ve never been a girl who’s dreamt of their wedding since childhood, it is nice to now have permission to think about it and plan. I’m really excited to start trawling through wedding blogs and going mad on Pinterest. Let the fun begin hey!