Wednesday, 25th November 2009
In today’s interview we are talking to Love Miss Daisy, who seeks out the most beautiful vintage clothing, in particular stunning wedding gowns and accessories.
Read more to find out why you might want to think about a unique vintage look for your wedding.
What is Love Miss Daisy all about?
Love Miss Daisy aims to provide vintage lovers with excellent quality, well described, clearly pictured beautiful vintage clothing and accessories for all ages, sizes and tastes!
How did Love Miss Daisy start?
Love Miss Daisy was launched in September 2008 after a year of preparation and research. It is a mother/daughter run business so between us we have 5 decades of first hand fashion experience and knowledge. We wanted to work for ourselves and work in an area we both love, and what better an area than fashion!
What is important to you at Love Miss Daisy?
Where vintage clothing and accessories are concerned, the most important quality for sellers to have in our opinion, is honesty. The clothes we sell have been around for as long as 60 years, and it is imperative for sellers like ourselves to inspect and describe each item as accurately as possible. Shopping for vintage online rather than in a shop means you have to take the word of the seller and be able to trust their assessment of each item 100%. We constantly receive compliments and comments from our customers praising the accuracy and quality of our stock, so it seems we’re doing a good job so far!
Where do you find all those gorgeous vintage pieces from?
Vintage sellers will rarely tell you their sources! But I can tell you we source our stock from all over the world, particularly America and Europe. We also travel around the UK on buying trips. Everywhere we go, our eyes are always open!
Why should I consider wearing a vintage wedding dress?
You only have to visit one wedding dress shop today to immediately see that SO many of the dresses look the same! With a vintage wedding dress, you will look unique, and the endless compliments you will receive will make your special day even more special! Our 1950′s wedding dresses are constantly in huge demand, particularly the ballerina length dresses, they are absolutely incredible, and we don’t believe that you should pay ridiculous amounts of money for the most important dress of your life. Our most expensive dress is £600, but most are anywhere between £199 and £400. So you can look more unique for less. Surely a no brainer!
Can you help me source something particular that I have in mind or am looking for?
We would be happy to try and source any item for you! We can’t make any promises, but we’ll try our very best to find what you’re looking for!
Can you help me create the vintage look for my wedding?
We offer appointments for wedding dress fittings, where we will chat to you about the best era of dress for your body shape, we will help you find the right shade of white or cream in our dresses to match your skin tone, and we have a selection of 1950′s veils and headpieces for you to try on with each dress. We also stock a brand called Lily Millicent, which is a collection of beautiful headbands and hair slides, many of which are made specifically for brides or bridesmaids using vintage jewellery, freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals and other materials. Only yesterday we paired up the perfect headband with the perfect 50′s wedding dress for a bride-to-be, and she unexpectedly left with her hair sorted as well as her dress!
How often do you get in new items?
It varies. We usually have new items in every week.
Is there anything I should consider when looking at vintage outfits for my wedding?
It’s all about what suits you. You may absolutely love 1950′s wedding dresses but they may not flatter your body shape and it could be that a 1970′s dress does. It’s really important to take your time and we always say that the girl doesn’t find the dress, the dress will almost always find the girl.
How can we get in touch with you?
If you have a wedding dress enquiry, please email Terri on terri@lovemissdaisy.com. We have a lot of vintage wedding gowns on our website at www.lovemissdaisy.com but we also stock many that aren’t yet on the website, so please do enquire if you’re looking for something specific!
Friday, 20th November 2009
On Wednesday evening in the cold wet windy weather I set off to walk to the local village hall, camera in hand.
I was off to meet The 33 Bombshells, 33 Engineer Regiment (EOD). They are the Wives and girlfriends of serving soldiers and are an integral part of the community at Wimbish. At Christmas each year they arrange for a collection of items to parcel up and send out to our troops who are currently deployed overseas. Wednesday night was all about packing up the boxes, getting them weighed, addressed and ready to go.
I was so excited to see that the grim winter weather hadn’t put people off coming to help, in fact the village hall was so busy it was hard at times to move around and capture everything that was going on.
This year they were very well supported by our local community with donations from the Saffron Walden Inner Wheel, the Little Walden WI, the British Legion, Saffron Walden Building Society and many individuals from the Debden and Wimbish Parish. The Saffron Walden Rugby Club turned up with some 40 boxes, and the local cadet group also donated and helped out very ably on the night. Waitrose and Tesco again donated goods to the value of £80. Not forgetting everyone who donated gifts to go into the boxes.
