Tattooed bride Heather and Max married in June. A friend took photographs for them on the day of their wedding. After they returned from Honeymoon some of their wedding suppliers got together with photographer Hannah Dornford-May and ‘recreated’ their day on location in Heather’s grandparents beautiful garden. Here’s their story..
Heather and Max met on their first day at University. They were good friends for seven years before finally falling in love. However, after taking seven years to fall in love, Max then couldn’t wait to propose. He started to think about how he was going to propose to Heather, but just jumped in and asker Heather before he had even bought the ring! Heather immediately said YES.
When they started to plan their wedding Heather and Max knew they wanted a very informal relaxed affair and here they tell us about their day.
Our wedding was different.. There were lots of different elements as it was very personal to us and not very traditional. We wanted an outdoorsy wedding with a countryside feel and we wanted a really relaxed family atmosphere. It was important that we had lots of little touches which were special to us and which family and friends were involved in. For example, Max’s mum made lots of buttonholes for the groom and the guests.
Our celebrations started the evening before our wedding when we had a relaxed meal with our guests and then we all had breakfast together the next morning. After breakfast, we all went to the ceremony on a lovely vintage bus. We just wanted all our families together; because we both come from a divorced family we wanted everyone in the same room and it to be really intimate. Our wedding was alternative but really good fun.
We’ve never smiled so much. When we both went into the ceremony everyone said we were both just like Cheshire cats the whole way through. There were so many people there with us to share the experience and it was such a wonderful day.
The tree tattoos were inspired by one of our wedding readings. The reading was taken from ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ which explains how you know you’re in love if two tree’s roots grow together and become one tree instead of two and that really stuck with us so we both decided to get tree’s done with their roots showing as a symbol of our marriage. It’s a way for us to remember it without being typical tattoos.
Every dress I tried on didn’t feel right; I tried lots of dresses but with my back tattoo I felt I had to either have it completely covered or on show as much as possible. As a lot of the dresses I tried on cut it off at a severe angle. I wanted a dress that made my back tattoo look really special. I’d always liked the idea of having a shorter dress and with the relaxed wedding I didn’t want it to be too formal. I tried lots of dresses on and saw a lot on the internet so I made a file and kept it with me. Eventually, I tried a dress on , it was a red summer dress . I knew it was the right style for me. My friend and my Mum were with me and both said ‘That’s the dress’ but I knew I didn’t wanted it in red so I started to look for dressmakers and designers. I saw an advert for Erica Stacey Bridalwear and went to see her. Erica so enthusiastic and said she could recreate a style like the red dress I loved, so she drew out a sketch and it was perfect! Everything seemed to fall into place, I always feel if something is stressful then it’s not worth doing, and the process with Erica was anything but – completely stress-free and a special experience that made my adding dress perfect.
The best bit was I don’t think Max was expecting it, so when I walked in it was great to see the look on his face. I wanted a unique, special dress and that’s what I got, and the dress set the theme for the wedding, we wanted a handmade look so having the dress handmade for me was brilliant. I loved the fact that lots of people who were special to us were involved in making the wedding come together.
How beautiful is Heather’s dress from Erica Stacey Bridalwear? I love their post-honeymoon shoot! Thank you to them both, to Erica Stacey and Hannah Dornford-May for sharing with Marry Me Ink today. Be sure to leave them some love!
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