Curtain maker draws crowds with swags and tails wedding dress
BRIDE Anne Renton's wedding dress was certainly swish, thanks to several metres of luxury curtain fabric and trimmings usually reserved for front room curtains and cushions.
Curtain maker Anne wanted her outfit to reflect her profession, so she used antique rose and crushed velvet curtain fabrics, cushion trimmings and tie-back silks to make her Medieval-style dress for her wedding at Bamburgh Castle.
"I have been a curtain maker for 18 years and I always intended getting married in a dress which reflected my profession," said Bedlington-born Anne. "I designed it myself without a pattern based on the techniques of French drapery I use for work."
Anne used curtain lining to make a prototype design before going to her old friends at Absolute Interior Design in Newcastle to source the luxury fabrics and trims. "I was determined, once I'd started, to approach the project just as I would if I were dressing a window and, seeing as I'm a bit smaller than your average window, I thought I should be able to manage it," she said.
Anne - one of the Renton and Rutter families who have farmed for years around Morpeth, Mitford and Felton - trained as a curtain maker in Newcastle and has long used Absolute Interior Design's furniture and accessories showroom in Newcastle city centre as a source for luxurious fabrics, making regular trips to the region for work from her home in Derby. Absolute Interiors director Jason Short said: "It's not often you get a bride whose dress is made entirely from curtain fabric, complete with upholstery trims, but this has turned out beautifully. I think Anne could start a trend."
As for her husband, Tim Jeffcoat, 43, Anne was confident he was going to approve. "Oh, he's very well used to my eccentricities!" she said.
After Anne, 38, married fiancé Tim Jeffcoat, 43, at the castle, they and their 32 friends and family went to the Lord Crewe Hotel in Bamburgh for a reception.