Our Story
Cheryl The Bride: Myself and my husband Jak met on a night out in Witney about 5 years ago, since that day we have never looked back. We both share a love of skiing and 2 years ago in March a very clumsy Jak decided he was going to propose on a chair lift while we were skiing in Morzine, France which was very risky with the gorgeous engagement ring he had picked but luckily for him it all went to plan and ended with an embarrassing crowd of friends and family waiting at the top of the chairlift.
Our Wedding
The chairlift proposal is therefore what we decided to choose as our Autumnal wedding theme. We started off the theme by sending our guests Ski pass wedding invites on lanyards made and designed by the bride.
We then bought the theme into the wedding the day by having wooden sleigh flower arrangements, a chairlift thumb print guest book, a piste map table plan, all our table names were ski themed, our guest carvers had ski themed aprons, we had Sylvania cat skiers as our cake toppers and also a shot ski on the bar.
The bride also made hessian covered hip flasks as favours for the guests to take home and the tables also had hessian table runners. To also add more fun and to continue the festival hen do I had, we had a glitter ladder stand that came out after the speeches and every guest got sparkled up.
The Entertainment
As we had around 160 guests in total in the evening and to try and make the bar tab cheaper for our guests we decided we would have bar games. We had a ‘we pay’, ‘you pay’ prize wheel and a beat the barman dice game which everyone could play and win free drinks.
Our main aim for the day was to make the day as easy and as fun as possible for all our guests which also needed to include a massive party at the end of the day. We arranged coaches to collect all 128 of our guests to go to the wedding and to collect 160 of them after the celebrations had ended. This meant the party could go on right until the last song. We loved involving our guests in our day with the carvers at dinner, the fire pits that were lit in the evening, the glitter station and the bar games, which really helped give off the fun element to the day.
We honestly could not have wished for a better day of fun, love and sparkle and we can only put that down to lots of hard work, planning, personalisation and amazing suppliers and a dress that you didn’t notice you were wearing and meant you could dance all night. All we wish is - can we do it again?
The Bride
My dress was a two piece combo by
Watters it was the Bree corset paired with the Ashan Skirt and I had I also got a Watters topper Lyle which I mainly wanted for the ceremony. All elements of my dress were from the supplier
Mae Bridal in Witney, Andrea the owner was amazing, I literally only went to a trunk show event to look at the designer Watters and found my dress with the 2nd one I tried on. I cannot recommend Andreas kindness and patience and expertise she really knew how to narrow the type of dress I wanted and would suit me.
I also got a sparkly belt and tiara from Mae Bridal to add the finishing touches to my look and to bring it all together.
My shoes were by the designer
Charlotte Mills of which my Husband bought as a Christmas present. They were the Cindy heel in white glitter which I felt reflected snow and were in keeping with our ski theme. My veil was from
Proposals in Witney which had individual crystals on it.
The Groom
Both the grooms suit and groomsmen’s suits were from
Charles Tyrwhitt. They were the Navy birdseye suit which were really good because they had a variety of options you could choose from such as Long, Short, slimfit, classic fit which you could mix and match the trousers and jacket styles. The shirts and ties were also from Charles Tyrwhitt
We also wanted something quite different and unique so we also include a gold stag brooch from me which really paired well with the navy and made the wedding party really stand out.
The Venues
The bride got ready in an amazing listed B&B called
The Witney House, which all the earlier getting ready and garden photographs were taken. We would highly recommend this as a great place to stay for bridal parties, really was stunning.
The wedding venue was
Cripps Barn in Bibury. It was about the 4th venue we visited and instantly both knew it was the one. We liked that it still felt like it had a church kind of vibe with the high ceilings, large oak doors and fire place as the central place you said your vows but wasn’t religious at the same time.
The Flowers & Decor
The theme was a ski theme so we wanted mainly white flowers and green foliage but we also wanted to bring in the Autumnal time of the year which was created by the colour of the bridesmaid dresses in aubergine and complimenting colours in our flower arrangements.
These were all created by our florist
Go Wild Flowers. Additionally she also created the foliage wheel that hang from the ceiling, the aisle flowers on the chair, the fireplace arrangement and our centrepieces which were Covent Garden crates which we added mini cricket bats with the table names on them that I had made as one of Jak’s main hobbies is playing cricket.
The bride's uncle also created a large C & J out of wooden pallets with LED lights which were an amazing feature outside on the decking.
The Bridesmaids
The bridesmaid dresses were also
Watters gowns (242 in Eggplant). We got these from
Ascot Brides in Ascot which she was a life saver as having 6 bridesmaids I thought was going to be impossible to find a dress they all liked and suited however, it was one of the easiest experience of the whole wedding planning process. Emma at Ascot Brides made them all feel very special and was happy to help any additional alterations.
The Ceremony
We only had the one reading which was Union by Robert Fulgham which we got one of my closest school friends to read and it actually ended up being our voice over for our wedding video.