Charlotte & Scott

When you think of Look Book member Charlotte Simpson's wedding gowns. You think of elegance, clean lines and flattering silhouettes, so it's no surprise her gorgeous destination wedding at the Chateau de Masillan in Provence was executed in the same way. Designing the most gorgeous gowns for her self, her bridesmaids, and mum in sumptuous fabrics, and intricate beading. Each and every one of them look jaw-droppingly beautiful. And each and every gown unique and truly stunning. The crisp white colour scheme was carried through to the decor and blooms too. There is a heavenly floral arch, dreamy outdoor swing adorned with blooms, and I absolutely love the floral table runners at the outdoor reception. Not to mention the loose bouquets lovingly put together by Charlotte's friend Emily Wisher Artisan Florist. There isn't one thing I'm not totally in love with and I think you'll all feel the same too, so sit back relax and savour every last detail. Oh, and maybe get your pinning fingers ready.

The Venue

Charlotte the Bride: Before we got engaged Scott and I had talked about how we loved the idea of getting married abroad, outdoors in the sunshine. So after Scott whisked me off to the Cotswolds with a surprise picnic and even bigger surprise proposal we started thinking about where we could go for the wedding. We took a trip to Provence to look at a few venues and immediately fell in love with Chateau de Masillan. We spent the next day of our trip cycling through the surrounding vineyards on the Chateau’s bicycles and just knew that this was where we would love to get married. It was the perfect venue, it allowed us to fulfil all our ideas of an outdoor intimate wedding and having all our friends and family in one place for a long weekend to celebrate.

The Dress

My job gave me a bit of an advantage with the dress hunt - I am a wedding dress designer and I always knew that I would design my own dress. I had for some time had a vision of what the dress would look like - a high neckline and low back with a soft but full skirt and a good size train – I love a train! I really wanted the shape of the dress to combine my style of minimal tailoring with a soft train that draped beautifully when I moved. I didn’t want anything too stiff as I think being physically comfortable in your dress is very important. The dress was made in a beautiful light ivory silk crepe and had a embroidered herringbone detail at the waist. It felt very strange to be the one in the dress at my fittings rather than the one doing the pinning but I really enjoyed the whole process. I designed myself a second dress to wear for the evening part of the wedding. I wasn’t originally planning to have two dresses but I loved the idea of wearing something heavily embroidered for part of the day. I designed a more fitted shape with an open back and a shorter train. The dress was made from the same silk crepe but the fabric was completely hand embroidered in tiny white beads, it glinted its way around the dance floor which I absolutely loved.

The Accessories

I found a beautiful gold headband at Fenwicks, which I stitched onto my veil and wore at the back of my hair. I was so pleased with the outcome and loved wearing it. My shoes I found at Prada by chance on a day out with my Mum. The lady in the store overheard us talking about the wedding and said they had had a delivery of shoes last night that she thought would be perfect for a wedding. As soon as she brought out the styles my Mum and I both pointed at the same pair and said, those ones! They were gorgeous and I can’t wait to wear them again. I wanted to keep my jewellery really simple because of the gold headpiece so my something borrowed were some lovely pearl and diamond earrings from my mum and my something old and blue was a tiny antique moon stone ring which I wore on my little finger.

The bridesmaid dresses and Mother of the bride dress

White is my favourite colour so there was never any contest on what colour the bridesmaids would wear. It looks so fresh and modern. After chatting to my bridesmaids about what style and shape they would like to wear I designed them a wrap around column dresses with little cap sleeves and a hand embroidered belt. I also designed a dress for my Mum. She had always imagined wearing a pale grey and cream dress when I got married so we sourced out the perfect pale grey wool silk fabric. We combined this with a cream silk roll collar and a cream hand embroidered a boarder which gave the dress something extra special.

The Groom

Scott knew exactly what he wanted to wear and luckily found it quite easily. He had a navy blue suit from Reiss, a white shirt and a pale pink Ede & Ravenscroft tie. The ushers all wore their own suits with a pale blue Gieves & Hawkes tie which Scott gave to them as a gift.

The Videographer

We couldn’t be happier with our video, Adam and Rachel did such a fantastic job. They were a dream to work with and were so unobtrusive on the day but still somehow managed to capture everything. We couldn’t recommend them highly enough. We especially loved the way they build the edited video around the groom’s speech. It makes the videos so personal and really captures the atmosphere and emotions of the day perfectly.

The Planner

Lucy Till was recommended to us by the Chateau and she was a huge help in planning the wedding, especially as our French is basic at best! She helped to coordinate all of the vendors and set up on the day itself, which was a great help as it meant we just got to relax and enjoy getting ready.

The Florist

Bladine Viry of Atous Fleurs was recommended to us by Lucy Till and I am so glad she was. When we walked into the courtyard and saw the flowers on the tables I was completely taken aback. She had done an amazing job, it was exactly what we wanted but even better than we had imagined. One of my favourite parts of our wedding was the bouquets. I was very lucky that one of my bridesmaids and oldest friends - Emily Wisher - is an absolutely fabulous florist. I really wanted Emily to be involved in the flowers but as we were getting married abroad this was a bit tricky. Blandine was really kind and agreed to Emily being in charge of the bouquets. Emily’s style is very loose and wild which was exactly the look we wanted so I had no hesitation at all that I would love what ever she did. We discussed the palette of white and green, some varieties of flower and the rough size but I was happy for her to decide everything else. They were absolutely gorgeous and it made carrying the bouquets extra special. I was really sad when it eventually died!

The Food

The Chateau supplied all of the food and it was absolutely delicious, especially the strawberry macaroon desert. We went for a tasting in May and found it really hard to decide, there were so many lovely options. They have their own large organic garden and grow a lot of the fruit and vegetables themselves which we really liked, the wine also came from the local vineyards as well which was really nice.

The Mother of the Bride and the Mother of the Groom

We really wanted some personal touches at the wedding so Charlotte’s Mum Sue made the three tiered fruit covered wedding cake and Scott’s Mum Karen hand painted our place names for the table, lavender for the girls and olives for the boys. Knowing that these had been made by our Mum’s made them even more special.