Bridal veil embroidery for a vineyard wedding in Northern Japan.

When Sasha first got in touch I just knew I would love working with her. Her wedding to Leo sounded absolutely stunning and was going to be held in a winery in Northern Japan! She was going big on flowers and had a theme of blue and white Crown Ducal porcelain. Sasha’s only concern was that she was based out in Singapore, but I send veils all over the world so this wasn’t a problem and it got there safely without a hitch.

Sasha already had some ideas of what bridal veil embroidery she wanted, such as Forget-me-nots, bluebells, snowdrops and we discussed potentially incorporating some Crown Ducal motifs inspired by the crockery they would be using. She also wanted to include their initials and wedding date, and was keen to have a scalloped edging all around the veil.

I came away from our call buzzing with ideas and keen to crack on, so I set to sketching out some motifs. I always begin by sketching out the flowers at different scales and angles, in bloom and in bud. I also studied the porcelain and picked out some interesting shapes but in the end we decided to keep things simple and stick to the woodland flowers, as the porcelain motifs felt like another story and one too many things going on.

Sasha wanted the veil to be extra long, and for it to have a blusher which she would wear over the face. I LOVE this look. It is traditional and yet somehow quite edgy these days as it’s much less common, and I think it adds an element of drama in the best way. To help Sasha visualise the embroidery, I swatched little embroideries using 2 artisan techniques, and once we had settled on the favourites it was time for me to start drawing out the full veil artwork to scale. I created an organic flowing design with the woodland flowers, which travelled up the back of the veil and trickled off at the sides before coming back in at the front of the blusher. I stitched this one mostly on my freehand Bernina, with a little work on my Irish machine. All hand guided so that I am sketching the design with the needle.

I was blown away by the images that came back from Sasha and Leo’s photographer, and didn’t she look incredible in her custom bridal veil embroidery!

All wedding day photos taken by Aaron Jamieson.