Miss Middleton chose British brand Alexander McQueen for the beauty of its craftsmanship and its respect for traditional workmanship and the technical construction of clothing.  Miss Middleton wished for her dress to combine tradition and modernity with the artistic vision that characterises Alexander McQueen’s work.

The dress epitomises timeless British craftsmanship by drawing together talented and skilled workmanship from across the United Kingdom.  The dress design pays tribute to the Arts and Crafts tradition, which advocated truth to materials and traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often Romantic styles of decoration.  Ms Burton’s design draws on this heritage, additionally giving the cut and the intricate embellishment a distinctive, contemporary and feminine character.

The design

The lace appliqué for the bodice and skirt was hand-made by the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace.  The lace design was hand-engineered (appliquéd) using the Carrickmacross lace-making technique, which originated in Ireland in the 1820s.  Individual flowers have been hand-cut from lace and hand-engineered onto ivory silk tulle to create a unique and organic design, which incorporates the rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock.

Hand-cut English lace and French Chantilly lace has been used throughout the bodice and skirt, and has been used for the underskirt trim.  With laces coming from different sources, much care was taken to ensure that each flower was the same colour.  The whole process was overseen and put together by hand by Ms Burton and her team.

The dress is made with ivory and white satin gazar.  The skirt echoes an opening flower, with white satin gazar arches and pleats.  The train measures two metres 70 centimetres.  The ivory satin bodice, which is narrowed at the waist and padded at the hips, draws on the Victorian tradition of corsetry and is a hallmark of Alexander McQueen’s designs.  The back is finished with 58 gazar and organza covered buttons fastened by Rouleau loops.  The underskirt is made of silk tulle trimmed with Cluny lace.

The Fabrics

French Chantilly lace was combined with English Cluny lace to be hand-worked in the Irish Carrickmacross needlework tradition.

All other fabrics used in the creation of the dress were sourced from and supplied by British companies.  The choice of fabrics followed extensive research by Sarah Burton and her team.

The Royal School of Needlework

The Royal School of Needlework (RSN), based at Hampton Court Palace, assisted the Alexander McQueen team in accurately cutting out the delicate motifs from the lace fabrics and positioning the lace motifs with precision into the new design.  The lace motifs were pinned, ‘framed up’ and applied with stab stitching every two to three millimetres around each lace motif.  The workers washed their hands every thirty minutes to keep the lace and threads pristine, and the needles were renewed every three hours, to keep them sharp and clean.

The RSN workers included existing staff, former staff, tutors, graduates and students, with the youngest aged 19.

The RSN’s work was used primarily for the train and skirt of the Bride’s dress, the bodice and sleeves, the Bride’s shoes and the Bride’s veil.

We thought you looked absolutely stunning Kate.

A beautiful pair of diamond drop earrings to match her tiara completed the radiant bride’s look.  For more beautiful wedding jewellery to make you feel like a princess, visit the Girls Love Pearls website.  Coming soon, our own version of Kate’s stunning bridal earrings.

British comedian Russell Brand and his singer/ fiance Katy Perry are planning a week of wedding celebrations in October.  The couple have reportedly sent out ‘Save the Date’ cards to their friends and family.

The cards reportedly feature a picture of Indian henna hand art and urges guests to “Save the week for the wedding of Katy and Russell” from Oct 18 to 25 and reveals attendees “will need a passport”. The invite also states guests “will be contacted soon with more information”.

Ms Perry is reported to have said that the couple are planning a ‘smallish’ wedding, insisting she doesn’t want the ceremony to turn into a “drunk fest of people”.

“We don’t want it to be a drunk fest of people, just one night and then forgetting about it. We want it to be about love. The wedding will be small. I always have a ton of people around me and I think the people that are going to share this moment with us are the people we want to integrate into each other’s lives,” she said.

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After having a quick wedding in Las Vegas, model Katie Price and Alex Reid are looking for a venue to hold their wedding again. “We are not doing it as a celebrity thing, it’s about us celebrating with our family and friends,” dailystar.co.uk quoted Ms Price as saying.

The former glamour model said the blessing this summer would be a “family thing” and a DIY job. “We are doing a blessing in the summer ‘cos we want all our family there,” she told ITV1 show This Morning. “And obviously (Alex’s) mum would like to see her son get married … so yeah, I can’t wait.”

