Rustic Romance

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Rocking The Midlands. D.I.Y Style.

February 27th, 2012

You may well have read my post last week on music for your wedding. Amongst other things I mentioned that if you have the required skillset you could always perform a bit of music yourself on your big day. And why not! At RMW we have seen everything from brides on cello’s to brides on drums. We have even seen grooms strum guitars before, but never quite like this…

Ellie and Dave got married on 2nd September 2011, at Wethele Manor, Warwickshire and they finished their super pretty wedding and reception with a performance that is likely to live on in the minds of their guests for some time to come.

The ‘funky as’ photography today is by The Barbers.

Relaxed And Welcome

The dress was by Allure Bridals, and I bought it from True Romantica Bridal in Kenilworth. Everyone at True Romantica was absolutely lovely, they made me feel relaxed and welcome from the start – just how every bride should be made to feel when dress shopping.

I am dreadful at making decisions, so I thought dress shopping was going to be a long process, and decided to get started in plenty of time, 15 months before the wedding. I took my Mum on my first trip, and True Romantica was the second shop we visited, so I wasn’t expecting to make any decisions.

I was a bit flummoxed when the fourth dress I tried on was absolutely perfect. I didn’t want to make any decisions after trying on so few dresses but this one was a sample that was being sold because the dress wasn’t being made any more. I had to decide pretty quickly because if it was sold I probably wouldn’t be able to get it anywhere else. I thought about it for two days, and then bought it.

Even though I’m sure it’s highly unadvisable to buy a dress having looked at so few options, I never had any regrets whatsoever – even with all of the beautiful dresses I saw on RMW over the next year, I never liked any of them more than my own.

Something Borrowed

I borrowed a gorgeous headpiece from my lovely friend and hockey team mate, Lynsey, which went with my dress perfectly. The necklace, earrings and bracelet were kindly bought for me by my Mum on trip to Debenhams when we were looking for gifts for the bridesmaids and my veil came fromTrue Romantica Bridal. I tried it on when I was having my first dress fitting, it was the first one I tried on, and I loved wearing it. It was fairly plain with just a few sparkles and a pencil edge.

Gold Paisley

My shoes were by Irregular Choice. I was certainly not the first bride to have worn this style, but I absolutely totally loved them. They were white and gold paisley print, with fabric flowers on the toe, and a super funky instep and sole. They were also the highest heels I have ever bought – perhaps a risky thing to do when you’ve got to walk down an aisle in front of a roomful of people – but they were surprisingly comfy and I kept them on all day – apart from during the ceilidh!

Top Quality

My hair and make-up (and the four bridesmaids’ hair and my Mum’s make-up) were done by Claire Reeve who was recommended to me by one of Dave’s colleagues. On the wedding day she entertained us with stories of wedding disasters and spent a marathon five hours getting us ready. She did a great job of creating exactly the hairstyle I was looking for, and interpreting my vague-to-non-existent idea of what make up I wanted into the perfect look.

She uses top quality make up (lots of Mac – Charlotte would be proud!) but is very reasonably priced, and I would recommend her to any Midlands brides out there.

Friendly Flowers

We are very lucky that the immensely talented florist Tracy Tomlinson is a good friend of Dave’s family, so there was no question about who we were going to for the flowers!

Tracy was brilliant, she totally understood the look we wanted and the flowers on the day were gorgeous. We had so many compliments from the guests and loads of people ended up taking home armfuls of jam jars and jugs of flowers the next day.

Suits And Dresses

We didn’t want the men to match exactly, or wear anything very formal, so the two best men wore their own suits, and we just provided ties from Debenhams to tie in with Dave’s.

My very talented Mum made the bridesmaid’s dresses. I had a very specific idea of what I wanted, and couldn’t find anything that was both the right style and fabric, so she stepped in, and did a fabulous job.

The Best Fit

Dave wore a grey three piece suit from good old M&S. We went to quite a few shops, and he tried on a lot of suits in a lot of shops, but a lot of them didn’t fit him properly, and the M&S suit turned out to be by far the best fit. It must be the only time in our lives where my outfit took a lot less searching for than his! The tie and shoes were both from Debenhams.

Fancy Expensive Cameras

Our photographers were The Barbers. They were the only photographers we really considered – Dave knew of them anyway, as he’s also a wedding photographer – and as soon as we looked at their website we knew we had to have them at our wedding. Having Chris and Dani at the wedding wasn’t like having ‘official photographers’ there, but more like having two great friends, who just happened to have big fancy expensive cameras.

They were brilliant fun, and some of my favourite moments of the day were the ones where we got to make pictures with them. They’ve now got separate businesses, but are both excellent photographers in their own right.

Cake Skills

Dave’s Mum made our cake – she made her own 30 years ago, and after a bit of persuasion she agreed to do ours! We had three tiers – traditional fruit cake, a Madeira sponge and a lemon sponge. She taught herself sugarcraft, completely from scratch, in the run up to the wedding, and she made all of the gorgeous sugar flowers on the cake.

Three Musical Treats

We had three types of entertainment. First up was a friend’s ceilidh band, Five Minutes to Midnight. Having a ceilidh was amazing fun and a great way for guests of all ages to get up and dance and mingle with each other. It also really suited us, an neither of us wanted a DJ or to have a ‘first dance’.

Rock My Wedding

After the ceilidh we had a disco which was just an iPod playing songs that we’d asked our guests to request on their RSVPs. Meanwhile, Dave, his best men and another good friend slipped off to get changed for the night’s finale, which only a very small handful of the guests knew about.

They dressed up in 80′s rock star costumes and performed a mini-gig to our unsuspecting guests, which went down a storm. I guess you could say they really did ‘Rock My Wedding’! And I think Mum has just about recovered from seeing my new husband walking around at our wedding in skin-tight zebra print leggings!

D.I.Y Touches

We designed and made all of the decorations and stationery ourselves, and really enjoyed it. I sewed a lavender-filled heart to hang on every chair, and lots of the guests took these home with them as souvenirs.

We collected about 80 teacups from charity shops, and I turned some into candles and we served tea and coffee after the wedding breakfast in the rest.

The biggest undertaking was the bunting for the marquee – about 100 metres sewn by my Mum, sister and me over the course of a few days. It took ages but it was so worth the effort. We also borrowed some matching bunting from our friends, which looked great outside.

Dave made the invites, posters, menu cards and ‘in case you were wondering’ cards, which we put on all the tables to tell our guests about all of the things that our friends and family had made for us.

I made the table plan, and at the last minute, I also decided to make paper pom poms, using a tutorial from the website of Emily Carlill whose beautiful wedding was featured on RMW.

In Safe Hands

My key piece of advice would be make sure you get good suppliers, and get them by recommendation if you can. Pretty much everything at our wedding was made/supplied/ performed by people we either knew, or people who’d been recommended to us. It meant we were able to relax because we knew we were in safe hands, and I think the good choice of suppliers is a big reason why everything went so perfectly on the day.

Venue Wethele Manor

Dress Allure Bridals

Boutique True Romantica Bridal

Suit M&S

Shoes Irregular Choice

Flowers The Tomlinson Flower Company

Hair and Make-up Claire Reeve

Photography The Barbers

Ceilidh Band Five Minutes to Midnight

Aside from the Groomtallica performance, so much about this wedding rocks. The purples, pinks and blues of the florals are echoed perfectly by the maids dresses (Well done Daves’s Mum!) and those laces – nice touch!

