After six years of being together with my partner, Mark; he proposed on Good Friday 2018 on top of a mountain whilst skiing, and just after I had pulled a massive hissy fit about getting down the slope – lucky guy! After seeing the phenomenal ring (helped by his incredible gemologist sister, Sarah) and knowing that he had asked my father’s permission, I said yes!
We got the SKI LIFT down to meet our friends for ridiculous amounts of champagne, Jager bombs and any other drink thrown our way, safe to say that the next day I felt fresh.
Back in the UK I was excited to show my parents the ring and tell them the details (minus the Jager and shocking hangover), and of course to talk about some potential plans. Now, in 2001, my Dad was awarded a New Year’s Honour which meant that his children could be married in the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey. Not only was I incredibly proud of my Father but it was also a massive honour to be allowed to be married in such a historical place
So naturally knowing this for 17 years, when the day came that I said ‘Yes’, Westminster Abbey was undoubtedly our first choice of location, but the massive question was ‘what the hell does one wear’!! Cue the one and only Emma and her team at Miss Bush. Mark’s sisters (Jayne and Sarah) had both used Miss Bush and couldn’t speak more highly of her plus I had also met her at both weddings, although both hazy memories thanks to Limoncello. They both looked beautiful in their dresses and the designs suited them to an absolute tee.
Even though I knew I was going to be in good hands going to Miss Bush, this was the one element I was dreading the most as when it comes to my body, I have very low self-esteem. I am a large person, wearing clothes sizes 20-22 and have a large bust, roll on the back ache in later life. I struggle looking in the mirror and hate more than anything having my photo taken. Yes, I am one of those annoying people, however I cannot explain the angst I feel towards pictures. With this in mind, I didn’t want to take lots of friends to dress fittings and decided to just go with my Mum and sister-in-Law, Jayne. My first appointment was going to be with Miss Bush and my second appointment was with a bridal shop that specialises in larger size wedding dresses.
We turned up to the Chapel which is the most idyllic setting for a bridal shop in Ripley. As we walked in I heard in the background "Kaaate, I have the perfect idea of a dress for you," to which I replied "What, how, what, how, how can you know this already" and I genuinely thought 'I am not going to like this' plus I hadn’t even looked at any of the beautiful dresses hanging in the Chapel – come on!
Emma then proceeds to tell me how she had recently been to Barcelona to see the latest designs from Jesus Peiro and saw this one dress and instantly thought of me. And then like magic, she pulls this dress from the fitting room to show me, and by golly it was the most elegant coat dress I had ever seen – it was timeless, regal and a ‘Westminster Abbey’ looking dress. How the hell could she get this so right already?
However, the one problem was, as the dress was from their up and coming collection, the only size they had was for the catwalk models. I can tell you for free that my index finger would have struggled to get into that coat dress but luckily Rosie, from Miss Bush, was able to put it on and showcase it to my Mum, Jayne and I. It had sleeves, it went in at the waist, it covered the boobs (Emma and I often have talks about big boobs) and it didn’t show a lot of flesh – it was basically AMAZING and ticked my ‘must haves’ for a wedding dress for me. The problem was I couldn’t try it on to see if all those elements that I loved about it would look good on me, and being a coat dress I would need to see how the skirt part looked by itself and what type of top I would wear underneath in case I took the coat dress off! This felt like a big IF for me, but Emma being Emma had ideas flooding out of her. In about 5-10 seconds she had already sketched up a few ideas which on paper looked brilliant, but still the issue remained that I was unable to try any of these ideas on.
Fast forward a week later, I went to a bridal shop which specialised in larger wedding dresses. I tried a few on and it felt nice to see what I would look like in all white. Some designs looked ridiculous on me but one particular dress I did really like, the only issue was it needed sleeves, but they were to add this.
So…. The situation was, do I go for a dress that I’ve tried on and liked or a design of a dress that I loved but haven’t seen myself in it. You guessed it, I went with Emma. How could I not! Her talents and vision were so admirable that I wanted to put my faith in her.
With the venue and dress decided on it was time to start properly planning our late December wedding.
Now without trying to make my story too sombre, my father had been living with cancer and had be responding very well to treatment. In September the treatment stopped working and my dad’s health started to rapidly decline. We were given some advice from the Royal Marsden that if we were able to move the wedding forward then perhaps, we should. My heart was broken but the thought of not having my father by my side to walk me down the aisle broke my heart even more. With that, Mark and I decided to move the wedding forward.
Westminster Abbey were unable to move the date to an earlier one due to so many commitments, which left us back to the drawing board, but luckily my local church where I was christened in ‘St Mary’s Oatlands, Weybridge’ came to the rescue. We got a date booked in and now had five weeks to get it all organised. Mark, my family, Mark's family and our friends were just amazing at helping to get this show on the road! But they weren’t the only ones, Emma and her team and of course Jesus Perio, pulled out all the stops to get me the dream dress in such a short turn around. They squeezed me in for fittings, made a dress to go underneath the coat, which fitted like a glove and basically just made me feel special. Then on the last fitting (5 days before the wedding) I went alone, which was my choice, to try on the dress. I cried. Not because I was sad but because it was the first time I had looked in the mirror and thought I looked the part of the bride, sophisticated, elegant (which is hard at my size) and dare I say it, pretty.
For that Emma and team, I can not thank you all enough.
Kate x
P.s - the wedding was a huge success and my dad proudly walked me down the aisle and stayed on the dancefloor until 11pm. He sadly died 5 weeks later and would never had made our original wedding date.
Suppliers
Photographer – David J Prior Photography
Church – St Mary’s Oatlands, Weybridge
Venue - St Georges Hill Lawn Tennis Club
Flowers – Petals of Walton
MakeUp – Adeola Gboyega (Bobbi Brown)
Hair – Bex Standing Smith