Blind Date Love Story
Grace & James: James & I met on a blind date, set up by our two best friends. A very busy nine years later, Jim proposed with a velvet
Mrs Box and we spent a wonderful day visiting antique jewellers to find the perfect ring. I came home the proud owner of a a very beautiful gold diamond trio, which we named Mr Sparkles! We set our wedding for the second May bank holiday - my parents were married on the first bank holiday and May is my favourite month for flowers - a massive consideration being a florist!
Fine Art Styling By Kate Cullen
Working in the wedding industry, I already knew so many wonderful suppliers - it was so hard to choose who to ask to help. My first port of call was always going to be
Kate Cullen. We have worked together for years now and I love her style & vision. Kate kindly agreed to take me on as her last ever styling client and worked wonders with coordination before the day and on it too. Although I’m an annoying perfectionist, I knew that I could leave the table & marquee set up to her and it would all look incredible - and it did. Kate brought together my vision of relaxed, classic elegance and dyed bespoke napkins for us in the most delicious berry pink and provided an array of silk and velvet ribbons for our bouquets. The lovely
Laura Elizabeth Patrick created our invites, menus & name placecards, which we know friends have kept and framed!
Fine Art Photography & Film
I knew I wanted a fine art style photographer and video too -
Baxter & Ted’s Caroline & Chris were the only ones we wanted for the day. (Still waiting on the video but should have this asap if you wanted to feature that too!) They made us feel so at ease, even though neither of us enjoy being in front of the lens.
Hayley Paige 'Princess' Style Wedding Dress
I’m not a terribly girly person, but ended up with a total princess dress. I knew I didn’t want white or ivory and discovered
Hayley Paige & a new boutique in Bath who stocked her designs,
Ellie Rose Bridal. Ellie was so helpful and lovely - after lots of fun trying on, I fell in love with Dori and never looked back. I tried a few more dresses on after her, but nothing ever came close. She was the absolute opposite of what I thought I wanted, but I desperately didn’t want to take her off by the end of the night!
Victoria Fergusson made my gorgeous earrings and apart from them, the only other jewellery I wore was a ring that I had made by
Tom McEwan, which contained gold and silver from jewellery from my grandparents, mum, dad & James. I’m a shoe obsessive, but knew I had to be frugal somewhere. You couldn’t see my shoes beneath the dress, even when I walked, so I re-wore a super comfy pair I had as a bridesmaid.
My maids are all very different in body type, but we found the perfect dresses in
Ellie Rose - again they were Hayley Paige. Each was just a little bit different but in the gorgeous burgundy pink which was running through the wedding. We chose star themed jewellery from
Anthropologie &
Accessorise, with sparkly shoes from
ASOS.
Moss Bros. Suit Hire
James is a joiner, so buying a suit which he might use again wasn’t practical. We decided to hire them from
Moss Bros. Cue them arriving three days before the wedding and not fitting. AT ALL. A speedy change around by James’s mum though and we got their in the end. He wore a black velvet bowtie from
Mrs Bow Tie & his groomsmen wore burgundy velvet and they all had braces - which proved very good props for dancing! Each paired their outfit with a brown belt and shoes - James’s were from
Will's Vegan Shoes. Of course, he had to have his best dog by his side and so we made Bracken a very special floral collar! He sat by our feet and on my dress for the whole ceremony, as good as gold, even though he ran around like a lunatic during the rehearsal.
Hand Fasting Wedding Ceremony
We held the wedding at my parents house in their field, in a marquee from
Abbas Marquees. Neither of us wanted a church wedding, so we had a simple registry office wedding the week before, then a hand fasting on the day. Ali the celebrant is a friend of James’s Mum and she worked magic to create a ceremony that celebrated love, family and our relationship. We asked our mums, best man Matt & maid of honour Kat to each choose a ribbon to bind our hands with during the hand fasting - the most ancient of marriage ceremonies. My mum chose brown for healing, nurturing, home and hearth, whilst Jim's mum chose gold for unity, longevity and strength. Matt chose black, for empowerment, wisdom and pure love, whilst Kat chose silver for creativity, inspiration and protection.