I love the tiny bunting on the stationery and the sewed lavender hearts provide a lovely element of country kitsch.

Well done Ellie and Dave you multi-talented pair, and what a great idea to include in your stationery a run down of who made what. It’s a great way to recognise and thank all of your family and friends who kindly helped out.

Adam.

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Love On A Cliff Top.

February 10th, 2012

We have got a rustic riot of a wedding for you today… We have some really delicious D.I.Y stationery, D.I.Y maids and colour-pop groomsmen. And to top it off we have a huge old London bus, some fantastic fashion and rustic mis-match blooms.

Talking of fashion, if you decide that you love Laura’s simple and elegant Stephanie Allin dress a little bit too much then never fear – it could actually be yours as it is currently for sale on Undress.

Something to think about while all that gorgeous imagery soaks in, which has been provided today by Source Images. They are a creative force to be reckoned with.

10 Years To The Day.

Gavin and I got married in August, on our 10th year ‘anniversary’. The wedding was held in a sweet little cliff top church (with two resident sheep who roam the graveyard). Our vicar did a wonderful job and it was a really lovely, personal service. After the ceremony our guests drank some champagne and ate some strawberries, while Gavin and I nipped down to the beach for some photographs. We then all headed off to our venue, Hales Hall in London – a la Will and Kate in Mum’s little car.

13 Dress Shops.

My dress was Marnie, by Stephanie Allin and took me ages to find. Mum and I went to London (thrice!) Birmingham, Liverpool, Norwich and I ended up getting it at in the thirteenth shop I went to – Ellie Sanderson in Oxford. Initially I was ready to buy a different Allin gown, Lilly, which was a lace version of the one I ended up with, but the girls in the shop made me put Marnie on just to be sure. I came out smiling and when I saw Mum she burst into tears. It was the first dress she’d cried for so I bought it there and then!

Overkill?

Although I struggled to find my dress I knew I wanted a veil. Every time I put one on I did the aaaah face and I really loved the romance of them. I was definitely a veil girl. So I can’t believe I forgot to wear it! My brothers, who gave me away, pointed it out just before we walked into the church. My first words to Gavin, into the microphone clipped on his collar were “I don’t have my veil!” He laughed, I relaxed and our wedding began.

I wore the Jenny Packham Acacia II band instead of a tiara and a gorgeous necklace from Stephanie Browne. I decided my relatively plain dress gave me some leeway to have a bit of extra sparkle. Although I know both were a bit of an overkill I absolutely adored them and couldn’t choose between them. So had both.

An Excuse To Shop.

I saw the wedding as the chance to buy my first pair of really amazing shoes, but I soon learnt that my fat feet do not squeeze into anything Net a Porter were able to offer me. I ended up with a blueish pair from LK Bennett, which I ruined seconds before I walked up the aisle by getting the heel stuck in the church drain!

Girl Talk.

Melissa Abel was my make up artist and she was absolutely wonderful. She was so sweet with my emotional Mum and joined in with the girl talk all morning long while my bridesmaids grilled her for make up tips. She even helped me assemble the origami-folding-card-type-thing Gavin made for me for the morning of the wedding and then quickly put it aside before any tears could ruin my make up! I felt a much prettier version of my normal self, but still like me which was exactly what I wanted and the make up didn’t budge a bit all day!

James Webber, my hairdresser was equally amazing. Not only did he supply much entertainment in the morning (keeping us all in fits of giggles) he managed to transform my 5 bridesmaids, my Mum and me in the space of a couple of hours with time for making cups of tea too! I absolutely loved his creation for my wedding day hair.

No Rhyme Or Reason.

I was adamant from the beginning that I wanted to do our flowers. We spent many months collecting jam jars (the amount of Nutella shaped jars became a running joke throughout the day – what wedding day diet?!) to which we tied different bits of pretty white lace around. Claire, our lovely florist, sourced the flowers for me and gave me tips on how to ‘assemble’ them.

As with everything else with the wedding, there was no rhyme or reason, colour or theme to guide our choice of flowers. It was just a case of saying what we liked and hoping it would all come together.

D.I.Y Dresses.

I designed the bridesmaid dresses for my wonderful Mum to make. She did all of them, including my niece’s stunning mass of tulle. Very proud of Mum and her many skills! For the page boys we opted for very casual blue linen shirts and grey linen chinos which we managed to pick up in H&M. Bargain!

Gavin took complete control over the groomsmen’s outfits. Neither of us are big fans of Morning Suits or overly formal wedding attire so Gavin bought his groomsmen grey trousers with matching waistcoats and got each of them a different brightly coloured tie with a matching pair of socks to wear. I wasn’t sure it would work, but knew I didn’t really care if it didn’t and since Gavin wanted it so much it was nice not to have a part in that bit of the planning.

Saville Row.

Gavin went to Mark Marengo on Saville Row for his three piece suit. They really impressed us with their wonderful service and Gavin enjoyed the whole experience; he had more fittings than I did! It was when we were alone together in the car on our way to the venue that I first properly looked at him and took in the fact he was my husband. He looked so happy, so proud and so incredibly handsome.

Sourcing Talent.

We chose Source Images as our photographers because we really loved their style. Having had an engagement shoot with them already, we knew we would love the pictures and we do! We are really looking forward to visiting their studio and selecting pictures for the album, but have no idea how we will choose which ones to include amongst all our favourite images.

Amazing Highlights.

Our videographer, Rupert Ward Lewis, was lovely. I’d only spoken to him on the phone until the day of the wedding, but felt completely at ease with him from the word go. We are so happy with the footage he captured of the day and are amazed at his skill in editing sections of the day into the film highlight that he makes.

14 Cakes.

As part of the afternoon tea we served, my auntie made 14 cakes the day before the wedding. Lemon drizzle, Victoria sponge, chocolate floral cakes, the list went on and they were absolutely delicious. I will never know how she found the time to do it!

We didn’t really need a wedding cake as well, especially as Gavin insisted we had a cake of cheese, but I still wanted one for the tradition. So we had a simple three tier cake of chocolate, sponge and fruitcake from M&S. It took me about 4 hours to make the wedding topper, using the same Laura Ashley wallpaper we used for all of the stationery.

School Prom Memories.

We booked the Lee Vasey Band for our evening entertainment and they were incredible. So so talented and they kept the dancefloor packed all night.

We really agonised over our first dance. Having been together for so long, we had so many songs we could have chosen and we were both conscious that ‘our’ song was a complete cheese fest. It appears near the top of every wedding song list and I can’t watch the video to it without squirming. But it was our song and it had been for 10 years, ever since we danced together to it at our school prom when we were 16. With hindsight I’m sure Gavin would like to go back to his 16 year old self and choose a slightly cooler song to request the DJ to play, but trying to re-write our history to make us seem that bit edgier to the people who love us the most would have been completely ridiculous.

So we proudly danced to Lonestar’s Amazed and it was one of my favourite bits of the day. Listening to Gavin whispering the words in my ear and looking up and seeing all of our friends smiling at us really got to me and I spent half the dance trying to hide in Gavin’s armpit so people didn’t realise I was crying! The cheese element was completely removed as it was played live by the band and they did an incredible job.

Anything But You.

