Welcome back and prepare to be absolutely blown away by this afternoons visual feast. Autumn brides take note and be inspired, flower fanatics enjoy with tea and cake. Scottish brides make note of all the suppliers involved (they are the best!) and cake-lovers, decor fanatics, colour scheme enthusiasts everywhere just enjoy the stunning wedding Gemma created, all captured perfectly by Blue Sky Photography,
Abundant Decor
On the walls we hung malus apple wreaths with velvet ribbon – I just adored all the textures!!
Again in the room we had our drinks reception we wanted it to be relaxed and autumnal!! The room had no furniture so we brought in a huge wooden side board unit and filled it with apothecary jars filled with autumn goodies like leaves, physalis, cinnamon sticks and malus apples.
We added lots of candles and vases full of malus apple branches, with the addition of a few personal touches like photos of our parents on their wedding day, some Old Letterpress Printer Blocks and framed poems written by grandmother it was such a great focus in the room.
I made huge wreaths of autumn leaves, physalis and birch that we hung around the room too – I am in no way a romantic but I read somewhere in one of many wedding magazines(!) that the wreath is a symbol of eternity and it just stuck with me so I decided to make as many as I could!!
As I am a wedding florist it was really important to me to do something different that I hadn’t seen before for the reception tables – the best way was to seat our guests on a long table – creating “tablescapes” for long tables is probably one of the most enjoyable things for me.
Having all that space just for me to play with is a joy! As we had chosen gorgeous dark grey linen from 88 events and had designed material ruffles for the back of the chairs I knew what ever we did it would have to be dramatic! We switched the autumnal vibe a little and although we still used lots of leaves and trees we turned it around and painted the branches grey.
We took the colour from the plum coloured plates and bowls we hired from 88 events and filled the table with plum carnation balls, vases full of callicarpa and black mamba orchids. Every other detail we made grey – all the candles and moss/ leaf details all grey.
I wanted it to be so full and abundant, so there was never a bare space – every time you could look at something different.
Detailed Photography
I know so many absolutely amazing photographers so this was the hardest thing to choose! When I thought about what we wanted from a photographer we knew we wanted lots of relaxed shots nothing posed or formal.
As I am a details girl and I knew I would be doing a lot of DIYing it was important that our photographer understood that I wanted a picture of all my little details that I worked hard on.
Lastly it had to be someone fun and someone that made us relaxed and that we were completely as ease with – before Chris even met Blue Sky I knew he would love them and how chilled out they were! Niels and Alie could not have done a better job for us; they really truly were part of the whole days experience.
It was like we had two more guests at our wedding that wanted to experience the day as much as our family did! We had such great fun wandering around the Hopetoun Estate – seeing parts we had never seen before.
They didn’t miss a single detail or moment that I wanted to remember.
Both of our families are cheese lovers so it had to be a cheese stack that our caterer Heritage Portfolio organised rather than a cake! I made a flower base for it to be stacked on and finished it with two personalized mice from The House of Mouse via Etsy. I love Amy Atlas! I have been following her work for years so when the opportunity came up to do a dessert table I grabbed it with both hands! I decided I didn’t want to go for the normal sweetie table and instead wanted to make it more of a dessert table. Using the ruffle idea that we had on the back of our chairs we created a huge back board for the table which we clothed in the grey again. I wanted to build it up with lots of heights and wanted to keep everything really neutral in colour letting the stationary bring the colour in. I knew for sure I HAD to have a macaroon tower but other than that I wasn’t too sure. The macaroon tower sat on a grey plinth my dad made to give it height rather than using a cake stand. All the other cup cakes, cake pops and meringues were made by the super talented Nicki at Cup Couture. She is absolutely full to the brim with dessert ideas! Everything tasted A M A Z I N G!! I didn’t want to ruin all the hard work that Cup Couture put in by putting everything on plates that didn’t fit in with the scheme so I went to TK Maxx and bought a load of random large really ornate photo frames which I lined with biscuit coloured paper and spray painted grey. The result was excellent and they really looked the part – we placed these on different heights of flower pillars and along side the ceramic that we also painted full of cake pops it was finished We decided to have an acoustic guitar and solo singer through our ceremony and drinks reception – giving that informal rustic vibe. At the evening reception we had a live band to get everyone up and dancing! We also hired an air hockey table from Night Train Productions for the night reception. It was a huge hit and there was pretty much a queue all night to have a shot Neither if us are big dancers so we decided to have a party song instead that everyone could get up to! My mum loves Barry White so we had “my first my last my ev erything” as our first dance. We put far more thought into our ceremony songs than our evening music – we just felt it was better letting the band doing what they do best! We didn’t really have any favours, I suppose I felt the dessert table would do that job. Although I embroidered everyones names onto their napkins rather than having place cards and all the guests seemed to take them home if that counts! The venue lined the courtyard with fire buckets – with us getting married the day before Halloween they gave the fireworks night feel. At the end of the night we had a sparklers farewell which looked brilliant and was one of my favourite moments of the day. We had baskets of blankets ready for guests to wrap up and keep warm with. Our mini groomsmen held our rings in a personalised ring bowl from Paloma’s Nest – it was so cute, plus side is I have a ring bowl that can sit on my dresser now as a reminder of our day. Instead of a guestbook we had a finger print tree where guests could “leaf their print” it went so well with our style and looked great hanging on the wall once everyone had left their thumb print. We really wanted to have no stationary on our table so our great stationary lady Susan from Knotty Stationary designed a menu come escort card all in one – I loved them so much! We used an old mirror frame and hung them in the wall so guests could find their table and see the menu all in one The food was seriously delicious our guests were blown away by the meal that Heritage Portfolio provided. For me my day was made special by all the amazing people involved. We were extremely lucky as we knew so many brilliant suppliers in the industry. I suppose my advice would be once you have chosen your suppliers put your trust in them let them do what they do best as you will get so much more out of them that way. We made our wedding as personal and informal as we could keeping things relaxed and I think that’s what made it for me seeing everyone laughing and smiling and being altogether. Flowers and Decor – Planet Flowers Photography – BlueSky Photography Cake Topper – The House of Mouse via Etsy. Dessert Table – Nicki at Cup Couture Air Hockey Table – Night Train Productions Venue – Hopetoun House Catering – Heritage Portfolio Paper – Knotty Stationery Ring Bowl – Paloma’s Nest Wow. Just wow. I’m not sure I have any words. You know what though, for all of you sitting there thinking that you just don’t have the budget or the contacts for this, then start thinking laterally. If there are elements of this wedding you absolutely love and can’t do without, then budget for them, great floristry, photography, stationery and catering can’t all be DIY’d this well. However, if you can be sensible about what you want, prioritise your must haves, then think about DIY-ing the rest… Lots of the wreaths here are made of dried seed pods and leaves so could be made well in advance and I’m just loving the symbolism attached to them. Pumpkins and squashes can be grown easily on a big patch of land and if a cake table is a must, think about asking friends and family to contribute then pulling it all together with DIY plates and chargers like Gemma did. Add small touches that make a big difference like the ring bowl, tiny mice and straw flags for drinks. Thank you so much to Gemma for choosing Rock My Wedding to showcase her insane talent and beyond beautiful wedding. We are inspired and hope all our lovely readers will be too Yours Truly, Rebecca
Susan from Knotty Stationary made signs for all the bits and pieces bringing the plum colour back on the table.Entertainment
such a brilliant ice breaker!
A Personal Touch
The Finishing Touches
Knotty also used the same handwriting design to make all our signage around the venue.
Advice from a Super Bride!
xoxo
