My Love Is Your Love.

Alex and Kevin set out to create a classical and elegant wedding with a modern twist and they chose the perfect venue to echo their vision – the Raquet Club in Liverpool.

Immense veil, immense hair comb and immense back lace… Alex is one seriously classy and fashionable lady.

Photography today is by Especially Amy and I will now hand you over to Alex. She has a tale of love and modern elegance for you all… You may want to grab a cuppa.

A Change Of Heart

My dress was from The White Closet in West Didsbury and was designed by The Vintage Wedding Dress Company.  I had initially bought a Jenny Packham dress but 7 weeks before had a change of heart and frantically began a search for a new dress. I wanted something ‘heavier’ than the JP satin dress, possibly lace with an ‘old’ feel to it. Emma at the White Closet was truly amazing, after showing me their collections I fell in love with an ivory lace dress with cowl neck and low cowl back.

I had a satin sash and a string of pearls across the back to help secure the straps. This can now be used as a necklace. All the dresses could be customised with sleeves, sash colours etc and accessories which made it feel extra personal. The fact they did it all in 7 weeks was just fabulous. The Veil was by Helen Martin of HM Veils and the pearl back-lace was by Rosie Willett.

Pearls And Beads

I borrowed pearl earrings and my sister made a pearl bracelet with a blue bead belonging to my late grandmother. In my hair I had a Charlotte Balbier hair comb. My veil was silk tulle dyed to match with a fine detailing to the edges.

Low Key

I wore nude patent leather heels from Aldo. As I wanted something low key to not distract from the dress and I wanted something that could be worn again.

Peaches And Cream

Nicki from Peaches & Cream did my hair and make up. They were just incredible allowing me to retrial my hair as many times as I wanted after the dress change! (luckily it only took one go!)

Blue And Green

My flowers were by Amanda Bryning. I had a Handheld bouquet of ranunculas, guelder rose and thelepsia. The tables were decorated with antique candelabras with ranunculas, gypsophilia and ivy. I loved the colour combination of the blush pink and vivid green.

An Intimate Ceremony

We didn’t have groomsmen or bridesmaids. We had two witnesses (my sister and Kevin’s brother) as we wanted to keep the ceremony very intimate with just our close family members.

Kevin wore a black Ted Baker suit, with ivory waistcoat and bow tie, our son Nathaniel was almost three and wore the same but with a burgundy polka dot tie handmade especially from his late granddad’s scarf.

Capturing The Vibe

Amy Murrell from Especially Amy did our photography as I loved her style of wedding photographs, I wanted Amy to have total reign to capture the vibe of the day and with minimal formal family shots and she did an amazing job.

Frances Madell of Reel Love Films did the videography as I fell in love with her style of wedding films from her website.

Chic Cigarillos

A friend Nicky Murray made our cake consisting of 4 layers, chocolate, vanilla sponge, rum and apple and lemon. Iced and finished with white chic cigarillos and ivory roses. We wanted to serve the cake at the evening buffet so thought would be best to give guests a choice of flavours to choose from. I wanted love birds as a cake topper and found them to be very expensive so bought some plain ones from a craft shop and made wedding outfits for them myself.

Swing Classics

We both agreed we wanted a band and not just a singer with backing tracks. After some research we came across Paul Pashley, a big band singer who performs with a 4 piece band. Pauls a very talented singer who carried off a brilliant performance of old swing classics with some newer chart hits thrown in. Around 10.30pm we had a disco for the remainder of the night.

Start The Party

First dance was to ‘my love is your love’ Whitney Houston a song we both liked that was meaningful but upbeat enough to start the party off.

Favours For All

For favours I bought ivory lace pouch bags from eBay, and filled them with miniature perfumes/colognes from the Cotswolds Perfumery (my favorite) and rose shaped tea lights for the ladies , Green and White miniature chocolate bars for the gentlemen. The children had a canvas bag made with their names on filled with wedding quizzes, word-searches, fun cameras, and sweets etc.

A Few Personal Touches

We kept things simple as the Racquet Club is classically beautiful. We simply added a few personal touches. The menus, order of service, guest book and table numbers were all custom made in eau de nil and ivory. We had ivory candles for the fireplace, mantelpiece and lit a unity candle during ceremony. We had ivory/eau de nil boxes and picture frames from Laura Ashley for cards and messages and old photos of Kev and I.

Chairs were covered in white with ivory ribbons. We had a wedding tree for guests to fingerprint on and sign their names and as a small gift to our mothers we had antique cups and saucers filled with candle wax and made into vanilla smelling candles. All designed by Francesca Roode.

Words Of Wisdom

take time to discover what taste/ideas you like and and don’t feel you have to have certain things at your wedding. If they’re not important to you then they wont matter on the day. Stick to you’re original plans and try not to be to influenced by other peoples idea of what your perfect day should be.

Venue -Raquet Club

Photographer – Especially Amy

Dress – The Vintage Wedding Dress Company

Boutique – The White Closet

Veil – HM Veils

Pearl Back Lace – Rosie Willett

Hair Comb – Charlotte Balbier

Shoes – Aldo

Hair And Make-up – Peaches & Cream

Entertainment – Paul Pashley

Videography -Reel Love Films

Some sound advice there from Alex… and if her words of wisdom mean that you will have a wedding as distinguished and effortlessly stylish as this then they may well be worth adhering to.

You can’t beat some well placed candles and candelabras for a modern elegant feel. I love that shot of Alex fixing her fathers button hole – have you ever seen anyone look so proud?

Thanks to Alex and Kevin for sharing their big day.

Adam.