The favours were another one of Gavin’s wedding ideas. One of my first birthday presents from him was a homemade mixtape of songs and he wanted to recreate that idea for the favours. So we had 15 songs on a CD, titled “Love is a Mix Tape” which spanned the significant songs of our relationship.

He cheekily added a ‘hidden track’ to the CD, a silly song we’d recorded on his iPhone (our own lyrics to the ‘Anything But You’ song by Juno). I can’t believe he put it on there, but it went down well with our guests, to my embarrassment!

Vintage Crockery And Laura Ashley.

Hales Hall is so beautiful it needs very little in terms of decoration. The mass of different colours from all of the vintage crockery I’d collected and the pretty flowers on the tables were more than enough to make it look beautiful. The stationery took more time than anything else as I did it all myself. I found it so hard to find invitations I liked and couldn’t find anyone to make them for me because I couldn’t really articulate what I wanted. It involved about 20 rolls of wallpaper from Laura Ashley, lots of scalpel cuts and a lot of love, but I think it was all worth it in the end.

Make Some Time.

In terms of advice I would say try to factor in to your day some time where you and your husband are able to spend some time alone – to take it all in and to say the things you want to say to each other without anyone else being around.

Oh and don’t forget your veil, don’t break your shoes, try on your garter before the day (mine fell down mid ceremony, leaving it for Gavin to wave around to everyone!) and remember your carefully packed, specially bought, overnight bag so your Mum doesn’t have to drive back to the venue in the middle of night after realising you’ve forgotten it. How incompetent do I sound?

In all seriousness, remember that NONE of the little tiny details you spend so long agonising over actually matter. Our wedding was the day I MARRIED my best friend, the man I adored, the best bit of me, in front of all the people I loved and THAT was all that could ever be important.

Venue Hales Hall

Dress Stephanie Allin

Boutique Ellie Sanderson

Make-up Melissa Abel

Hair James Webber

Tailor Mark Marengo

Photography Source Images

Band Lee Vasey Band

So, what do you think? I love the shots of Laura in the cardi – very casual chic (is that a thing?) And Gavin scrubs up pretty well too in his grey Mark Marengo number.

Lots a pieces of inspiration folks, some of which you could even own – remember the Stephanie Allin dress from today’s wedding could be yours, take a peek over on Undress for more details.

Adam.

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The Other Side Of The World.

January 23rd, 2012

In the midst of planning their Australian W-day it became apparent that groom Martin’s family who are from England, would be unable to travel the-half-way-around-the-world distance to make the celebration. Determined to continue with their dream destination in the country where bride Mel originated the couple decided to hold their special day there and follow a month later with a blessing and reception in the UK… the best of both worlds if you will.

Mel was adamant that just because it was essentially the “second time” they would be saying I do it should be no less significant and planned a quintessentially “London” inspired affair with a relaxed and autumnal back-drop. I have no idea how you could plan a wedding in Australia whilst in London, and I certainly haven’t a clue how you would then plan a second wedding just a month later, these two deserve an actual round of applause because let me tell you, this big day is as pretty as they come.

When I saw Mel’s Cymbeline gown I got goosebumps, when I first laid eyes on her bouquet I wanted to run off with it, and when I peeked at her unstructured plaited up-do I wanted to wear my hair like that for the rest.of.my.life.

And that was before I saw all of the rustic potted plants and portraits taken in the perfect golden late afternoon October light. Oh and this will be the first time where we’ve had a wedding submitted and the bride has taken her future husband with her to find “the dress” – it sounded a lot of fun actually….

With thanks to photographer Dominique Bader whom Mel and Martin discovered on Rock My Wedding.

Powder And Paint

My Mum and I had our hair and makeup done at the Powder Room on Columbia Road. The ladies there all wear these fabulous pink and black vintage style outfits, and are so lovely and accommodating. Of course, I hadn’t remembered that Columbia Road becomes a bustling flower market on Sunday mornings, so we ended up becoming part of the tourist attraction that morning!

My makeup was very simple, with a bit of 60’s style eyeliner and a little pink lipstick. Most importantly, I wanted to look like ‘me’ and to steer clear of anything that I thought would be too ‘bridal’, as it just wasn’t my style! I had already had one terrible experience with a traditional bridal trial, and wasn’t going anywhere near it again!

My hair was braided and then pinned across the back of my head; a style that Beth, at the Soho Powder Room, had suggested at my trial and one that I had really loved. I had originally planned to wear a floral headpiece at the blessing, similar to the one I wore at our Aussie ceremony, but it didn’t work out on the day. Instead, my Dad and Mother in Law helped me put a single cream rose, some eucalyptus leaf and a rosehip spray in my braid just before we left for the church, which tied in to the bouquets and buttonholes perfectly. Who knew my Dad had last minute bridal hairdressing skills?!

Vintage Elegance

My dress was from Blackburn Bridal Couture in Blackheath, and was by the French designer Cymbeline. Everyone at Blackburn Bridal is incredibly helpful and the store itself is so relaxing to be in. If you are a London bride, I would really recommend you take a look!

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t actually enjoy the process of shopping for a wedding dress much at all! Everything I found just wasn’t “me”, or just wasn’t in our budget. I wanted something that was vintage in style, was elegant but wasn’t too stuffy, and would work just as well in an Australian garden wedding as it would inside a London church. So many bridal stores I visited just didn’t get what I was talking about at all- huge ball-gown dresses in an Australian garden? I don’t think so!

I actually gave up shopping for dresses, until I suddenly realised I was close to that ‘6 month minimum’ ordering period. I knew I had to get my act together and find something, so, panicking slightly, I went back to Blackburn Bridal, as I had loved their dress selections when I had visited many months before. Mandi, the store manager, picked out a few dresses for me, and one of them was the Exalto dress. It didn’t look like anything much on the rack, but I trusted her judgement and tried it on. It was so comfortable to wear, was made of the most beautiful lace, and most of all, I could actually see myself wearing it on my wedding day in both countries!

Of course, one downside of planning an overseas wedding meant that all my close friends and family were out in Oz while I was dress shopping in London. Buying my wedding dress without a trusted second opinion was more than a little nerve-wracking, so Martin came with me to see a few dresses. I would really recommend taking your partner with you, it was actually a lot of fun! He completely loved the Exalto dress as soon as I put it on, so that settled it for me, really! It ended up being as great for a Spring outdoor wedding in Australia as it did in the middle of London in Autumn, and I must say it felt just as nice to wear it the second time around!

Stepping Out In Style

For jewellery I wore a beautiful diamond necklace that my parents had given me before our Australian wedding as a wedding gift. I knew early on that I wasn’t a veil-wearing bride, although I did try on a few beautiful ones at Blackburn Bridal, and was very nearly swayed in my last minute wedding panic, but decided against it. From the state of my dress after the first wedding, I don’t think the veil would have survived until the blessing, anyway!

My shoes were “Carmen” by Rachel Simpson, from Fur Coat No Knickers in central London. They are off white with a T-bar strap and a vaguely Art Deco design across the toes. I rarely wear heels and knew I needed shoes that would be as easy to wear at an outdoor wedding as they would be in the city- not an easy task, as it turned out! I chose these as they not only looked lovely, they were comfortable too, and had the added bonus of an invisible platform on the sole, so I was able to cheat the heel height and still be able to walk! They were almost ruined by the mud from the Australian wedding, but the dry cleaner was able to clean them up for the Blessing for me- I don’t think you can notice at all!