This year they smashed their previous years record of 95 boxes and packed ready for dispatch a massive 240 boxes.
These gifts at Christmas make a real difference to the troops, who are miles away from home and with few home comforts, they provide a reminder that there are lots of people back home supporting them and thinking about them often.
Here’s a quick peek at the fantastic production line it takes to get this boxes ready to go.
Take some Shoe boxes
Some good books, magazines, Cd’s, DVD’s and novelty socks
Some nice smellies, tooth brushes and toothpaste
And very important, some nice things to eat, lots of them!
Now encourage your ‘army’ of volunteers to fill up those boxes with a variety of goodies remembering to stay just below 2kg.
Queue patiently to make sure they are the correct weight, you want to get as many goodies in a box as you can!
Add a little love
Tape it up to make sure all those precious goodies arrive safely
Don’t forget the address and customs labels
And now the parcels are ready to go to the post office for posting!
These simple gestures make all the difference to serving soliders who are away from home, their families and loved ones at Christmas and it’s amazing that the effots of The 33 Bombshells has resulted in 240 parcels packed with love and goodies making their way to our brave troops.
I wish them all a safe Christmas.
Thursday, 19th November 2009
It’s been a few weeks since I last posted anything about Lily and as you would expect she is growing really quickly, learning something new everyday, and constantly trying to get in to things she shouldn’t.
This week we had a trip to the vets as she had a small spot like lump on her leg that she wanted to chew. The vet decided that it might be a tumour and so he wanted to remove it and get it tested. I can tell you I wasn’t expecting that! So I left her somewhat nervously at the vets and drove away. I tried to keep busy and run some errands, but it was no use I had to come home. Boy it was quiet!
I hadn’t realised just how quickly she had taken over at home and how much her mischief kept me entertained during the day, or how much work she was stopping me from doing!
Anyway shortly after I got in the vets called to say all had gone really well and she had come round well so I could go and pick her up. Excitedly I jumped in the car and fetched her.
The vet said ” don’t worry she will be very sleepy and dopey for the next 24 hours or so, keep her warm and only let her out for the loo and then you must be with her, in fact keep her on her lead as she will be very wobbly on her feet.” He then went on to say ” for the next 10 days you need to keep the plastic lamp shade collar on and keep her from running, jumping and other very active play” I laughed! Anyone who has ever had a boxer puppy knows that being a nice sedate puppy is not an option, let alone for 10 days!!
I think Lily is destined to be different, she wasn’t sleepy or dopey when I got her home and hasn’t been since! Keeping her from running jumping and generally being a puppy just isn’t happening, but so far the stitches are holding and in fact the wound is looking really good and other than the lamp shade she seems completely unphased by the whole experience.
And just to show everyone that she is well here she is sporting her ‘how cute do I look with my new collar on?’ look
Monday, 9th November 2009
I recently spent 3 days in the Lake district with a group of amazing photographers. We spent the time sharing ideas and knowledge and ‘playing’ with new techniques, including some funky flash. Now for my avid followers you will know that I have always preferred natural light to flash and studio lights, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to have a play with it now and again, and I really enjoyed trying some new off camera flash techniques and colour flash.
We started off by taking some portraits in an old mill yard, where you might think the backgrounds would be off putting, or odd, but as you can see there are plenty of opportunities in all locations to get some great portraits.
Moving around the village of Staveley, we found some great stone walls and autumn colours.
Then it was onto the funky flash, in the rain. The first shot shows that even in pretty miserable conditions you can get some cool shots and make those less desirable weather conditions work with you in the creative process.
Some more natural looking flash in the iron shed.
Whilst in the iron shed, we lit the door with some coloured flash and it looks pretty cool, considering it looks pretty awful in the daylight, all bent, rusty and wonky, this gives it quite a dramatic feel.
A plain wall suddenly provides a fabulous studio background.
I had a great time and have come away armed with a whole host of new ideas to try out this winter, rain no longer stops play!
Saturday, 7th November 2009
On the 24 October, I spent a great day with the fabulous Suzie Rice, Style Coach and make up artist, and 3 of her amazing clients. Everyone had some pampering, with their hair and make up done by Suzie and then photographs by me.
It was such a nice day with a really relaxed atmosphere, lots of laughter and good old girly chat, not to mention chocolate biscuits!
We’re doing it all again on the 21 November, so if you are interested in having some ‘you’ time before the Christmas chaos click here to book your place and recieve special discounted rates.
Here are some images from the day:
We had a couple of little visitors too:
