The Photography
I'm not sure if the photography made us choose our day venue, or the venue made us choose
Miss Gen but when we started our initial searches on the internet, the combination was just too perfect for us not to have both. Gen's style of capturing the natural was just wonderful, and exactly what we wanted. Neither of us are particularly comfortable posing for photos and one of my pet hates at weddings is the hours of group shots that follow the ceremony, so to have someone that photographs moments was ideal. She captured the essence and the day perfectly.
Our photographs are fantastic and worth every penny. We're both still in awe of how amazing they are. Miss Gen was unobtrusive and managed to photograph important moments, but go unnoticed. We were unaware of her being there a lot of the time, which was perfect for us as we’re not wonderful having our pictures taken. Prior to our engagement shoot and wedding, Martin and I only had a handful of photographs taken together but now we have countless beautiful ones in frames around our house.
Some of my favourite images are after we'd walked up the aisle and were stood outside. It was the only moment of the day we were on our own, and the moment of 'oh my goodness, we just got married'. Gen caught all of this on camera and I can remember exactly how I felt at that moment when I look at them.
The Music
We danced to 'My baby just cares for me' by Nina Simone. It's a fairly common occurrence for Martin and I to put on records at home and dance so neither of us wanted a slow first dance, just something we could spin around to. We had a short list of a few, but that won. We both wanted a fun and cool song to match our fun and cool evening venue. We signed the register to 'Hoppipolla' by Sigur Ros and 'Romeo and Juliet' by Dire Straits, both played on the harp. Martin loves these songs so I was happy to go ahead with them. We walked up the aisle to 'Me and Julio down by the schoolyard' by Simon and Garfunkel, because it basically the happiest song ever and wanted something to match our happiest moment. In the evening, the last song the band played was 'The Fairytale of New York' because that is actually 'our' song but it seemed inappropriate to play during a July wedding ceremony...and due to the many expresso martinis, I sang the Kirsty Maccoll part, which seemed to be a crowd pleaser!
The Entertainment
Our harpist played for the entirely of the drinks reception, so we had a great mix of classical and contemporary music going throughout. In the evening, we had a three piece band who played rock and indie so we managed to get all the music we love crammed into one day.
The Vibe & Decor
The vibe we were going for was laid back and chic, which hopefully we achieved. We just wanted everyone to have fun and enjoy our day with us. The colour scheme was blue and blush. The bridesmaids dresses were blush and the groomsmen in royal blue. The bouquets were made up of white, blue and pink flowers and the button holes were pink.
Advice
Never underestimate the amount of alcohol people will consume! Try and stay calm and enjoy the day. People kept telling us to spend time together on the day, which we did so I'm very glad we took note of that. Don't sweat the small stuff. Only different thing would have been to hold back some prosecco for the speeches!