Our Story
Viola the Bride: Dan was serving (and still is) in the Royal Air Force when we met almost 9 years ago, we hit it off immediately and became pretty inseparable right away, that being said it was a weekend relationship for the first 3 years due to the 4-5 hour distance between us. We LOVE to travel so lived for our long trips away exploring. 2 year in we bought our first home together and a year later after a tour to Afghanistan Dan was able to officially move in after being posted close to our home. With Viola working shift’s for many years as a dedicated nurse, finding time to spend together has at times been hard, but always remained a priority. We are proof that long distance works if you really want it to.
The proposal came 7.5 years in, at a stunning sunset on holiday. The ring… well the rings is everything and more, a perfectly cut trilogy representing our history together, the present and the future, perfect for us.
Intimate Greenery Wedding
The wedding day was incredible, it was such an amazing feeling to see all the planning come together to the exact vision we had from the beginning, the theme was green, green and more green. Foliage galore and less is more. We were adamant to keep this day about us and not everybody else, so we had a strict criteria for the guest list; we wanted no more than 60 guests in the day, and this list was made up of people who knew us both well and who had been close to us over the last 8 years of our relationship, so we had the best of friends and the closest of family there. A similar rule applied to the night guests; we both knew everyone invited, avoiding ‘the aunt you last saw when you were two years old’ scenario. Neither of us wanted to meet someone for the first time at the wedding or see someone we hardly know and have nothing to say to them (how awkward).
Packington Moore Rustic Wedding Venue
We were looking for that perfect stone barn, not too rustic but not too polished. We looked at some dreamy Italian venues with charming courtyards, so we couldn’t believe our luck when we found
Packington Moore at almost exactly half way between Shrewsbury and Sheffield (where majority of our guests were travelling from), it was the most similar to the Italian venues we could find and it even had a stunning courtyard… perfect. Unfortunately at the end of 2017, with a heavy heart they were forced to close the venue to make way for the HS2 train line.
Simple 'Milan' St Partrick Bridal Gown
I knew I wanted a simple timeless plain wedding dress and I wanted to stay completely away from lace and diamantes. I tried on every shape and size dress, I am hugely indecisive so it was quite a long process. I ended up going for a
St Patrick gown called Milan from Wedding world in Shrewsbury. From the front it was exactly what I had been looking for, a simple white dress with some structure, but from the back it had that added extra wow factor, best of both worlds. I chose a single layer long veil to the length of the train. My shoes… I had planned a girls day out with my bridesmaid to Birmingham, I went off with a credit card and told myself this is my once in a life time opportunity to buy those designer heels that you see in the magazines, I was so excited. I tried on sooo many, they were all so uncomfortable, but I was even prepared for the whole ‘no pain no gain’ but not a single pair took my fancy, left feeling a little deflated we headed back to the train station and popped into
New Look on the way, where I found a very plain and simple pair of baby blue shoes with the perfect heel height, with my NHS discount they came to a grand total of £12. And they were so comfortable I didn’t take them off at all throughout the whole 12 hour day. I am not a very blingy person so I opted for a simple pair of diamond studded earrings just my engagement ring for my jewellery.
Peter Posh Suit
The groom suit was from
Peter Posh, he opted for a grey tweed waistcoat to match the grey bridesmaids.
Bridesmaids
The bridesmaid dresses were from the NEC wedding show, they were grey in colour with a hint of green, “geenygrey” it was called. They were the perfect backdrop colour for the venue and the green foliage bouquets.
Wedding Stationery & Venue Décor
The stationery matched our foliage theme with a simple white background with water coloured leaves. My favourite part of the stationery was the table numbers, we included a picture of each of us as children and the age matched the table number. This was a great ice breaker for the tables too, as I’m sure everyone had a good laugh, especially at Dan’s bright orange bowl haircut.
I also taught myself some calligraphy for the day to make our wedding boards, I bought a kit from The Chalk Spot that included a teaching book with practice sheets. #the boards were painted pieced of MDF to look like chalk boards, super cheap to do but very effective.
