Holley & Duncan

Unbelievable elegance mixed with laid back vibes equals this incredible wedding at Yeldersley Hall in Derbyshire. Bride Holley looks an absolute vision in a Watters Wtoo gown consisting of yards and yards of tulle coupled with intricate beading. Plus she has the most luscious mermaid locks you ever did see. She completed her look with a stunning Juliet cap veil and flower crown, and is the epitome of bridal goals. The bridesmaids looked just as beautiful in white lace dresses by Joy, with their bouquets of foliage popping beautifully against the delicate hued fabric. After the heartfelt ceremony, things got a bit more laid back with garden games, Pimms on the lawn and in the evening a fish and chip van and ice cream cart. Making sure this beautiful story was captured as it unfolded was Luis Calow photography, whose images will have you swooning for days.

Dress

Holley the Bride: My dress was ‘Cambria’ by Watters Wtoo. I liked Watters dresses for their whimsical tulle skirts and unstructured feel and saved money by buying it at a Watters trunk show at the Bridal Emporium in Leeds. Our wedding rings and my engagement ring were custom made by our silversmith friend Ben, mine is lightly hammered rose gold and Duncan chose a matte/brushed white gold band. I loved my juliet cap veil which was handmade by Blossom and Bluebird on Etsy, I kept it on after the ceremony and danced in it all night!

The Groom

Duncan the Groom: I wanted a modern tailored suit rather than something more traditional, I also knew that I wanted to get married in blue. After finding a few options online we headed to Manchester where I finally settled a textured navy suit from Reiss which was tailored in store. I invested in some Loake brogues and my maroon tie and pocket square came from Marks & Spencers.

Colour Scheme/decor

Holley the Bride: We both wanted a venue with beautiful outside space and which allowed us to handpick our own suppliers. I found Yeldersley Hall in Ashbourne through a ‘Rock My Wedding’ post and loved the beautiful gardens, glass greenhouses and that we could have the place to ourselves for the whole weekend! Andrew the owner was really friendly and helpful and made our whole family feel at home. We wanted a natural, botanical feel to our wedding, inspired by our home, full of houseplants! We spent a year running up to the wedding collecting plants (and trying to keep them alive), trailing ivy, fluffy asparagus ferns and little succulents to decorate the marquee and ceremony room. We hung Ivy, glass bottles and fairy lights from the roof of the marquee and had two huge mid-century planters with kentia palms framing the end of the aisle. Our tables were named after favourite Penguin books (Duncan’s parents are librarians)! and we had glass terrarium centrepieces filled with plants and copper wire lights. I dried bunches of lavender from our garden which we tied place settings to and the whole marquee was scented with lavender. Most of the decorations we used we sourced from our house which gave it a really personal feel and because our table/venue decorations were plants rather than cut flowers we could bring them home/ give them as favours which felt more sustainable.

Flowers

Our wedding party flowers were provided by Plantology in Sheffield. In fitting with our naturalistic theme we decided on lots of greenery and soft textures. Jill at Plantology understood the brief perfectly and made me a trailing loose bouquet with asparagus fern, veronica, eucalyptus and wax flowers and I had a delicate circlet of greenery and wax flowers which kept my veil in place.

Wedding Party Fashion

The bridesmaid dresses were bought online from high street shop Joy. The style was the seventies/Virgin Suicides dreamy look that I love and worked perfectly with tan Swedish Hasbeen clogs. Our flower girl had a broderie anglaise sundress from ZARA and groomsmen wore their own navy suits and maroon ties.

Ceremony

I walked down the aisle to ‘You and Me’ by Penny and the Quarters which we loved from the film Blue Valentine and we played Wolf Alice whilst we were signing the register. We chose a reading from Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far from the madding crowd’ and the poem ‘Love’s Philosophy’ by Percy Shelley. Duncan didn’t turn round as I walked down the aisle which he said was because he didn’t want to start crying... It didn’t work, I got to the end of the aisle, held his hand and we were both blubbing!

Entertainment

During our drinks reception, we had boules, table tennis and ‘smite’ out in the walled garden before the heavens opened. Our evening entertainment was provided by DJ Ziggy Archer who played a mix of Britpop/indie student disco and Motown tunes, our first dance was an Arctic Monkeys cover of ‘Baby I’m Yours’ by Barbara Lewis. We had an Instax camera and loads of film for our guests to photograph each other and peg them up in the marquee and we loved looking at these the morning after.

The Food

The cake was made by my mum, it was an amazing 3 tier naked cake with sponge soaked in lemon and mint syrup, filled with mascarpone and lemon curd and absolutely covered in fresh edible flowers. We served local ice cream instead of canapes and had Pimms and a DIY Gin Bar for our drinks reception made from a drinks trolley we found on Gumtree. The main meal was provided by Homemade by Thelma’s. We wanted the food to be informal but excellent quality, we spoke to numerous caterers, but all seemed a bit old-fashioned and not very flexible. Emily at Homemade was amazing and created a picnic/sharing platter style spread of beautiful salads, skewers, artisan breads and quiches and we had homemade chocolate brownies with raspberries for dessert. In the evening we hired a fish and chip van from Tom and Simon’s kitchen in Derbyshire, all of our guests commented on how lovely the fish and chips were and how they were ‘seaside quality’. The bar in the evening was supplied by Drinks Now, a Sheffield company who were brilliant from start to finish. We chose signature cocktails (mostly gin) and had the local Abbeydale Brewery beer Deception on draft (Duncan’s favourite beer).

Photographer

Our photographer was Luis Calow, who we found online through his lovely naturalistic, reportage style wedding photography via One-wedding.com. I was really worried about finding the right photographer as I absolutely hate having my photograph taken, and couldn’t bear the thought of smiling through endless staged and somewhat cringy photographs! Lu completely understood what we wanted and was so friendly and genuine that we were looking forward to him being part of our wedding. On the day he was amazing, catching all the important moments and fun in an unobtrusive way, many of our guests commented that they didn’t know he was there and it meant we had lots of unguarded, natural photographs of friends and family.