Sonja and Shane married in September 2011 at Hellens Manor in Much Marcle, Herefordshire.

They chose Hellens Manor for its countryside setting and gorgeous amenities – a medieval manor house with party barns in the beautiful countryside of Herefordshire. The venue allowed Sonja and Shane to decorate and do pretty much anything and everything they wanted, they even rigged up a whole new lantern based lighting system for the day (all conceived and created by Shane and his helpers).

Today then, we are off to the cider county, and to document this dreamy rustic day we have Gemma from Gemma Williams Photography, and may I say you are in for a visual treat that is good enough to eat.

Lovely Memories.

From the word go we knew we wanted to stay local to our Herefordshire home and keep it a very relaxed and country wedding, full of personal touches and fun. We wanted to make it not only an amazing day for us, but for all our guests to enjoy and leave with lovely memories.

Shane and his best man had beige linen suits from Moss Bros. I loved the relaxed and ‘sunny’ look of these suits, very laid back. The ties (rented from Moss Bros) mirrored the sage green of the girls’ dresses.

Rose Detailing.

The dress, well, that was one of the first worries I had. I am not a very girlie girl and don’t really do dresses. So knowing what to go for was rather tricky. I’d decided to go to the National Wedding Show last March. I hate shopping at the best of times and it was all a bit over whelming for me. I tried the odd dress on, just to make an effort.

I had it altered a couple of times, the train shortened, the layers of netting taken up, all just to make me feel a bit more comfortable. The outcome was the most gorgeous dress I could have hoped for, it made me feel like a million dollars and I enjoyed wearing it every second of the day.

Elegant Simplicity.

I chose quite simple but elegant jewellery from Pia in Cheltenham. A lovely freshwater pearl necklace and bracelet.

For my hair I bought some little diamond and a small feathery, ivory fascinator from Hat Trick in Hereford.

Something Old, Something New…. Something Missing?

I have to admit, I was missing one of them. My shoes were my ‘something old’ (advantage being: nicely worn in and comfy!) Ivory closed toe sling backs, bought a few years ago at BHS. My ‘something blue’ was a pair of knickers Tina bought me, as a joke! She asked me to wear them (with a smile on her face), but after spending a small fortune on my bridal lingerie in Montpellier, Cheltenham, I decided not to wear them but to keep them in my little make up bag instead. My ‘something new’ was a surprise present from Shane…we agreed on not buying each other presents, but on the morning of the wedding our son Bayon walked in with a little bag labelled ‘Something new…I love you’. A gorgeous pair of diamond earrings (to go with my engagement ring) that nearly made me burst into tears! The one thing I was missing was the ‘something borrowed

…hmmm, I did borrow Simone’s hairspray, does that count?!

Me… Naturally.

My hair was done by my friend and professional hairdresser Debbie. With years of experience and running her own salon in Ledbury, I couldn’t have been more confident in letting Debs loose on my hair. We went for a relaxed hair up-do. By curling my hair and giving it more volume, Debs managed to get even my short hair up. It looked gorgeous – everybody commented on my hair and I loved it! Big thanks to Debs. xxx

I did my own make up, as I wanted to be me on the big day. My new Dior foundation and lipstick finished the natural look off nicely.

Only Time.

Lots of tea lights were lit along the barn walls for the ceremony, lanterns lined the aisle either side – Enya’s ‘Only Time’ was my entrance song. One of the most important decorative parts of the ceremony was our ceremony arch.

Thanks to my bridesmaid Simone and best man Justin, it all came together at the end and looked absolutely stunning on the day. To make it a personal ceremony we had a German and an English reading and some gorgeous music performed by Hannah and Rob (Hannah plays the sax, how cool is that?!) and to make it a little bit more special for the German guests, I said my ring vows in German.

A Country Cottage Feel…

I fell in love with Dawn Horsted Flowers, I loved her style of using country and cottagey flowers and herbs. Using just some hydrangeas, Dawn made simple and stunning bouquets for the bridesmaids. My posy had roses, herbs and hydrangeas in pink and greens. The centre pieces and two other arrangements were designed to go with our colour and wedding theme – raspberry red and apple green and of course apples were part of all of the flower arrangements – eye catching, different and earning plenty of praise from our guests.

Shane’s dad supplied a load of green/pinky hydrangea heads from his garden. We used them throughout the venue, we dotted little jam jars with ribbon around the barn and filled them with the hydrangeas. I tied a few of them into our ceremony arch and decorated our cheese cake with them too.

Remembering…

As well as having a selection of family wedding photos on our cake table, we arranged some photos of loved ones who sadly are no longer with us, next to the guest book. This was a lovely way of remembering our family members and friend who couldn’t share this special time with us.

Quirky And A Little Different.

Instead of favours and a traditional table plan, we brought in a miniature apple tree that we were given by friends for the birth of our son Bayon. I bought some chalkboard apple tags on ebay. These were used as name/escort cards, hung with jute twine off the branches. Guests had to find their apple (which they kept as a favour) and find their table. We let them chose their own seat at their table, which was a lot less hassle than trying to figure out, who should sit next to whom.