Katie, aka Jordan, said the couple would make the arrangements for their blessing together. “We’re both going to decide together and get our families involved, his mum, my mum. We’re all going to do it as a family thing, how really it should be done, not how other people tell you to do it. We’re not going to have a wedding planner, we’re literally going to do it ourselves.”

She said: “I absolutely love it being married again. It’s just completely different … We’re actually looking to buy a house together.  We’ve got separate careers. And I just love it. We’ve got more to talk about when we go home, we’re not in each other’s pockets 24/7 and I think it’s a much healthier way to be.”

Katie, who was married to Peter Andre, said she would not sell pictures from the wedding.

She added: “My relationship is 100 per cent right. I don’t need a baby or anything to make it even more right.”

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Troubled singer Amy Winehouse plans to remarry her former husband Blake Fielder-Civil in Las Vegas. Ms Winehouse is reportedly going to remarry Blake in a quickie ceremony in Las Vegas as soon as she can get clearance to come to the states.

“They will definitely be getting married and have agreed on Las Vegas. Amy doesn’t want a traditional ceremony and wants it to be similar to their first wedding,” femalefirst.co.uk quoted a source as saying. A source also confided, “she chose not to marry in Miami again because she thinks it could be a bad omen”.

The couple, who originally split due to their individual battles with drugs and booze, were first married in Miami in 2007. Now, they are set to tie the knot for the second time in Las Vegas, before moving into Ms Winehouse’s new £2.5 million house in Camden to start a family.

They were reconciled earlier this year just a few months after getting a divorce.

Blake got another woman pregnant while he was in rehab, and still married to Amy, but clearly it didn’t “count” for him. We don’t know whether to congratulate these two or hope they seek more therapy, but it looks like a Vegas wedding is right around the corner regardless.

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Model Katie Price and her boyfriend Alex Reid are reported to have got married in Las Vegas. A spokesman for the couple has said the pair tied the knot in a “private, simple” ceremony at 1600 local time (midnight GMT) on Tuesday.

Katie, 31, and cage fighter Alex Reid, 34, who recently won the reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother, have been dating for about seven months.  They said in a statement: “We are very much in love and look forward to the future together.” The couple added: “We can’t wait to get back and celebrate our marriage with our friends and family who we know fully support our wishes.”

They eloped after leaving Ms Price’s three children with a nanny. They flew to Las Vegas on Monday, with Ms Price telling ex-husband Peter Andre that they were leaving for a photo shoot. This wasn’t the truth as they were secretly planning to get married, a fact which their rep apparently confirmed to BBC News.

The newlyweds are reported to have jetted off to Las Vegas in the early hours of yesterday morning and checked in to the five-star Planet Hollywood hotel on Sunset Strip. They enjoyed champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries before being driven 500 yards to the marriage chapel at the Wynn Hotel.

Katie and Alex were expected to arrive by 3.30pm Vegas time for a quickie 22-minute ceremony that started at 4pm – watched by a select group of family and friends who included Katie’s publicist, Diana Colbert, and, of course, the TV cameras.

After they were pronounced man and wife, Kate, 31, passionately kissed Celebrity Big Brother winner Alex, a moment which was ‘of course’ caught by  the photographers of a glossy mag!

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Delta Goodrem and her fiance of more than a year Brian McFadden have decided to postpone their wedding due to “increased work commitments”.

“We were sitting down to try to organize the wedding and we were thinking: ‘We’re never going to get this wedding organized by Christmas’.” McFadden told The Sunday Telegraph. “I know if we don’t get married, everyone is going to say there are problems because we pushed the wedding back,” he continued. “But we want to get married and take a nice block of time off, like three months, enjoy our families being there and have a nice honeymoon – not get married between gigs.”

McFadden proposed to Australian singer Delta Goodrem in 2007, less than a year after he divorced Kerry Katona, with whom he has two daughters. Since then, the former Neighbours actress has twice postponed the wedding because of work.

McFadden, 29, is reported to have said: “We’re trying to work out a date between the World Cup and the end of the Formula 1 season.” Luckily, Delta, also 29, is not putting up too much of a fight. She said: “I would love to go to the World Cup.”

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