The Flowers
For our flowers, we wanted to have lots of texture but incorporate a range of mixing some wild flowers along with our love for succulents and big fluffy hydrangeas. Lisa from
Blooms and Bows, I have worked with Lisa many times and there was no one else who was going to do my flowers but her. She is a lovely lady and brilliant florist and goes that extra mile in everything she does.
Lisa dressed church with pew ends of big hydrangeas and foliage. Puddles of candles were arranged by the alter. The church is beautiful so it didn’t need much dressing here.
Inside the tipi for the tables, Lisa designed an amazing birch wood tripods with flower arrangements to sit on the tables. They looked incredible and gave a great impact inside, glass baubles with candles were hung from the centre.
We did 50/50 of high and low arrangements, mixing the low arrangements with gold geometric table accessories, gold glass terrariums with succulents inside and small pots of flowers and lots of pretty candles. Outside of the Tipi were large wicker baskets full of olive and Blue and White delphiniums.
Our favours and place names were gold pots with succulents pants, little flags with the guests names on, all hand written by one of the grooms ladies Rachel.
My bouquet was quite large, loose, layered with textured and filled with beauty such a veronicas, hydrangeas, avalanche roses, freesia, olive, astilbe and eucalyptus. Chocolate cosmos and Echinops were popping out to give depth in colour and detail in delicate petals. Trailing Kate Cullen silk ribbon hung from my bouquet to give a boho feel which looked great against my dress.
The bridesmaids had smaller versions but just as beautiful and this worked perfectly against their navy blue dresses. Adrian’s buttonhole was made with small succulents, veronicas and foliage texture.
The Wedding Party
I had 6 bridesmaids who all wore navy blue multiway dresses from Debut at
Debenhams. From a mix of all sizes, these dresses are a great way to fit all and to be worn in many different ways. We held a prosecco wrap party for the girls to decide which way to wear the dress and everyone decided to wear it with a one shoulder. The bridesmaids all wore their own gold shoes and looked amazing.
I gave all the bridesmaids necklaces on the wedding morning from
Victoria Millesime which were handmade with a rose gold hexagon pendant which had a pearl and swarovski stone hanging in the centre. The bridesmaids hair and make up was done by a duo The Perfect Marriage, who made all the girls looks gorgeous, especially my mum who never wears make up and she looked amazing.
The two best men wore the same styled waistcoat as Adrian from Fox Tailoring, along with their own grey suits. Adrian bought the best men and his groomsmen cuff links to wear on the wedding day, all in shades of navy with patterns.
The Ceremony
We decided to get married at St Peters church at South Weald, which was only a short walk to the park for our reception. Adrian and I always knew when we were to get married it would be a church wedding. It is a beautiful church and our reverend, Jane was just amazing.
My godmother Shama read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres. I had heard this at another wedding and was so moved by the words, I had to have it ours! Adrian’s sister Becky read Blessing of the Hands. Another reading I fell in love with and the words are very touching. Adrians’s nephew Jake walked down the aisle holding a sign saying ‘Uncle Hair Gel, Here Comes Your Pickle’, both our nicknames.
My nephew Hayden, then followed holding another sign saying ‘Don’t Worry Ladies, I’m still Single’ which brought smiles all round. My Dad walked me down the aisle to the song ‘Say You Won’t Let Go’ performed by Amy Langmead and Ben Hackett. Dad was pretty nervous on the day and did us proud.
Our signing songs were both songs which had a lot of meaning to us as a couple. ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ by Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole performed by Ben Hackett. Me and Adrian would listen to this whilst day dreaming what our future would look like. We also had ‘Flowers’ by Sweet Female Attitude performed by Amy Langmead and Ben Hackett. This song was a fun garage throwback of our friends and good times. Both our mothers were witnesses for our signing of the register, who else would be better to watch us take our next chapter in life than the ladies that brought us here. We then walked out to ‘Signed Sealed Delivered’ by Stevie Wonder performed by Ben Hackett.
The Entertainment
For the drinks reception, I decided to surprise Adrian with a
Steelpan band playing for our drinks reception. This was a nod to our Trinidadian roots whilst we served iced cold Carib beers. Adrian had no idea until we got out of the car and was walking towards to the park that I said to him, ‘can you hear that?’. With it being a hot day, the sounds of the steel pan playing was perfect.