Pretty Darn Dashing

Martin wore a lovely light blue bespoke suit from King & Allen. We had such a hard time choosing something that would suit both a Spring garden wedding in Australia and an Autumn city wedding in the UK; so much so that we still didn’t have a suit almost a month before we left for Australia. Like my dress, we knew we wanted something non-traditional, but were getting nowhere fast on that front.

At the last minute, we discovered King & Allen, who are a bespoke tailoring company based in the U.K. We made an appointment for a fitting and consultation, chose the fabric type and colour from a swatch, and the tailor measured Martin up for the suit. An hour later we had paid and nervously crossed our fingers while we waited for his suit to arrive, well aware that we were leaving for Australia just after that and would have no other option if it didn’t work out. When he tried it on four weeks later, it fitted perfectly and was so well made- it hung beautifully and he assures me that it was incredibly comfortable to wear too. I must admit that when we first saw it, it was much more blue than we had expected it to be, but this is always bound to happen when you can only go by small fabric swatches! The suit is so unlike anything else we had seen before, and he has had many compliments on it- we are both so glad that we took a leap of faith and chose it.

He also wore a white shirt with light pink stripes (which matches the lining of his suit) that we bought from TM Lewin, a blue patterned tie that he borrowed from my Dad, and some silver cufflinks that were my great grandfather’s. As a special touch, the jacket has our wedding date sewn into the lining.

All in all, I think he looked pretty darn dashing, if I do say so myself!

More Bloom For Your Buck

We decided we wanted to spend as little as possible on floral decorations, as hosting two weddings in quick succession really stretches your budget. The Union Chapel is so huge that we really struggled with how to decorate it at first- you could literally spend thousands of pounds on flowers for them to fade into the background. They also had the large stage still set up for their concerts, so we needed to work around that as cheaply as possible. In the end we decided to just let the venue speak for itself, and to add things where we could afford to.

We found 2 matching wooden lanterns from North One Garden Centre in Islington and set them up on the two front corners of the stage. We then surrounded them with rosemary bushes, flowering heather and white cyclamens that we bought from Homebase before the wedding. It definitely didn’t disguise the black stage, but it tied in nicely to the decorations at the reception, had an autumnal feel to it and felt like a link to our garden wedding in Australia. As a bonus, we now have 2 lovely lanterns that we can use in our flat, and we have kept all the plants on our balcony as a little reminder of the day.

For the reception we scattered little pots of heather, herbs, violas and forget-me-nots around the bar (also from Homebase). To save time and money we didn’t bother to replant many of these- instead we stuck burlap ribbon around the plant pots and tied it with twine, which linked in to our invitations and Order of Service booklets that we had hand made and tied with twine. We also used recycled glass jars for tea light candle lanterns and scattered them amongst the flowerpots in the bar. The bar normally has some flowers in vases around the venue anyway, so we also used these in our decorating scheme.

Our bouquet, buttonholes and corsages were all from Angel Flowers in Islington and featured a mix of cream roses, black viburnum berries, rosehips, oak leaves, and some eucalyptus leaf as a nod to the Australian wedding. We wanted all the flowers and plants to have an ‘autumnal’ feel to them, particularly as it was an easy way of tying both weddings in the opposite seasons together.

The Most Important Supplier

Our wedding photography was incredibly important to us- in fact I would say it was the most important decision we made in the planning process! We honestly cannot recommend Dominique Bader highly enough, and we feel so lucky that she was able to photograph our day for us!

Having seen a lovely engagement shoot of hers that was featured on Rock My Wedding (Emily & Pete’s), we contacted her to explain our plans for our wedding blessing. Luckily for us, she was still available on the date we had chosen! She was very personable and professional in her emails, and her photos were just so beautiful, that we knew she would capture the day perfectly.

We decided to include an engagement shoot in our photography package as well, which was so much fun, and something we would definitely recommend to other couples. We were able to spend time with Dominique and her lovely husband, Samuel, before the big day, which really helped us relax in the hectic lead up to the wedding. We got on really well with them both, and had such a lovely time on the shoot, that we could have easily planned another one straight after it (if we could have thought of a legitimate reason, of course)!

On the wedding day itself Dominique (and Samuel!) worked tirelessly in the un-seasonably hot weather, and were completely focussed on ensuring we had a great day and beautiful photos to remember it by. We had many of our guests comment on what a lovely couple they were, and they put everyone at ease while they were taking the photos.

Before we started the search for our photographer, a friend said that we should try to keep in mind that it will be these pictures that we will keep coming back to over the years, because they will document the very beginning of our brand new family. Dominique is able to take pictures that are not only beautiful, timeless and elegant; most importantly she is able to get to the true ‘heart’ of important moments like these. It makes us so happy to know that we will have these photographs to reminisce over in the years to come- we honestly could not have hoped for anything better!

Canon in D

We actually left the music at the reception entirely up to the bar staff, and it was great background music for the day.

The Union Chapel staff very kindly let us use their fancy sound equipment for the service, so we set up a couple of playlists and asked a good friend to be in charge. We used the same music as at the Australian wedding; I walked down the aisle with my Dad to ‘Canon in D’, and we walked back up after the ceremony to ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’. Canon in D is actually one of Martin’s favourite pieces of music; it is so beautiful, and gets me teary every time I hear it!

Canon in D actually featured many times during both our wedding days- without us knowing, Martin’s brother had made a slideshow from their old family photos to play at the Australian wedding that was also set to Canon in D.

During the ceremony, Martin’s Mum sang a hymn that she had chosen especially for the day, which was incredibly touching. Martin’s brother did a reading, and my Dad read a poem; ‘The Master Speed’ by Robert Frost, for us as part of the ceremony. When I read that Frost had written the poem before his own daughter’s wedding, it seemed only fitting that my Dad should read it at our wedding…

It’s All Worth It

As it was a blessing ceremony, and not a wedding, there weren’t any legalities that we needed to cover, so we could really do as we wanted with the content of the ceremony. At the same time, we wanted it to be as important and meaningful as the first one; particularly as this was the first time Martin’s family would be able to be there to share it with us. At first we really struggled with how to make both ceremonies as ‘valid’ as the other, and worried that repeating the same vows at the wedding blessing would seem forced, or worse, only a pale imitation of the ceremony we had in Australia. We came to realise that it didn’t matter whether we were signing anything at the end, it was important that our families and friends were there to witness us take this new step in our lives together, and for us, repeating our marriage vows and exchanging our wedding rings again made the most sense. We ended up having a ceremony that was very similar to our first wedding, but was definitely not a pale imitation of the sentiments we felt and shared that day!

Looking back, we can definitely say that our second wedding ceremony was no less emotional or valid than the first, and that having two wedding days actually added to our memories and experiences of both of these days in ways we could not have imagined before hand. If you and your partner are also considering planning more than one wedding ceremony, I will not lie to you- it can be tough and emotionally exhausting, and there will probably be more than a few occasions when you both just want to start screaming and call the entire thing off, but it is very much worth it in the end, I promise! I wouldn’t trade the memories I have from both my wedding ‘days’ for anything!

