Rachel Lamb Bridal Design

Here are some beautiful shots of one of my brides and her husband on their wedding day this summer. The bride wore a bespoke design: ivory lace A-line shaped dress with lace capped sleeves. On the back we used a bolder lace applique, and the waistline was hand beaded with crystals. The photos above are by Andrea Cantova for N Drew. The above 2 images are from fittings and work in progress :)

A few weeks of work in progress in the (work trashed, apologies - no styling or tidying at all) studio ;-) including new postcards! The upper dress is called 'Una' and the lower dress is 'Florence'. They're both now finished and available to order as made to measure or off the peg gowns from the RLBD Collection. Both dresses I umm-ed and aah-ed about certain aspects of, and if you follow me on Facebook you might remember that I asked for help with the bow (yes or no) on the front of Una, and the flowers (yes or no) on the tulle skirt of Florence. The feedback was really useful and in the end Una has no bow on the front, and a smaller bow on the back, and Florence has flowers on the tulle, but can easily be made without them. (Please forgive the picture quality, I took these on my phone for quickness.) I hope you like the dresses.

Here's some photos of bride Rachael's pretty wedding dress from earlier this year. Rachael originally chose a different dress design from my Collection, and then changed her mind half way through! She had narrowed down her selection to a couple of designs and looked great in both, which is always a tricky situation. But after asking colleagues, her mum, friends and me, she picked the design.....and then a few weeks later changed it to the one above! Luckily before I'd cut out the actual silks and lace! The dress is very similar, but not exactly the same as my Gaia dress design, which wasn't one of Rachael's original choices, although she had tried it on at her first appointment! The lace is a delicate ivory Chantilly lace over a silk base, with a tiny pearl trim under the bust-line. It fitted her like a glove, I was very pleased with the outcome. Rachael maintains (still, in a recent email) that she was a 'Bridezilla' because she...

This is springtime bride Julie (and her husband), who, as the title suggests, wore a sage green silk dress with a vintage-y looking nude/oyster coloured lace overlay. When Julie first came to see me, she wasn't looking for anything traditionally bridal in colour, and was originally thinking of  a richer blue or green colour, with comfort being a priority for her. We looked at a few green and blue laces but none hit the spot, so I suggested that she go on an exploration of some of the fabric shops in London to see if anything caught her eye. (I often send people off with a list of potential shops if I have nothing in the studio that matches their ideas.) It did, and Julie came back with a small piece of the lace she'd found to show me, but as I recall, there wasn't much of it left on the roll in the shop. We discussed and revised the design again and I advised her to buy the remaining piece of lace and said that I would draft the dress pattern to fit in with t...

Okay, so my last post was in March and it's now September. Oops! Oh well, it's been an extremely busy wedding season for me, and as a result, making the dresses, family and sleep have to come before social networking! Now things have calmed down I have a lot of dresses that I want to show you, kindly sent to me by my recent clients. (I also haven't finished showing the dresses that were photographed at the beginning of the year either. All in good time.) I thought I'd start by showing you a wedding from back in the early spring, although you wouldn't know it from the photos as the wedding was in Florida! This is Laura-Jean and her chap, looking lovely and windswept on their wedding day. Laura-Jean's dress was ivory hand appliquéd lace with tulle skirts and lots of roped beading. More to show you soon.

Love, love, love this dress! This is another of my new Collection dresses called Elsa. It's a very simple and easy to wear dress, brilliant if you don't want to feel like your dress is wearing you, or for a simple country wedding or small venue perhaps? Elsa is made from several layers of silk Georgette in the skirt and has a boned silk bodice overlaid with hand-cut Guipure lace. We love this lace because it has a lovely irregular edge. The pictures for all this shoot were taken by Andrew from Lightworks Photography . Before I forget, it's the Secret Garden Wedding Marquee Open Day at Burwash Manor tomorrow. It's a lovely venue so do pop along and have a look if you don't have a venue yet. Andrew from Lightworks will be there too so go and say hello to him too!

With a yearning for warmer days, here are some pictures of a summer bride - Sarah, whose wedding dress I made last year. It was a beautiful, classic looking wedding dress, with a lace bodice and silk, tulle and organza skirts. It suited Sarah perfectly, being a mix of 2 tones of ivory - dark and light, which when combined went perfectly with her colouring. I especially love the last picture with the lichen covered silos in the farmyard. (I think that's what they're called anyway!) Thank you for sending me these lovely images Sarah. :-)

This is 'Fallon', a new wedding dress to go in my current gown Collection. I finished it just before the Christmas break.   I'm often asked how I name my dresses, and I'm sure I was listening to The Archers at the time, which is why I named the dress Fallon. (Fallon is/was a character in The Archers.) Mainly because at the time I was wondering what had happened to Fallon? Does anyone know where she's gone? I'm not so much of a regular listener these past years, so perhaps she's no longer in it...anyway, she was conspicuous by her absence while her namesake was under construction. Back to Fallon - the wedding dress. It's made from ivory Dupion silk, overlaid with gold and ivory lace on the bodice, and has a silk skirt overlaid with draped silk Organza. There is a concealed zip underneath those covered buttons, and the bodice is fully boned inside. The Organza overlay on the skirt is designed to be slightly asymetric and to swirl...

'Fallon' wedding dress   Fallon dress has a bodice made of ivory silk with an ivory and gold beaded lace applique. The skirt section is ivory silk with ivory organza draped overlay. 'Emily' 2-piece wedding dress Emily 2-piece is a n ivory strapless dress with a n ivory lace over-s hirt. You can see Emily here . 'Albertine' wedding dress Albertine wedding dress is dark ivory ruched bodice with a rose print bust section, and a dark ivory silk skirt section overlaid with tulle. I'm working hard on many things at once at the moment - why does that always seem to happen just as Christmas is looming? One of them being my new website which should be launched soon. Can't wait for that! Promoting the new designs is top of my agenda, as well as promoting the design aspect of my work, so I've started some sketches of some of my new designs, which will also appear on the new website. In time, these items will be professionally phot...

As the title says, Emily sample dress is now finished. It's actually a two piece outfit - the lace top can be removed and the belt worn with the strapless dress underneath. I was all set to continue photographing the under-dress when the battery went on my camera, so those pics will have to wait for a bit. I decided to lightly bead the neckline of the strapless dress underneath - last week I wasn't sure. I hope you can just about see the beading on the dress through the lace. The dress is made from ivory silk Dupion, which is a pure silk and reasonably crisp, but it could be made in a variety of fabrics for a shinier, smoother or floppier look if you prefer. A different shade to the under-dress could perhaps also work with the ivory lace too. This dress is for my Collection. Which means it's there for you to try on and order as a made to measure design or to use as a starting point for a Bespoke design of your own. As with all my designs, you can ...