Best of Taste catering served fantastic canapés during our drinks reception. Our wedding breakfast was a three course meal including pork with cider sauce (to go with the theme). For the evening snack they served fish and chips in cones – a massive hit with all our guests!

Traditional Fun.

Being German meant my family and friends planned a few little traditional surprises for us. Wedding traditions are big in Germany. During our reception drinks and canapés my mum presented us with our ‘wedding candle’ and read out a beautiful poem for the candle ceremony. Very touching, very moving, many guests mentioned how lovely it was. Next we had to cut a big heart out of a sheet – with the worst possible nail scissors! My favourite of all and probably the most well known German wedding tradition is the ‘sawing of the log’. As a sign of ‘working together’ and ‘getting through difficult times’ we had to saw through a (thankfully rather skinny) log with a double handed saw. Great fun and the Brits could probably not believe what was happening!

Helium balloons with little address labels attached were released after dinner. We had two replies, one from a couple just 20miles down the road in Tewkesbury and the other one from a Belgian couple who found one of our balloons on a beach in France!

All Good Things Come In Threes…

Although we invested in a rather nice leather guestbook, we also wanted something a little different. We arranged some curly willow branches in a hurricane vase as a Wish Tree. Guests wrote wishes on to little cards and hung them from the branches. I also found this gorgeous idea of a guestbook thumbprint tree on the internet. Shane luckily is arty enough to draw a nice tree. We bought some ink pads from ebay for guests to ‘leaf’ their thumbprints and sign their name. This idea went down a storm and everybody commented on it. The finished art work is now on our wall for us to enjoy.

The Cutting Of The Cheese…

We both aren’t the biggest fans of traditional wedding cakes especially the icing. Cup cakes and muffins, individual fruit tarts and a cake buffet had all been discussed in detail, but didn’t really tickle our fancy. We finally decided on a ‘cheese cake’, basically three tiers of whole cheese wheels. Mouse Trap in Hereford helped me chose the right cheeses – it had to stack nicely. In the end the three tiers were: Little Hereford (bottom), Vignotte (middle) and a Welsh goat cheese as top tier.

This little cake top means a lot to us – it is our story! It’s now standing on our mantelpiece.

Greatest Day.

Herefordshire’s top DJ Roddy Hankins did the evening entertainment for us. We briefed him on what style of music we liked, gave him our first and last dance and some of our favourites.

After not wanting to have a first dance at all, we actually spent quite a lot of time on the dance floor together and I really enjoyed dancing with my hubby. Our last dance didn’t go to plan though, as we forgot to give Roddy the CD for it. In the end, knowing that I am a Take That/Robbie Williams fan, he played ‘Angels’ instead. Nobody minds a bit of Robbie, eh!

Untraditional Fun.

Well what can I say?! We nearly didn’t go for a photographer, just to keep our costs down… but I am so glad, we didn’t! Shane came across Gemma Williams Photography on the internet and we both fell in love with her style and attitude towards weddings straight away. We met up with her to discuss a few things and signed her up. A few weeks before the wedding we sat down for a final chat with Gemma and went through some details and ideas of what we were planning, hoping and looking for.

We believed Gemma would get us the images we wanted, the style and untraditional fun shots, which would document our special day beautifully. Due to the weather we only had a very short portrait session during the meal, when the sun came back out for a moment we went for it, Gemma ran from A to B and was so excited about finally doing all our fun and personal shots. We had a right laugh with the donkey, our wooden signs and of course our moustaches – we couldn’t stop laughing, we had such a ball.

Gemma was probably one of our best, if not the best, investments for our day… the images are exactly what we were looking for. Every single shot was cleverly taken. We love every single one of them… and I have to admit, I still look at them every single day – they just make me happy! Thank you Gemma for being such a fantastic and professional photographer and wonderful person!

Stick To What You Love.

Make it your day, make it personal. Don’t do what others tell you to do and don’t do things to make others happy. Stick to what you love, fancy and believe in. Don’t think about what others may say! Add personal and loving touches here and there, something different and something funny, to reflect the true you. Guests will highly appreciated your thoughtfulness, attention to detail and ideas – and they will love thinking back to the special day they were able to share with you.

Without the help from families and friends, we couldn’t have pulled this off. Our biggest thanks to our friends and family who helped made this day happen and made it so special. xxx

Venue Hellens Manor

Dress Art Couture

Boutique Grace Couture

Shoes BHS

Jewellery Pia

Fascinator Hat Trick

Blooms Dawn Horsted Flowers

Catering Best of Taste

Cheese cake Mouse Trap

Cake Topper Sunfish Handmade Caketops

Photogrpaher Gemma Williams Photography

That cake topper really is something else, and what about those laneterns?

A great bit of rigging there by Shane and his crew.

We talk about colour pop a lot here at Rock My Wedding, and today you have an absolutely classic example of colour pop perfection. The Rasberry and Apple zing off each other and give the whole event a fresh fruity vibe.

Thanks to Sonja and Shane for sharing this one with us.

Adam.

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