I would also say that we were both so much more relaxed at the blessing, despite the fact that a few things went wrong- just as they did at our first wedding! I now wish I could travel back in time and tell my overly anxious, not-yet-married-self to stop worrying so much, but I will just have to tell your nearly-married-selves instead! Things are bound to go wrong, or get forgotten about on the day, but no one will notice or care, if I’m honest! And more importantly, when things don’t always go to plan, people will eagerly jump in to lend a hand in whatever way they can. In the middle of all that crazy planning, it is easy to forget that no one is there to judge your flower arrangements, or turn their nose up at the cake you serve (or forget to serve!) They are there because they care for you both and want to share this special moment with you, and will do whatever it takes to make it a truly special day for you both. So try to relax and enjoy it all, whatever kind of day(s) you end up having!

Blessing Venue – Union Chapel

Reception Venue – The Four Sisters

Make-up – The Powder Puff Girls

Brides Gown – Cymbeline at Blackburn Bridal Couture

Brides Bouquet – Angel Flowers

Brides Shoes – Carmen by Rachel Simpson

Grooms Suit – King & Allen

Photography – Dominique Bader

Is anyone else opting for fruit-filled blooms?

And how about a Cymbeline gown?

If you answer yes to either of the above I want you to tell me ALL of the details in the comments box below. And I can’t pretend I won’t be green with envy.

Big Two Weddings Would Be Lovely Right? Love

Charlotte xxx

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The Garden Of D.I.Y Delight.

January 18th, 2012

I really like back garden weddings – not only are they a good budget friendly option, but they are also a blank canvas. There are endless possibilities and if, like Tom and Esme, you like to get stuck in with a bit of D.I.Y then world is your oyster. Well, ok – your friends back garden is you oyster, but you get the idea!

Tom and Esme married in August 2011 in Brigstock, Northamptonshire and decided to employee the services of Martmari Photography to document the occasion. Good choice guys, looks like they did you proud.

Stress Free.

I know how lucky I am when I say that choosing my w-day dress was a pretty stress free experience. I enjoyed a lovely day with my Mum and sisters trying on stunning dresses in two bridal boutiques and I couldn’t fault the service in Quello, Kenilworth. Then I had a not-so-nice afternoon trying on dresses at various high street places. I lined up an appointment in a shop just outside Birmingham (which has now closed down) that was having a sample sale. I did the usual sift through the dresses on offer, picking out a couple to try on when I saw my dress: Mori Lee, style number 2510. I knew that it was the dress that I would be getting married in the second I noticed it. Please don’t hate me fellow brides!

My amazing Mum haggled down the price and after a celebratory large glass of wine in a cafe next door, I was on my way home with my dress! I loved the shape and how it accentuated all of my best bits and the fact that it was simple but with a bit of sparkle, but the main reason I fell for it was because I knew my now husband would love it. And he did.

My Usual Style.

My something borrowed were earrings from my Mum, who also gave me a grey beaded bracelet that she had made. My very talented sister made me and my bridesmaids butterflies for our hair, which was the perfect surprise because despite collecting various clips and slides, I couldn’t find the ideal hair accessory anywhere. I decided early on that I wouldn’t wear a veil because it didn’t fit into the ‘look’ I had in mind and I’m glad I stuck with my decision. I was really pleased that everything went together, and how I would wear/use everything again because they’re very much in fitting with my usual style.

Grey-Loving Bride.

I found my shoes in the Phase Eight sale just after buying my dress and they were the perfect choice for this grey-loving bride. I had always known that I would wear coloured shoes (in fact, it was seeing brides wearing non-ivory shoes that got me addicted to RMW), despite hearing many protestations from friends and family members.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

Hair and make-up – What to do… Who to have doing it… What to have – were really difficult decisions for me. After finding pictures of the hair style I wanted, I knew that it would be best done by a professional, however finding someone to do it was a very different question! We were on a strict budget and although my dress was a bargain, I didn’t want to spend loads on ‘just one day’.

I went through every option: teaching a friend to do my hair how I wanted it, going to a local salon in the morning and finding a mobile hairdresser to come out to the hotel. We got married in my husband’s parents’ village, which is not close to where we live, so asking my regular hairdresser wasn’t possible. I felt so frustrated with the lack of options – either the hotel where we were getting ready was too far away, or salons wouldn’t take me on a Saturday (er, what?) or the people who would come out specialised in ‘traditional bridal hair’ (read hair scraped back into a huge bun of tight curls, you know what I mean…). Argh!

Finally, I remembered that a school friend’s sister had got married the year before and someone had come out to do her hair. After one phone call it was all sorted and Matt from M&Arc Hair & Beauty, Peterborough, aka my knight in shining armour, was booked. I had a quick trial that was perfect and on the day he wizzed through me, my bridesmaids, my Mum and my husband’s God Mother.

Make-up was a similarly difficult to arrange. I umm-ed and ahh-ed for weeks over whether to buy new make-up and do it myself, or to find a make-up artist. In the end my husband decided for me – he hates it when we’re getting ready for a night out and I get all flustered because my eyeliner goes wrong/the shoes just aren’t right/my hair’s just not wavy enough, so he declared that I would be getting a professional in, no matter what the cost. Bless him! He was completely right and although it was expensive, choosing Sheelagh was one of the best decisions I (he) made – I was able to pamper my bridesmaids, our make-up stayed perfect ALL day, she was a true professional and ultimately gave me a peace of mind that was priceless. I couldn’t recommend her enough.

A Dab Hand With Blooms.

I have a confession to make: flowers were low on our list of wedding priorities. Don’t get me wrong, we wanted pretty flowers and I had my favourites, but I knew that we wouldn’t be spending hundreds and that other things had priority budget-wise. Luckily for us, my Mother-in-Law, a family friend and my sister are all a dab hand with blooms and so took over the task for us. I sent them pictures of a bouquet I liked, a bridesmaid bouquet and several images of table flowers with these instructions: hydrangeas, pink roses, pinks, whites, pale green, light yellow, soft colours. Jars and bottles with individual or a couple of stems of all different heights.

We were blown away on the day – they did the most fantastic job. My bouquet was so stunning and the flowers on the table were EXACTLY how we had imagined them. They ordered the flowers from a local florist who gave them near wholesale prices, with a few extra roses bought from Asda and Sainsburys at the eleventh hour. I still can’t believe that they were able to turn my ideas into reality!

My Mum snuck out of the hotel on the morning of the wedding to decorate our ceremony area with wild flowers, sage and lavender. It was a lovely surprise for me and it was just enough to compliment the already beautiful setting. My ‘flower team’ also made a large hydrangea display for the ceremony and later for the dinner marquee. We also had a hanging basket with gypsophila at the entrance to the garden.

Highstreet Maids.

I knew that I didn’t want the bridesmaids or the groomsmen to all look exactly the same, mainly because I knew that I wouldn’t get my two sisters, best friend and 12-year old family friend in the same dress. My Maid of Honour and I went shopping a while before the wedding and fell in love with a purple one-shoulder dress from Coast and were able to find two in the exact same colour but different styles in Monsoon, with the fourth made by my Mother-in-Law. I loved how the four of them looked!

We bought ties for the groomsmen and our Dads, and asked them to wear white shirts and grey suits. Coincidently quite a few other guests turned up with lilac ties or wearing purple dresses, so it all tied in quite nicely!

Geek Chic.

