Inspiration

This gorgeous coastal wedding will certainly warm the blood on this chilly day, with beaming smiles, love and happiness just oozing from everyone; all at the fabulous seaside venue The Lobster Shack in Whitstable. I love the beautifully captured natural and informal couple shots of our gorgeous Bride & Groom just casually strolling along the promenade and jumping in front of beach huts whilst dressed in their best attire, they literally made my heart sing, as did the stunning Charlie Brear gown with exquisite cowls neck back & drop waist hem worn by the blushing bride. Come and soak up the mood and all the unique decor and backdrops; you won't regret it....

The Dress

Chloe The Bride: Finding my dress took a while as I really had very little idea of what I wanted! However, after a few bridal shops and a lot of patience from my friend Sha, I began to narrow it down and realised I wanted my dress to be light and comfortable, something I would be happy spending all day in. I was lucky enough to come across the amazing designer Charlie Brear. I visited her flagship store in London and the girls were amazing, their service second to none, they made me feel super special (as every bride should!) and my dress was found!

The Venue

Our venue was amazing, we’d been searching all across London and nothing felt quite right and as we extended our search we stumbled across The East Quay in Whitstable, a place we’d fallen in love with when we discovered a few years ago on a weekend away. And we couldn’t thank the team enough, nothing was too much trouble and I would recommend them to anyone that was looking for a beach side venue.

Flowers

We chose to get married in Spring, partly so that we weren’t banking on the weather…however having canapes on the beach was pretty special! But this decision was also influenced by some of my favourite flowers…daffodils, narcissi etc. These featured all across our wedding from the bouquets, to the decorations and the boys button holes. The amazing Jane at Graham Greener did a fantastic job of pulling all these aspects together and I loved my bouquet so much that I’ve dropped a hint to Alex that I’d like one each year for our anniversary!

Food & Tipple

Getting married by the sea made the food choices easy, we just had to go for fish and chips! And also getting married in Whitstable meant we just had to have oysters! We didn’t fancy having a wedding cake as cheese is much more our thing, so we sourced lots of cheese from Alex’s home county of Derbyshire and added some brownies and Portugese Pasteis de Nata as I’ve spent a lot of my childhood in Portugal for those with a sweet tooth – yummy! Another reason we really appreciated The East Quay is that we were able to provide our own booze, which we made the most of doing a road trip to France for the weekend with friends – after all, it’s just as much about the lead up as it is about the day!

The I do’s

Neither of fancied a church wedding and The East Quay is just gorgeous, another reason it was perfect for us. We kept the ceremony sweet and simple with each of our sisters doing a reading. We chose ‘Jonny Cash, I Love You Because’ as the words are so simple but true and ‘I’m always here by Jim Jamieson’ otherwise much more well known as the Baywatch theme tune for something a little more surprising and it fitted so well with the venue.

Photographer

We trawled the internet, blogs etc for a photographer and came across our amazing photographer Adam on Twitter. Adam was fantastic from the start, we met up for a drink to get to know him, he was welcoming and easy going and his package was simple as he doesn’t quote by the hour, but finishes once he’s captured the day. Needless to say, as soon as we’d met him we were sold! And on the day, he was just super, we were completely unaware of him (apart from when we went off with him of course) and therefore so many of our photos are natural and really captured the moment which is what we wanted and the day after the wedding he was kind enough to send us some samples which was just lovely.

Words of Wisdom

So many people say it and I can’t express it enough, the whole day goes by so quickly and you’ve spent so much time building up to it but you really must take a moment to step back and take it all in. Start a Pinterest board and carry a notebook with you so that you can write down thoughts and inspiration at any time – you never know when you’re going to have that lightbulb moment. And finally – enjoy it! It’s the most amazing day of your life!
Lorna Shaw

Written by Lorna Shaw

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