More Vintage Brides

Two of my previous posts, Wonderful Weddings and Vintage Brides had wedding themes.  Both proved to be popular from the start so today I'm including some more images from 'Modern Bride', published in 1958.  Last time I found it quite difficult to decide what pictures to use, so this gives me an opportunity to include some more of my favourites.  These lovely weddings and brides from long ago can still be used as inspiration today!

Lace never goes out of fashion.  It makes this dress extremely feminine.

I love the lighting in this picture.  Black and white photographs are usually the most atmospheric and I think the image above is wonderfully romantic.

When I look at this advert I find it hard to believe this photo was taken before I was born. This couple look so natural and in many ways still contemporary.  It shows how timeless some things are.

And finally from the magazine this fabulous illustration from an article giving advice on furnishing and decorating your first home.  I just love it - it reminds me so much of my mom's home when I was a little girl.

My Wedding - Everton, KwaZulu Natal (South Africa), December 1996 

In the last post of vintage brides I included a picture from my wedding at the end and mentioned that I had chosen to wear my mom's dress, made originally for her wedding in 1957.  My own wedding was put together on a shoestring budget (we decided to rather spend more on our honeymoon!), but we were still able to have a fairytale occasion as I was lucky enough to have the use of my mom's lovely garden just west of Durban. 

A small grove of trees formed a natural aisle and nave.  It was just big enough for me to walk down to part of Pachelbel's canon played by a string quartet.  We made a canopy for the service out of a cotton and lace tablecloth.   A stone bench covered with an antique cloth doubled as an altar, another covered a tree stump that was used to sign the register (shown below).  Even the minister who married us joined in the fun and wore an embroidered waistcoat instead of (as he put it) his Batman regalia.
         

All the flowers and foliage used in the marquee came from the garden. (Everyone worked extremely hard to make it look so pretty.)

I even decorated my own cake.  My step-dad made me a wonderfully rich fruit cake and I spent days before the wedding stamping out these little icing flowers and leaves.
  

Vintage Brides

More images from this magazine can also be found at More Vintage Brides

I'm deviating from my usual blog postings to include these pictures of vintage brides I found in an old magazine tucked away in a drawer today.  They come from a catalogue called 'Modern Bride', dated 1958.  My mother originally gave this book to me when I was about 4 years old.  I'm not sure why she had it as her wedding was the year before the magazine was published in 1957.  I can remember enjoying looking at these illustrations as much as any fairytale or storybook I owned at the time.  

I longed to own this flower girl dress when I was little and thought it was the most beautiful I had ever seen.

I've included a picture of my mother's marriage in a previous post.and mentioned that I used to think she was the bride in the 'Heavenly Blue Wedding'.  This is another photo I was convinced was of her. My childish logic saw nothing amiss in the fact that this was an American magazine (and my mother wasn't a model).      

I used to believe that this was a picture of the wicked stepmother in 'Snow White'.  Looking at it now I can still see why I thought that.

   

There are very few colour photographs in this magazine.  I've included three of them here.  The following two are from an autumn themed double wedding of two sisters.

Besides wedding dresses the magazine also contains other gowns for the occasion.  All of them have the lovely elegance of the era.

And to finish don't you just love these adverts for furniture and bed-linen? 

I was fortunate enough to have a fairytale wedding of my own.  I chose to wear my mother's dress (she had kept it all that time.)  As I married in 1996 it was 39 years since my mom originally wore it on her day.  The sleeves had been taken out (it doubled once as a  ballgown).  I opted for a slightly less rigid petticoat and added a brooch of my own, but otherwise it was unchanged.