Stately Home Ballroom Wedding With Romantic Vintage Style: Tania & David

Tania & David married in a grandiose stately hall and decorated their ballroom reception in a romantic vintage style, incorporating a feminine colour palette of off whites and pinks.

Tania wowed in an incredible wedding dress by Essence of Austrailia, in particular, the tattoo lace back detail stood out, along with the pearl stringed back and the stunning bridal accessories – including an epic cathedral veil, a vintage headpiece and 2 pairs of designer wedding shoes!

Words by Tania. Images by The Gibsons.

Solsgirth House, Dollar, Scotland was the last venue we visited out of 5. It was like love at first sight, all the previous venues were instantly struck off the list.

There was a charm to this beautiful stately home with beautiful grounds and intricate detailing inside the house made me is want to learn more about the background of this house.

This wedding dress was the second dress I tried on at my first ever appointment at Eleganza Sposa. I loved it but I wasn’t sure if it was “the one” so I made appointments with four other bridal stores and found myself picking the exact same dress again at a bridal store in Edinburgh. I must have tried on at least twenty different dresses and I knew I definitely wanted a lace wedding dress which was fitted to suit my small

I must have tried on at least twenty different dresses and I knew I definitely wanted a lace wedding dress which was fitted to suit my small frame, however, I wanted something different, something less traditional and something with character. So I knew I had to go back to Eleganza Sposa to try on the Essense of Australia dress again.

The third time trying on this dress I had “the moment”, it was then I realised that this was the dress for me, it was definitely “the one”. My all time favourite wedding dress designer is Galia Lahav, and this Essense of Australia wedding dress, in my mind, definitely had the attributes of a Galia Lahav dress, from the three tier lace train to the flesh tone mesh, to the tattoo lace on the back of the dress.

It was just perfect!

My Dad walked me down the aisle and my cousin created a beautiful mash-up of two songs for us to walk down the aisle. The two songs are ‘River Flows In You’ by Yiruma and ‘Wedding Dress’ by Taeyang.

One of my most memorable moments was walking down the aisle to my cousin playing the piano and seeing all our closest friends and family just being there for us.

Our wedding photographers were The Gibsons! We are so thankful to have chosen Scott and Chantal as our wedding photographers. The Gibsons are super crazy talented! They are very professional, friendly and helpful. They are just incredible to work with and are the loveliest couple. We are so delighted with our beautiful wedding photos which are impeccable and to the highest of standards.

Scott and Chantal made us feel really relaxed and comfortable on the day of the wedding which made it so much easier to capture all the love shared on possibly the hottest day of the year! We are so grateful for all the hard work they have put into creating beautiful memories for David and I. The magical day was captured beautifully through their lens. We will forever cherish these wonderful photos.

Dawn at First Blush was recommended to me by my photographer friend Suzie, I was really impressed with Dawn’s work and knew instantly I wanted her to create my bouquet.

Dawn was exceptional. She made me the most beautiful bouquet. I was certain that I wanted creamy white roses with hints of dusky pink and I knew exactly what type of roses I wanted in my bouquet and she was able to source them for me – I wanted pearls and lace incorporated in the bouquet and Dawn was able to create that.

We also asked her to source specific flowers to use, and because we decided to stick to a small budget on flowers, several of my bridesmaids and I made all the floral arrangements and bridesmaids’ bouquets ourselves.

We were ecstatic with the outcome as didn’t have any experience in floral arrangements or making hand tied bouquets. We wanted mainly roses and hydrangeas with minimal foliage in centrepieces, and we opted for white hues of pinks and purple.

I purchase most of the wedding decor myself. The venue provided large silver candelabras though. I decorated the candelabras with small hanging glass baubles filled with either tea light candles or a single rose head.

Each table had an antique styled mirrored tray holding several small vintage-styled glass vases. We used fish bowls as vases also which were filled up with roses, hydrangeas, baby’s breath, spray roses and some foliage.

We used antique styled photo frames with our table names. Our table names were based on islands in Thailand, as we got engaged in Thailand in 2014.

For the top table we didn’t use any candelabras, instead, we used hurricane vases, small fish bowls filled with flowers.

We also used cylindrical bowls filled with water and floating candles. Which looked absolutely romantic in the ballroom.

I initially wanted lots of candles and bird cages and very little floral arrangements.

As I wanted to keep costs to a minimal, I ended up sourcing bird cages myself rather than hiring from vendors, but as the wedding date drew nearer I found myself changing my mind constantly.

In the end, I went with a very romantic theme to suit the beautiful ballroom.

If I could impart any words of advice for future brides and grooms, I would say…

First and foremost, there is no such thing as sticking to a budget. I was adamant that I would stick to a budget but that failed epically. I would say always consult with one another to avoid confliction and I would advise all future brides and grooms to compile a guest list at the beginning of the planning as we had a lot of disagreement on the guest list throughout the whole planning as we were restricted to a number of guests we could invite for the full day.

Start the seat planning as soon as possible even if your guest lists may chop and change, I found that having a mock seating plan helped us decide on who we really wanted to invite to the wedding.

Also just to relax and plan well ahead. Remember to enjoy the planning, it may be the most stressful thing ever, but at the end of the day, it’ll be worth it when you see your other half standing down in the aisle looking at you adoringly.