Another bargain was Tom’s suit, bought from Charles Tyrwhitt just after we got engaged in the summer sale. He needs extra long sleeves and this is one of the only places that sells well-cut shirts in different lengths, so he got himself a white shirt from there too. Easy. Unlike his tie, which took around 8 months to find! In the end we found the perfect Ted Baker one on Ebay, the only one we both agreed on! His shoes were more expensive than mine from Loake.

As a present, I had some cufflinks made for him through the excellent website Sonia Spencer. Tom is a Research Chemist and a bit of a geek, so I designed (with help!) periodic table cufflinks – ES for Esme (Einsteinium) and TM for Tom (Thulium). I don’t know if anyone else got the joke, but he liked them!

An Easy Decision.

After Googling ‘Photography Northamptonshire’ we came across Martmari and wow, were we glad we did! It was a really easy decision because Martin and Marina lived near to where the wedding was going to be, we loved their style (I would describe it as detailed reportage, but with a classic edge) and they were offering a really good deal.

A pre-wedding shoot made us confident that we had chosen well and on the day they were absolutely amazing. They were so professional and interested in getting the best shots of all the details, not in-our-faces, but always close by when we wanted a photo taken. Plus, we couldn’t be more in love with the results – the photos are just beautiful. All of our family and friends have been raving about them and their work since the wedding and I really hope that they become more widely known and as successful as they deserve to be. Please book them!

Man Cake.

My wonderful husband made our wedding cake! After a few practices and some complicated sketches (what can I say? He’s a scientist!), he designed a three-tier square cake: bottom layer his signature fruit cake, second layer my favourite date and walnut and the top layer of my Mum’s chocolate cake, all covered in pale blue/green buttercream and handmade icing roses and petals. It was perfect – well done Tom!

Art School Hero.

We had a jazz band all lined up to play at various points during the day, who cancelled on us six weeks before the wedding. What a nightmare. With no more money in the budget we called on Tom’s old Art teacher, who we knew used to be in a band. Thankfully he agreed to reunite his Rhythm and Blues band and they did an amazing set that got everyone on the dance floor, so much so that our carefully put-together playlist didn’t get a look in.

Throughout the day we had music playing from an iPod and various leads and speakers that I won’t even try to describe because I had no part in setting it up.

Please Forgive Me.

We chose our first dance song after a romantic meal on New Year’s Eve. In fact, Tom suggested it as he said that he used to listen to it a lot when we first got together (we were 16) because it summed up the way he felt about me. Can I have a collective ‘awww’? It was David Gray’s Please Forgive Me. We followed it with Barry White My First, My Last, My Everything, because that song always gets me dancing!

Crafty Favours.

My Mum is a stained glass artist and she, along with her husband, very generously made us some Rennie Mackintosh inspired glass roses for our guests to take away and hang in their homes. We weren’t too bothered about favours, but these looked lovely hanging in the tree and we were happy to take any leftover home with us. We also made ceramic name plates for everyone, all of which were taken by our guests, so I guess they were the favours really.

Reduce, Re-use Recycle.

We wanted to spend as little as possible on decorations, partly because we were cheap-skates who didn’t want boxes of wedding only paraphernalia in the house afterwards and partly because we didn’t think the beautiful garden needed much decorating. So everything that you can see we already owned, borrowed from friends, made ourselves or bought after hours searching on the internet for the cheapest option.

We used fabric (aptly named ‘Esme’ and bought in the sale) from Laura Ashley kids’ department for decorations in the form of bunting, the table plan and our ‘lovers’ seat’ during the ceremony. Fairy lights were borrowed or bought cheaply from Ikea and strung liberally around the garden (battery or solar powered ones for outside) and we clipped loads of photos (all ordered through various photo-printing websites using discount codes/free print vouchers etc) of us with our friends and family in our ‘tea tent’. My Maid of Honour made a frame out of cardboard, which was a huge hit (I know that no-one reading this will think that a frame for posing opportunities is original, but none of our guests had ever seen it before, so I would definitely recommend giving it a go).

Tom made a map of the venue on Photoshop which we displayed on an easel. Signs to direct our guests were stencilled and painted on old bits of wood, and we made some letters from plywood that we decorated ourselves to spell either ‘TEA’ (for during the afternoon tea part of the day) and ‘T&E’ later. (Those are now on our kitchen wall, spelling ‘EAT’.) Random bits of ribbon were tied around trees, lights and anything else that stayed still long enough and we had candles wherever we could – simple and cheap, but effective.

The biggest DIY project we did was to collect boxes and boxes of glass jars and etch them with designs of butterflies, bows, teapots, martini glasses etc. It took a whole weekend for me and my Maid of Honour to do these, but it wasn’t difficult to do or expensive (you can buy a whole bottle of etching fluid online for around £8 and we didn’t even use half) and it was so worth it because they looked lovely.

When I look at all that written out, it looks like we did loads! I suppose we did, but because we spread everything out over the whole of our engagement – buying candles whenever we saw cheap ones, printing the photos whenever there was an offer and doing the DIY projects over several months – it didn’t feel like too much. Tom is very creative so this was a really good excuse to do something together and for me to learn to enjoy making something. Making things for our wedding gave me confidence in my creative and design skills and I’ve now got loads of ideas for ways to use some of our leftover wedding bits in our home.

Make The Most Of It.

Our wedding ceremony was incredibly personal because we had a Humanist ceremony outside with our own vows. We got legally married a couple of days before in a registry office nearer to home, but this was our REAL wedding. We knew that there were quite were concerns about what the ceremony would be like, but in the end a lot of people found it very moving and we absolutely loved it. We were also lucky enough to be offered the use of a family friends’ garden for our wedding so we could personalise it exactly how we wanted to.

My advice to future brides is this: put your money into the things that matter to you. For us, it was food and drink, which were both perfect for us on the day. Enjoy planning and make sure you really make the most of it, by which I don’t just mean spending hours talking to your girlfriends about dresses and shoes (although you should also do that!) but also involving people and making fun weekends out of DIY projects or boring wedding related tasks. For example, we held a wine tasting with our Maid of Honour, Best Man and their partners where we blind tasted about 14 wines and we invited all of our parents to try our wedding meal a few months before. People really DO want to help with your wedding, so let them in whichever way they can (financially, practically or emotionally) and you will be pleasantly surprised by the secret skills your friends and family have.

Our wedding was incredible, not because it was perfect, but because it was OUR day and I got to marry the man I love. But I never want to do it again!

Venue Backgarden!

Dress Mori Lee, style number 2510

Hair M&Arc Hair & Beauty

Make-up Sheelagh Powell

Shoes Phase Eight

Tailor Charles Tyrwhitt

Cufflinks Sonia Spencer

Photography Martmari

Well, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the groom making the cake before – another Rock My Wedding first for you today folks!

Lots of details that I really love here – from the so-geeky-they’re-cool cufflinks though to the hanging stained glass, in fact all the little D.I.Y projects… Even the first dance song really strikes a chord with me – brilliant choices all round.

Tom and Esme did so much by themselves and with the help of friends and family. We have here a wedding without the cost of reception venue hire, no florist, no cost for evening entertainment and with the help of old ‘Heston Blumenthal’ with his bunsen burner and testube – no expensive cake costs… and does it show? No. It. Does. Not. And all this saving allowed Tom and Esme to really splash out on the food and drink and give their loved ones the party of their lives!

