A Bank Holiday Extravaganza with a ceremony in the Long Gallery at Haddon Hall, Derbyshire followed with a reception with Peaktipis at Shiningford Farm. Heidi and Ed first met aged six, each on family holidays in Turkey and held hands for the duration of their two-week trips. This was only discovered beyond some years living together, after falling in love at University, where they thought they had met and getting engaged. Did someone say destiny? You may have actually clapped eyes on this stunning couple as their lovely 'meant to be' story went viral. RMW The List members Kemp & Kemp are in the kitchen again for this wedding and the menu sounds delish! A boogie on the dance floor followed by fish finger sandwiches - dream team. Heidi looks absolutely sensational in a Hayley Paige number and both Derbyshire venues shine. S6 Photography has really captured something special here. Some weddings are just made for RMW and the team and I have been swooning over this one for months and are so happy to finally have it gracing our pages.
Heidi The Bride: The day was a tale of two halves, and after a traditional stately home ceremony, we took guests to nearby Shiningford Farm- where all the wedding party were staying - and had a tipi reception, with tipis from the wonderful Peaktipis. After coaxing our 2-year-old niece, who was our flower girl, down the aisle by having the groom hold some white chocolate buttons out for her (genius tip!), I walked down the aisle to Taylor Swift – Love Story, which our string quartet learned especially for us. The rest of the ceremony honestly went in a flash! What made the ceremony so special for us is that we asked Ed’s two sisters and my brother-in-law, who did the readings, to write the words themselves, which made them incredibly personal and something that we will treasure for life. We got married on the August Bank Holiday weekend so the following day, we optimistically decided to have a pool party at the reception venue, complete with an espresso martini station, ice-cream van, pizza truck, slip’n’slide and pool floats… and we couldn’t have lucked out more with the weather – it was the hottest day of the year!
RMW The List members Kemp & Kemp, served a caramelised red onion, balsamic & thyme tart to start, followed by chicken breast roulade, crispy roast potatoes and baby vegetables and finally strawberry & raspberry pavlova for dessert. Meanwhile, our vegetarian guests enjoyed asparagus, pea and mint ravioli for their main course. After we cut the cake and a lot of dancing, we then served fish finger sandwiches and chips! We washed it all down with mojitos and pornstar martinis from Coxtails.
Ed chose our photographer, the lovely Jon from S6 Photography who did a sterling job and achieved worldwide coverage of his photos when the story of how Ed and I met was written up by Ed’s cousin for the Mail Online and subsequently went viral!
After looking in around 4 bridal shops, I then went to a Hayley Paige trunk show at Les Trois Soeurs in London, where we now live, and when I tried it on, I knew instantly it was the one. My mum and now mother-in-law both cried! On the day, I wore it with a platinum-set diamond necklace, which is a family heirloom, and borrowed my mum’s diamond earrings and my bridesmaids presented me with an engraved bracelet from Monica Vinader.
Having put on lots of events as part of my job, I decided to source all the décor myself and went for a rustic & greenery vibe. I bought a custom wooden welcome sign and bride/groom chair signs from Etsy and chose edible flower lollipops for the table favours. To add a modern touch I bought copper photo frames to place on the cake table and hired copper cutlery to tie in with the colour scheme. We also spent HOURS creating a letter board table plan which we bought from Rose & Grey which now hangs as the menu in Ed’s recently opened coffee shop, DropShot Coffee (which also has a similar theme with lots of copper & greenery!). I designed all the stationery myself and after a couple of modern calligraphy lessons, handwrote all the place names on individual menus. For the outside, I bought leaf-print cushions for the rattan furniture and hanging candle jars which we dotted around the grounds and not wanting to leave any detail unthought-of, Aesop hand soap for the toilets!