The Dress With Gina Jackson

Our wedding day was a relaxed, joyful celebration in the Cotswolds with all of our close friends and family: we wanted the entire day to feel elegant and tasteful, reflecting the best of the English countryside, but still feel incredibly laidback rather than overly formal. Following our church ceremony, we opted for a big barn wedding with family-style feasting, lots of hilarious speeches and toasts, and a DJ that only played crowd-pleasers on the dance floor. This is how I found the dress…

The Journey

I visited four different bridal shops before finally finding the dress. I had no idea where to start, but luckily my sister (who was my maid-of-honour) helped me whittle down different bridal shop options, and book appointments. I still hadn’t found the dress after visiting at least three different ateliers; it wasn’t until I decided to revisit one of said bridal shops that I happened to stumble across ‘the one’ – funnily enough, it had been there all along the first time I’d visited, but I hadn’t noticed it at the time.

The Vision

I knew that I wanted the dress to be sleek and minimal as opposed to frilly and full of volume – I was adamant that I didn’t want any lace on my dress, but in the end I surprised myself, as the dress did have some lace at the bodice. The designer of the dress is Elbeth Gillis, a South African designer who is best known for her timelessly elegant designs that are mostly minimal, but occasionally incorporate delicate lace details. I think this matched the general theme of our wedding well: contemporary and relaxed, as opposed to traditional and formal.

The Decision

To be perfectly honest, I found it quite tiring at times! There is so much emphasis put on the bride and the wedding dress, that I found the search quite stressful – the added fact that many ateliers need a 9-month lead time to complete a wedding dress from scratch definitely put some additional pressure on. I’m a very decisive person, so I knew that I would instantly have a gut feeling once I found the perfect dress, and it was quite disheartening not to find ‘the one’ even after several appointments. It wasn’t until I eventually found it that I felt that things were finally clicking into place.

The Style Support

I wanted to keep my entire look a surprise for all of the guests, so only my mother and sister knew what the dress looked like and advised me throughout the process.

The Evening Look

I chose not to change in the evening because it felt like a shame to wear my wedding dress for such a short period of time. My dress had a handy button design that allowed it to be pinned up in the evening so I could dance easily.

The Accessories

For accessories, I wore my grandmother’s diamond and sapphire earrings that were my ‘something blue’, and a pearl handbag from Shrimps for carrying around my phone and lipstick. I wore simple white Castaner wedges that were easy to walk and dance in, and rather than follow tradition, I opted not to have a veil. Instead, I wore a flower crown made of gypsophila, which matched my bouquet: gypsophila was a flower that we used throughout our wedding day.

Advice For Brides

I’d recommend looking to Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration to start out, and collating a mood board with some ideas. Don’t overwhelm yourself by booking too many appointments at lots of different places – instead do as much research you can do online first, and pick around 3 different bridal ateliers that you’d like to visit as a maximum. Bring along one or two trusted advisors, but don’t ask for too many opinions, as ultimately, the final decision is yours.