Tom, Esme (and of course all of your talented friends and family), we salute you.

Adam.

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A Raspberry Red And Apple Green Wedding.

January 16th, 2012

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.

Living in the heart of the Apple and Cider County we went for a country apple theme. From the invitations to the favours right up to the flower arrangements, apples galore!

We decorated the barn the day before with all sorts of things I found on ebay over the last year – lots of candles, lanterns, wicker hearts, metal buckets and paper lanterns for our ceiling lighting. I had my heart set on bunting in our colour scheme and my dad offered to help us. He spent weeks sewing our gorgeous bunting – 150m of it! This lovely splash of colour welcomed the guests to the barns and was a major part of our decoration.

The colour scheme was a gorgeous raspberry red and apple green. My bridesmaids Tina and Simone (my best friends from Germany) were wearing the Allure dress from Coast in sage green. For contrast and to carry through the colour scheme I asked my florist to make raspberry red bouquets for them – which looked absolutely stunning.

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.

After 4 hours I still wasn’t any closer to finding my dress and saw myself leaving without one. About to go for a late lunch, a strapless ivory dress caught my eye. I tried it on and my friend who joined me for the day thought it was lovely. I still felt really awkward, not being used to wearing a massive dress. As I took the dress off and put it back on the hanger I could feel some tears coming up and felt rather emotional about the dress… it felt like I was putting MY dress back onto the hanger… that was the sign.

The dress was a gorgeous strapless design with rose detailing at the bust, layers in the skirt part and the best bit was – it held my tummy in nicely! It was from Grace Couture in Nottingham, from their Art Couture collection.

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.

Having spent months looking for cake tops, a friend of mine recommended Sunfish Handmade Caketops up in Scotland. And what a find! Fantastic attention to detail, superb understanding of what we wanted and fast turnaround. Helen made ‘us’ and told ‘our little story’ on a cake. The cake top shows Shane and myself, our son Bayon is waving our country flags. As additional details we had a backpack made (we went travelling around the world for a year) with a little Swiss flag on it (Shane and I met in Switzerland). The stack of books represents our jobs: antiquarian book dealers and if you look closely enough, you can even read the title ‘Beau Rivage, Room 101’ – this is the hotel I used to work at in Geneva and Shane was one of our VIP guests in room 101!

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.

Neither of us likes to dance – well I do, but need a good drink before I get on the dance floor. Shane didn’t want to do a first dance at all, but best man Justin had us make a decision two days before the big day. I would have gone for ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ doing a barn dance style routine. It would have been hilarious and gone so well with our country theme. Shane wasn’t impressed in the slightest. In the end, we decided on Take That’s Greatest Day and no dance routine. We actually asked all our lovely village friends to not leave us on the dance floor for too long by ourselves. They were fab and followed suit, joining us after about 10 seconds into the song. Thanks girls!

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.

The things that everybody commented on were our flowers, the ceremony, fish and chips, all our German traditions, our guestbook thumbprint tree and of course the moustache bar.

My favourite part was walking down the aisle and finally looking up at my hubby-to-be for the first time – gosh I was a nervous wreck – I’ve been waiting for this day for nearly 9 years! We both really enjoyed all the German games and had great fun cutting our cheese cake. I can’t really pick out, what I enjoyed most, every minute of it was special.

The year leading up to the wedding was very stressful indeed. Planning, organising and purchasing everything on my own (Shane was busy renovating the cottage, landscaping our garden and running our antiquarian book business all on his own!)… but would I do it all again! Oh Yes, I can’t wait for our first big anniversary party…

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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Rock My Rainbow.

January 10th, 2012

When I spoke to Steve Gerrard about Rhiannon and Jack’s wedding, he said – “you are going to love this, it’s got RMW written all over it and top it off – there’s a *ahem* swearword-ing rainbow in it” (yes sorry, Steve is a bit of a ‘rock star’ and as such has got quite a potty mouth on him, but you get the idea).

Confident I thought… then I had a look at the images. And it’s all there, from the Suzanne Neville dress to the Sex And The City shoes to the blooming great big red bus to the some-how-bigger-than-a-bus cake (seriously check that bad boy out!!!), it just looks like a perfect day.

Even if you discount old Mother Natures brazen display of technicolour, we are dealing with something pretty darn special here folks. To top it off, Rhiannon is a massive, massive, massive RMW fan so we’ve made her day today – just as much as she is about to make yours. In fact when she heard that her wedding was going to be featured she said:

“AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY DREAM HAS COME TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

What a lovely story – everyone’s happy then! Grab a cuppa and dive in.

I should just mention there are two stars on the blog today – Steve Gerrard (star 01) was assisted by the stupendously fab Emma Case (star 02). You guys both rock.

Rustic And Relaxed.

Our wedding was Thursday 18th August 2011 at St. Margaret’s Church Great Barr and then reception at Packington Moor Farm, Lichfield. Packington was the one and only venue we looked at, the week after we got engaged! We wanted something rustic, relaxed and somewhere that looked fantastic even without all the trimmings. It is a working farm with stunning scenery, farm shop and a beautiful honeymoon and guest cottage.

I’m In Love With Suzanne Neville.

I tried on so many dresses I lost count. I had always envisaged a vintage lace gown but every time I put one on I just didn’t feel anything. I was about to order a stunningly designed Beverley Williams 1950’s dress from Honey Cole Bridal in Staffordshire, when I noticed a new dress in the window as we pulled up. It was really simple but beautifully shaped. The shop had just received the new Suzanne Neville line and needed someone to try them on (of course I obliged, would have been rude not to!) Then I fell in love… with a designer. Suzanne’s dresses have the most amazing fit of any designer I tried (and that was a lot!)

I’m not a fussy, embellishment kind of gal, so I finally settled on ‘Nobility’, a fishtailed, button backed, beautiful neck-lined gown. The added bonus was that my Nan (who has early Alzheimer’s) decided it was her favourite and it didn’t matter to me that she couldn’t remember it afterwards; I knew she helped choose it. Plus my Mom cried (added bonus).

Melon Head.

As the dress was so simple I wanted a full length veil, but refused to spend the £300 necessary to get one! Luckily, Honey Colel were having a sale and Bev, the owner, earmarked one with beautiful vintage crystals at the bottom. Now… I have a strange hang up about my head (it is physically quite large) so I tried on some head bands etc but felt really uncomfortable. Then I stumbled across a beautiful vintage hair comb from Liberty in Love and it had just the right amount of sparkle and didn’t draw attention to my melon head. SOLD.

I wore my Nan’s earrings, beautiful pearl and diamond screw ons and a stunning Topaz bracelet my Mom had bought for the day.

The Shoes That Carrie Wore.

I actually bought my shoes a whole year before my dress! I have a very unhealthy obsession with 1. Shoes and 2. Sex and the City, so it was therefore only right that my shoes were Manolo Blahnik ‘Something Blue’ like the ones Carrie wore marrying Big.

A Half Up Do.

I really wanted to look and feel like me on the day of the wedding. I don’t wear lots of make-up usually or have elaborate hair, so my hairdresser Chris from Harris And Gibbs created a half up do that was as natural as possible. Unfortunately for my hair, my dad had booked a convertible as a surprise, so a 30 min journey in the wind somewhat dishevelled my hair. But you know what? I didn’t care a bit!