We had a belltent by
Bluebell Tents set up on the grounds for the children to play in which was filled with games and activities. We had lots of children at the wedding, so we wanted something to keep them entertained and this worked perfectly to keep them occupied.
During dinner we had the lovely
Timeless Acoustic Duo, Kerrie and Paul playing and singing which was perfect. Kerrie was heavily pregnant at the time and they both did a great job at entertaining our guests.
For the evening, we were rocking the dance floor to the band
One Foot In the Groove, which is actually Louise’s band and her husband is the drummer! Amy and Ben who performed at church then joined the band for the evening and Amy was amazing. Louise even joined the band for a quick number which was brilliant.
Seeing our guests having a great time was beyond words. Our first dance was an 80’s throwback to my guilty pleasure and Adrian agreed it was perfect, ‘Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now’ by Starship. The first dance song and bands set was arranged by Chris Burgess, Louise’s husband, so it couldn’t of felt more personal. During the first dance, we were surprised by an awesome confetti cannon explosion! It was a total surprise for us both and lots of fun.
After the bands sets we went onto the sounds by DJ by Louis Smyth from
MLC Disco. They provided all of the setup and lighting inside and was responsible for the confetti cannon. Louis was brilliant, playing current and old skool tunes and had everyone dancing till the late hours.
We had the best photobooth in the business,
Boutique Booths which was fun entertainment all round. Andy is a fantastic host to the booth and really gets you to make the most fun out it!
The Food
Adrian and I are both half Trinidadian so we wanted our food to reflect us and our family traditions, which is warm welcomes, great party and that there is always lots of food at the table and plenty to go round! We opted for bowl food during the drinks reception and a fantastic BBQ wedding breakfast.
Limeberry Catering catered our day. Having worked with Ange who was our event manager before, it was an easy decision who to turn to for our catering team. Delicious food and fantastic service.
When your guests say ‘this is the best wedding dinner I’ve ever had’ that really was golden and was the exact feeling we wanted our guests to feel, to enjoy a dinner that was delicious and made you feel welcome. Ange and the team at Limeberry run service so well that everything was effortlessly in hand.
It was also a great comfort to us both knowing we didn’t have to worry over anything on the day as Ange was there. Also on the day overseeing everything was Helen who was an intern we had worked with us and wanted to help me and Adrian out on our wedding. Not forgetting the watchful eye of Louise, even though a guest with her family, I know she did more than she needed to on the day to ensure everything run smoothly.
We cut our wedding cake as we were announced into the tipi for dinner as this was then prepared for dessert. To us this made sense to use the cake as dessert so nothing went to waste. The wedding cake was a delicious semi naked cake in 3 yummy flavours, cherry bakewell, Madagascan vanilla and chocolate with passion fruit conserve.
Evening food was by
The Mobile Pizzeria, delicious stone baked pizzas made on site from a converted Land Rover! Adrian and I love pizza, and I had worked with the company before and knew how amazing their pizzas were. This was the perfect late night food after a few drinks and dancing.
The Photography
Jasmine from
Jasmine Jade Photography was our photographer. I had worked with Jasmine before and not only is she so lovely but she is a brilliant photographer! We loved her style of photography and how she can capture moments and emotions artistically without you realizing she’s even there. Adrian loved her energy just as much, it really was the best decision having Jasmine shoot our day and be with us.
We did a pre wedding shoot over at the park, which was a great way to see the spaces together before the wedding and also a chance to relax in front of the camera together.
Jasmine was great on the day, a real sense of calm and gentle guidance to shoot our day so brilliantly.
Jasmine invited us to her studio to preview a slideshow and view all of our photos which is a wonderful personal touch and is something we looked forward to after the wedding.
Jasmine is passionate to provide a photo album with her packages as often or not, no one actually prints their photos anymore or are just sent a USB of photos. We now have an amazing album of our best photos which was a hard selection process taking up to 5 hours to do! Our photos are incredible and we cherish all of them which we are so grateful to Jas for doing such a superb job.
The Film
I decided to book
White Dress Films for our video. Richard makes beautiful wedding films and he came highly recommended by Louise. Adrian had no idea until the week of the wedding we had a videographer even booked! It can be hard to explain just how much he would regret not having one made if only looking at budgets was the reason not to, so I took the risk of booking Richard and knew Adrian would love it and he absolutely did!
Richard made us trailer which we watch often and a full feature film, both are so incredible and he had captured our day so perfectly.
{Watch The Film}