A glamorous crowd grooved to the gramophone at East London’s Corbet Place last night to mark the launch of new book Style Me Vintage: Weddings.

Written by Annabel Beeforth, founder of cult wedding blog Love My Dress, this beautifully put together manual explores wedding style throughout the decades, from the buttoned up lace of the Edwardian period right through to the free-spirited seventies.

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What does a vintage-inspired wedding look like? Last night’s event offered a glimpse: pretty English country garden blooms peeped out of higgledy piggledy glass jars and bottles, balanced beside old typewriters and Roberts radios on antique dressers. Model brides wafted around the venue in slinky Zoe Lem dresses and decadent headpieces. Elegant canapés, served in whimsical bird cages and trinket boxes, were dispatched to excitable guests clinking champagne saucers.

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I love the romance and history associated with the vintage look but I’ve never been a purist, so I’m pleased that Style Me Vintage: Weddings has an approachable feel, suggesting subtle ways that you can channel the mood of a particular era, without following it to the letter. There are plentiful tips and ideas, such as how to source an original vintage wedding dress and where to buy vintage inspired dresses and accessories, along with recommendations for all those little details that can have just as big an impact, such as the flowers, stationary, music and photography.

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Tips are interlaced with inspirational imagery shot by Joanna Brown and styled by some of the leading lights of the vintage wedding industry, alongside archive imagery explaining key looks of a particular era, and accounts from real life brides who chose to channel vintage style on their own wedding days. There’s also a beauty section advising on key looks of the day. A thrifty 1940s bride, for example, would have kept her look minimal in keeping with the scarcity of luxury products in the wartime era. In contrast, a 1930s bride would have indulged in lashings of silver screen glamour.

But perhaps one of the most useful elements of the book is its back page directory listing all those need-to-know wedding suppliers Annabel has got to know during her many years of blogging, from off-the-beaten track bridal boutiques to stylists, photographers and venues.

Annabel Beeforth’s new book Style Me Vintage: Weddings (published by Pavilion) is out now. RRP £14.99. Images by Joanna Brown

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