My make-up was done by the genius that is Katy Messer from Make Up By Katy. She created a flawless, natural look (with no eyeliner on the bottom as I’m a crier!) and it stayed on all day and night; no touch ups required. Anyone reading this, book Katy… she is phenomenal and a damn nice lady!

Seasonal And Natural.

Jack and I are both English teachers, and as such, are swept away by romantic landscapes and nature! We both knew we wanted wild, naturally grown flowers that were in season and I stumbled across The traditional flower company, based in Uttoxeter Staffordshire when attending a wedding fair in Birmingham.

Sam, who owns the farm, grows everything herself and the best part is you get to go to her farm, walk amongst her beautiful paddocks and choose your flowers two weeks before; it’s a real hands on approach. We chose an eclectic mix of wildflowers for the table centres in china teapots. They were stuffed with herbs and smelled sensational. I asked for blue hydrangea and lavender in the arrangements, but apart from that I just asked Sam to do what she does best! My bouquet was one of my favourite things of the day (I have since freeze dried it!) We had blue cornflowers and lavender for the button holes (Jack’s a man’s man so I was told… NO pink roses for buttonholes) We also had vintage milk churns stuffed with flowers in the reception venue.

My Mom did the flowers for the church and they looked fantastic.

My Grandfathers Clock.

I am obsessed with all things Doris Day and chintz so where else would I go for Bridesmaid dresses than Vivien of Holloway? All my girls were very different shapes and sizes, but the shop caters for all ranges. My sister who was maid of honour had a flouncy purple petticoat and my other two bridesmaids (best friends) wore white petticoats underneath to give it a real 50’s shape. We had a flowergirl, Tanwen, and a Page boy, Jac who wore exactly what ‘Big Jack’ wore.

Once we worked out the cost of hiring suits it seemed a better option to just buy the suits. We got our beautiful navy suits from Slaters in Birmingham: waist coat, trousers and jacket all for under £100 each…they even did free alterations! All of the groomsmen wore pocket watches that meant something: The best man wore his grandfather’s, Jack’s dad wore his father’s, my dad wore my Gransha’s; it felt like everyone was with us.

If I Know What Love Is.

Jack wore the same suit as the groomsmen and as he loves blue we found the exact same colour tie as my shoes… woo! He wore a vintage pocket watch I’d gotten him for our first anniversary inscribed with… ‘If I know what love is, it is because of you’. He literally took my breath away as I walked down the aisle to see him. I know we are all biased with our men, but I think he is the most handsome man in the world (Johnny Depp included :) )

The Legend.

Our photographer Steve Gerrard is a legend. We wanted something fun, relaxed and artistic… dare I say it uber cool. It was important to us not have lots of staged shots. He was without doubt one of the best parts of the process; I urge anyone to book him. It was more like having a best friend at the wedding who happens to be a genius photographer. He even brought along his ‘fun booth’ where guests could dress up like crazy nutters and get papped. We also lucked out in being able to have Emma Case as our second photographer. I am not afraid of saying that I have since become a Steve Gerrard stalker and frequent his blog daily…

The Cake That Jacks Mom Built.

Our cake was the talking point for many of our guests and it was made by Jack’s Mom, my fabulous mother in law. She is so creative and just understood exactly what we were going for. The cake was around 4ft and contained four different cheeses, 3 different pies, a fruit cake and a whole lot of goat’s cheese! She had even surprised us on the day by baking our favourite quotes onto the side of the pies (how I’ll never know!) and even carved our initials into a piece of tree trunk to separate the layers. We served it with the Hog roast we had at night and it went down a storm!

Cut The Purse Strings.

We hired Engima String quartet to play in the church and during the drinks reception. They even wore four different Vivien of Holloway dresses! Our budget was pretty stretched by the end so we decided against a band. We really didn’t notice the absence of one as we had a fantastic DJ that kept the dance floor full late into the night.

Dead Ringer For Love.

Our first dance was a tough one. We have really eclectic taste so we decided on something that just summed us up: Meatloaf and Cher’s ‘Dead Ringer for love’ Jack is the biggest Meatloaf fan, so we just let our hair down and danced like loons.

Charity Favours.

For our favours we decided to make donations to three different charities that were close to our hearts: CRY (for my cousin Gareth who died suddenly at 21), STROKE UK (for my Dad’s twin sister, who had passed away a couple of years previously and Macmillan for my Gransha. Everyone received charity badges for the various charities.

Anyone For Tea?

In terms of décor we wanted to re-create an English tea party. I am not a fan of three course meals so we had a starter, then traditional afternoon tea all served on Vintage china which we hired from our florist. We had sugar cubes with pink/red hearts for the vintage sugar bowls, tiered cake stands etc and I bought a giant pack of cardboard spoons that we placed on the teacup and saucer which had trivia questions on it to break the ice. In terms of food, Packington really outdid themselves; it looked like the Ritz!

Our tables were named after our favourite authors and their books were left on the table held together with twine. We also had confetti stamped out of old books scattered on the table and mobiles made out of copies of Macbeth and Pride and Prejudice.

For our table plan, Jack and his Dad created a replica blackboard and hung it with our school ties. All the names were written in chalk and we even found a wooden apple for teacher’s pet! We also had an amazing sweet bar, also done by the mother in law, which went down well with our Rugby playing guests for some reason!

Our Day, Our Way.

We tried to add little extras to the wedding to reflect what we love. Rock my Wedding played a huge part in the inspiration of these (every morning I was logged onto RMW by 9am… more stalkerish tendencies… meeep)

We hired the traditional red bus and put a giant tub of Pimms and G&t on board, along with a basket of Welsh cakes to reflect our Welsh Heritgae (yes booze and cakes sums up my family).

Jack and I also put together personalised newspapers for the guests to read in church. It had articles on how we met, our engagement and trivia about the wedding party. We even mocked up some fake adverts that involved the wedding guests. My sister laboriously made lots of confetti cones and tiny flags that said ‘woo, hooray and yay’ on them.

What really made my day (and something you can often forget when you’re stropping over the placement of a teaspoon) was marrying the love of my life. My favourite part of the day (apart from when the Rainbow appeared!) was the ceremony; everything else was just a bonus.

To all other brides… It’s so easy to get caught up in the trivia of a wedding, when all that really matters are that the people who love you, are with you for that one perfect day and where imperfection only makes it more ‘you’. Yes, my hair went crazy and yes, I’m sure I was a sweaty mess on the dance floor, but I wouldn’t swap it for anything in the world. It was our day, our way.

Venue Packington Moor Farm

Dress Suzanne Neville

Accessories Liberty in Love

Boutique Honey Cole Bridal

Shoes Manolo Blahnik

Make-up Make Up By Katy

Hair Harris And Gibbs

Blooms The traditional flower company

Maids Vivien of Holloway

Photography Steve Gerrard with Emma Case

Quartet Engima String quartet

I make no apologies for the length of this real wedding report – there was no way that you could possibly miss out on this trove of pretty.

Those maid dresses are amazing, the bouquets are a feast of colour, and that little RMW Love Bug that makes an appearance is spot on too…

Thank you to Steve Gerrard and Emma Case for being super stars, and thanks to Rhiannon and Jack for letting us share their big day, their big bus and their big darn cake.

Adam.

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