A colourful embroidered veil with wildflowers for a countryside wedding in Cornwall.

Imogen came to me with an idea of creating a bespoke embroidered veil based around her colour scheme of burnt oranges and dusky pinks. She wanted the imagery to be based on wildflowers but also seaweed as a nod to their coastal home!

I jumped at the chance and let me tell you, I had a ball creating this one! Any excuse to go thread shopping…

As always, my process started with gathering imagery and creating sketches of the flowers we thought would work well on the veil. I sketched a variety of shapes and sizes and had a play around with the seaweed too!

Next up was swatching and choosing colours which I spent a lonnngggg time on. I think the colour choices and combinations can make or break a design, so I tried ALOT of shades, tweaking the tones as I experimented. I even made a tiny baby veil to see how they would look altogether!

I also rarely try a swatch once, as I like to determine the best technique for the job. In Imogen’s case I actually created all the flowers on my Irish machine, as it creates a denser stitch that I thought worked well with the look Imogen wanted. The foliage I did on my Bernina as I wanted the green areas to be more delicate. All hand-guided, so that I can draw with the needle on either machine.

Now it was time to create a full scale artwork, drawing out the design to show Imogen how I imagined it. My brief was to have the embroidery growing up the back from the bottom edge of the veil, and up on to the skirt a little. Imogen was also keen to have their wedding date nestled in the design but without being too obvious, so I tucked it along the edge of one of the flower stems which was so cute!

Imogen was so happy with the way everything was looking, so I was ready to embroider! I make all my veils from scratch, so I marked out the custom length and width to make her veil to sit perfectly with her dress, and emerged many hours / days later with the embroidery complete! I definitely go in to a bit of a zone when I’m stitching and time disappears.

I was so thrilled when Imogen’s photos came in, as the veil colours worked perfectly with her decor and bridesmaids dresses/flowers. It looked like the bridal party has the MOST fun, and can we take a minute for the reception decoration!

All completely stunning and I am so happy to have been a small piece of that. x

Thank you to Lyra and Moth for the gorgeous wedding day photos. www.lyraandmoth.co.uk