John and Jen’s wedding was far from typical, not least because the bride didn’t see her dress until just a couple of weeks before her wedding, but that is a story in itself!

John is my Brother-in-Law, I’ve known him since I was 17 (he was 13) and that too comes with many a story. John and Jen have been together about 8 years ish and have the most wonderful little family together. Their wedding encompassed everything and everyone that is special to them and it was so lovely to witness the love they share with their friends and family.

It was an intimate affair. It was held at my parents land The Orchard at Woodlend, and mum donned her hat as Celebrant. They planted an Oak tree in the orchard, had several punk bands, a real ale bar and The Real Junk food Project providing nourishment. It was also lovely to work with Lou Mac MUA and Merfox Photography on the day.

But how did Jen come to only see her dress 2 weeks before the wedding?

We have discussed Jen’s wedding dress many times over the years. Usually while drunk over a bottle of wine. Over the years the design has changed but there’s been elements that have remained constant. At the time, before the wedding was even actually in planning I was listening. It’s hard not to mentally catalogue those ideas when it’s your profession.

So when the time came to choose her wedding dress Jen and John’s mum came to Legend and we tried various styles on. We got very silly with it and I made her try on dresses I knew she would never wear - cos I’m an evil big sister, but also, it’s good to throw in a curveball or two to cement a choice. Jen surprised us all by choosing one of our sample dresses with a couple of modifications - we weren’t expecting it to be that simple but she’d made her choice and insisted that was ‘her dress!’.

As time went on though, we could see that it wasn’t the right choice. Jen was adamant it was perfect, but we’ve been creating wedding dresses a looong time and can always tell when something isn’t quite right, even if the bride can’t put her finger on it herself. It’s our job to tease out those thoughts so that we can make everything perfect.

After Jen had left from her final fitting we had a discussion and decided that Jen was just too much of a sweetheart. She didn’t want to come across as ungrateful or as a bridezilla and had tried to pick something that was as little work for us as possible - and we couldn’t have that. We decided to ditch the sample and start from scratch pulling together all the aspects of the sample dress that she loved together with everything we knew she wanted from her dress.

I’ll admit we were nervous before showing her her new dress. We’ve never done anything in secret before. But thankfully she loved it and her reaction was everything!