The Bride
Rachel The Bride: I was pretty sure of the style of dress I wanted, I tried on that style and absolutely hated it. I did however, find a designer that stood out and tried on almost every dress in the
Eliza Jane Howell collection within a couple of weeks and finally chose the Violet dress from
Cicily Bridal. I also wore a headband from
Debbie Carlisle and a full length veil by Neive in the day and a floral headband (an absolute masterpiece) by Lauren Harrison in the evening.
The Groom
Deciding on Chris’ suit seemed like a pretty straight forward affair. He found a suit he loved from
Ted Baker and had it altered for his, smaller stature. But with a few weeks until the wedding he had a change of heart of bought a suit from Next instead which teamed up perfectly with his Dr Martens.
The Venue
Like many other engaged couples, we started our wedding planning with a small event in mind. Inevitably, the day was anything but. We only saw one wedding venue before booking and instantly knew it was the one for us. At the time,
The West Mill at Darley Abbey was under renovation so having a bit of faith was key, The day we booked, the venue was lacking in the fundamentals like walls and floors. We wanted a venue that could cater to both a humanist ceremony and reception for an ever expanding guest list. The venue is spread over 4 floors and has been renovated in such a unique way whilst maintaining the history of the building.
The Details
The array of table flowers and my floral headband for the evening were put together by Lauren Harrison. The vases collected from charity shops and some of the foliage was foraged by bridesmaids Katie and Lorna on the wedding eve. Lauren also integrated some peacock feathers which I bought from the market in Derby. Instead of the traditional champagne toast, we went for a home-brewed fruit infused vodka (one of Chris’ friends recipes) that floored a few guests and ended up being thrown on the mother of the brides dress by the father of the bride, her ex husband. For the ceremony backdrop we had Macrame curtain hanging from Ebay and decorated with pictures of our maid of honour, Grace and our nephew, Winter.
The Ceremony
Our ceremony was based around the principles of a humanist ceremony, we wrote our own vows and had a reading from a Steinbeck book ‘Travels with Charles’ read by Chris’ Mum. One of our friends, Izzy, played the piano after the ceremony. We had a song for our nephew Winter and a song for my maid of honour Grace who died a few months before the wedding. The music was our time to remember the people that weren’t there on the day.