Vintage China Blue: A Beautifully Rustic Styled Wedding Shoot

It’s official. I am 100% obsessed with the styling of this gorgeous wedding shoot. For one, it appeals to my never ending love of vintage crockery – particularly the blue delft and willow pattern collections. So so pretty.

Add in some beautiful vintage hair-do’s, stunning florals, a hand painted cake and the hand-dyed vintage wedding dresses and well… I. am. smitten.

I love everything about this bridal shoot and hope you’ll feel super inspired too.

Words by Beyond Vintage. Images by Ilaria Petrucci Photography

Vintage China Blue: A Beautifully Rustic Styled Wedding Shoot

The idea behind this shoot started with my love for vintage china, I remember my mum hanging china on the walls and along the dado rails, it was always around me as a child and the ones which always used to stand out to me were the Delft Blue china, and the Willow Pattern.

Now I run Beyond Vintage and have the ideal job of collecting gorgeous china so obviously my collection of blue patterned china has grown to now being a full hire package, I felt the need to show it off so couples can see how this gorgeous china can work with a wedding theme.

I remember as a child making little stories up in the china patterns, often showing farms and windmills, I’d take little journeys through the patterns. It seemed ideal that the venue needed to replicate this, an untouched barn, still full of rustic features and country charm.

It took quite some searching but Templars Weddings in Hungerford was the perfect setting, run by the Parry Family on their farm it really encompassed everything we needed for the beginning of our story.

The table was set with mixed delft and willow patterned china, with vintage silver candle sticks. The glassware was mixed from Beyond Vintages’ collection with hand painted blue goblets.

I chose from a selection of my vintage bottles, tins and books, so many tones and highlights of blue all working together with the rustic backdrop of the barn.

I designed the stationery with the china in mind with a delicate delft inspired floral blue pattern, the main invite almost mimics a china plate with the circular central placement.

The dresses were supplied by Days Of Grace, Linda has such a fabulous collection of vintage wedding dresses and was able to adapt them by hand dying the vintage slips to fit our vintage blue look.

The cake was from Natalie at Cuppies n Cream, it was an easy decision to have her on board as I knew we shared a similar love of the Delft pattern china, I had seen her painted cakes before and she did an amazing job with a delft painted layer in the 3 tier cake.

Words from the florist, Emma @ Ladybird

When the wonderful Lou of Beyond Vintage contacted me with the details of her new styled shoot along with the teaser of vintage/rustic country barn I jumped at the chance to be involved!

Knowing that the rustic wedding table would be dressed in blue willow china I decided to use beautiful white helleborus and anemone’s with wild grasses to bring the blue out in the china and the feeling of the wild barn onto the wedding table.

For the bridal flowers I couldn’t resist popping in the most elegant pink peonies letting their gentle petals fall against the prickly thistles, a wonderful play on textures and colours. For the models hair I used delicate wax flower just popping out of their curls with grace and elegance.

Words from the make up artist – Sarah from Motherlipstick

The Make-up for this shoot was inspired by an authentic vintage look. Minimal, natural and chic. On our brunette model I created a ruddy look with peach and rust tones.

With the fair haired model I created a classic English rose look with subtle pink shades. I wanted their natural beauty speak for itself and with such detailed lace and pattern featured in the shoot, subtly glowing make-up was the perfect option.

Words from the photographer – Ilaria Petrucci

Photography has changed my world. Brought me back to life. Being able to live and breath what I love every day is such a wonderful blessing. Being able to create and seeing visions and dream become real things, it’s the most wonderful feeling.

I worked with Lou from Beyond Vintage many times before and she is one of the most talented and wonderful creatives I know.

She has it. Whatever she does she feels it in her soul and I love that about her. I trust her completely and when she told me about her vision, her ideas of a blue vintage inspired shoot, I was totally excited to be working with her again.

I love everything that is beautifully simple, I love things with stand-alone prettiness, and oh my there is so much of this in this shoot.

Templars Barn was the most perfect venue to bring this inspiration to life, such a plain canvas, the barn and the grounds offered us exactly what we were looking for.