The Wedding
Lauren the Bride: It was really important to us that our day had a personal and bespoke feel, we wanted the day to reflect us with everyone attending being involved in some shape or form. I wouldn't say that we followed a particular style or theme just lots of what we loved in one place.
The Dress
I went to a few dress shops shortly after we were engaged, but never really found what I was looking for. I was very lucky that my best friend, Aaron, asked a fashion designer he knew to design and make my dress. Very early on I decided I wanted long sleeves and low back, but for the rest of the dress I spent days/weeks on Pinterest and RMW choosing my favourite parts of a number of dresses and then my wonderful designer,
Hasan, was able to put my ideas into reality. Getting it made was incredibly exciting and I'm so grateful that I got the opportunity to do it as it was everything I wanted and more!
Groom
Adam the Groom: As a Personal Trainer I am not often dressed in smart or tailored attire,so this was a chance to go all out and enjoy the reactions of the Bride and guests when they saw the outfit for the first time. The only person to see the suit prior to the actual wedding day was my Father who attended my first suit fitting. Even my Best-Men only got a their first glimpse when getting ready on the morning of the wedding.
The finished product was a slim fit navy Prince of Wales, complete with flash cuff, contrast melton & blue/gold diamond detail lining. The waistcoat, a double breasted gold/blue check, tied together with the
suit by having the same lining.
Venue
Lauren the Bride: It was very shortly after we were engaged and we started talking about our dream venue that we very quickly realised we had it right under our noses! Adam plays for preston nomads cricket club, a picturesque barn style venue in the heart of the South Downs. It was a very easy decision for us as not only did the venue look completely beautiful it had sentimental value for us too. We hired a
marquee to add onto the venue that we used for our wedding breakfast.
Decor
We were very lucky to have one of my very artistic friends, Francesca, helping with all our decorating needs. She pretty much came up with all our decoration ideas, with a constant supply of Pinterest boards being fed to us! We decided on a very relaxed feel with mainly neutral colours. We were proud of our venue and decided we didn't want to cover up that we were in a cricket club. We had white gyps in large metal buckets down our aisle white led to our main feature, a giant L and A lite up, made by Adam's super talented Dad, Steve. The venue was draped in fairy lights with white paper lanterns. Our marquee followed this feel, but also with a pop of colour with pink and blue lanterns too. Our tables were decorated with lots of jars all painstakingly collected and wrapped in rope by my wonderful mum, Pat. We used our bridesmaids flowers as centre pieces - an advantage of having a lot of them! Our place settings were Polaroid photos of our guests with us and our table numbers were a photo of our dog, Vinnie, with the number on.
Ceremony
Our ceremony was very emotional and made even more special because we were lucky enough to be married by Adam's uncle, who is a priest in a local church. We had a beautiful reading of Dr Seuss, oh the places you'll go, read by Adam's sister, Holly.
Wedding Party
I have a big group of best friends all from when we at school and it was really important that I had them all by my side as bridesmaids. My fantastic sister, Sarah, was my maid of honour and I had 2 flowers girls. I was told so many times it was too many people and it'd look silly. I'm so glad I ignored these views as it was one of best decisions. They all wore navy, but picked their own style of dress. Sarah was dressed in a skirt and top combo from
Coast. I think they looked beautiful and it meant so much to me having them all so involved.
Adam the Groom: For the groomsmen I wanted them all to wear an outfit that suited them and their personality so I asked the to choose there outfit and I sent them all a navy knitted blue tie to wear matching socks and all a gold Stag pin. I also had 2 bestmen, and unlike everybody else they would be dressed the same. They wore a blue suit from Next with a contrast Grey waistcoat and burgundy knitted tie from
TM Lewins.
Food
We both felt very strongly that we did not to confirm to classic 3 course, roast style meal instead we wanted to keep it light with a spring feeling. I'm not a big eater so it was important to me to not overload people plates with heavy food. Our fantastic
caters suggested a family buffet style would suit us where people could eat as much or as little as they wanted. When our guests arrived at their tables a selection of salads, rice dishes and breads were already on the table to tuck into shortly after plates of seared tuna, chicken kebabs and lamb shoulder arrived at each table to share. Myself and Adam have never been a big fan of the cutting of the cake part of weddings so decided against having 1 cake, we'd have 10 instead! These were each made by friends and family and we put these on the tables instead of dessert. Not only did they taste great they were also a great conversation starter - we found that people were jumping from table to table to try all the different varieties which was what we hoped for. In the evening we hired a
pizza van who served pizza straight from a wood burner oven!
Entertainment
We wanted our wedding to have a really upbeat, party atmosphere so we paid a lot of attention to entertainment. One of things we did was to ask one of groomsmen, Paul, to run a short quiz for us. He introduced it just as all our guests sat down for their meals, just before the mains came out. He asked 5 questions which were all based around our history together. Each table was able to win champagne, shots or sticker books (for our nieces). It was so much fun, everyone loved it and it really set the atmosphere we wanted. In the evening we hired the most incredible band - they're called
Rhythm of the 90s. They're a 7 piece band covering all 90s dance songs. We also wanted entertainment for those who didn't want to dance and for this we asked the lovely Yahmina, at
Mint weddings, to set up a photo booth in front of our giant L and A. She took Polaroid photos of our guests all dressed in silly hats and props. Our favourite part of this was that we asked our guests to stick their photo into our guestbook with a message. We took the book home with us that night and gave us great entertainment reading through and seeing all the photos straight away.
Photography
This was the second thing we booked and over a year in advance as it was so important we found the right person for us who would capture of special day how we wanted it recorded. We scoured through so many websites trying to find the perfect fit for us and then we found
Dale. We loved his relaxed style, capturing all those special moments. He was very professional and very un- intrusive, we barely knew he was there. The photos we have are so beautiful and capture so many incredible moments.
DIY Projects
Keeping our bespoke feel, I also made Adam's wedding ring. Something I would recommend to anyone. We had a wonderful day making them and the result is very beautiful, unique and that is really special.