We went pretty simple with the décor of the venue as we were sure not to interfere with the character and the simple beauty of the place. A tree from the back garden from our home needed to come down a few weeks before the wedding, so we used this to cut into logs for our table centre pieces which ended up being a lovely sentimental touch, Jam jars were collected by family and friends to hold the flowers/foliage and floating candles.
Wedding Flowers
The moment we met
Carrie we knew she was the florist for us, I described one flower as a round greeny thing with little bits on and a bit floppy, she went to her garage and came back with the exact flower I was talking about… unbelievable. She completely got our vision and seemed as excited about our wedding as we were. Carrie was hugely reasonably priced and made every effort to save us money whenever possible by suggesting ideas to reuse flowers from the ceremony to the reception; she had our best interest at heart throughout.
Wedding Ceremony
“My favourite part was when Dan messed up his vows slightly, he said “I am” at the wrong point and blamed the registrar for having an unnecessary pause. The whole room burst into laughter and it completely took away all of my nerves that I had whilst walking down the aisle. I have this weird anxiety of having all eyes on me, and originally wanted to stand at the end and have Dan walk down to me, but also didn’t want to deprive my dad of having that “walking his daughter down the aisle moment”. So having this moment of laughter completely took all my worries away and left me with only an “oh my f*@&%ing god I’m getting married” kind of excitement.”
We wrote our own vows but included some traditional ones too, it was important to us that the vows were relatable to us. A close friend also read out a beautiful poem about love, which also meant a lot to us. The ceremony was short but sweet, exactly how we had planned it. We avoided the whole taking a picture of us fake signing a fake register moment, this did not appeal to us at all! We wanted the photographs and video to capture real moments and for the day to be as true to us as it possibly could.
Wedding Photography
We chose
Amy Faith Photography because she is the best; unconventional and imaginative. After following Amy’s Facebook page for years, we absolutely loved her style of photography. We didn’t want the white and fluffy traditional photos, instead we wanted photos with depth and character and Amy did not disappoint!
We definitely enjoyed working with Amy as our photographer. She even put up with all the drunk groomsmen and managed to get them in line for a photo…. SKILLZ!!!
Videography
Our Videographer Ollie of
Floodgate Films was a dream to work with, we actually found him along with our photographer before we booked the wedding, and booked the day around his availability. And we are so glad that we did, it is a piece of art and is far from the home video look, it’s incredible. I am sure we have watched the short version over one hundred times since the day; we will never get bored of watching it. It also includes our first dance song, and the extra-long (full day) version includes some very funny moments from the day, including when the groom’s men decided to push the groom over in a porter-loo at the adjacent farm, could have ended in disaster but made a very funny moment. Also hearing everyone laughing and signing during the sparkler send-off is so lovely to listen to.
{Watch the Film}
Special Moments
Dan the Bride: “My favourite part was when our dog, Lexi, arrived! (Sorry Viola, marrying Viola was also a GREAT part!) It was a complete surprise and I had no idea Lexi was coming, after asking for months and months if she could come to the wedding, and getting a big fat NO as an answer every time. Viola had arranged for the dog sitter to bring Lexi to arrive just after the ceremony…. I love the bulldog!”
Wedding Entertainment
We searched for months for the perfect wedding band, spent hours on the internet listening to demos until we came across
FRAUDIO. They were incredible, so good that some wedding guests have booked them for their wedding. They blew us away with their acoustic set in the middle of the night and played the most amazing version of stand by me by Ben E King, this song will now always remind us of our wedding night. One of the best decisions of our wedding was booking this band.
Host The Roast Wedding Breakfast
For our day food we had ‘host the roast’ a really fun way to have your wedding breakfast. We supplied a person per table with a chef’s apron and hat to carve the meat, It was very funny to watch. For our evening food we had street food, as keen travellers we have eaten street food all over the world, so this was very fitting to us. It went down a treat! So many of our guests went back for seconds that we ran out, this was served in the beautiful courtyard in extra-large woks, the smell from the food and the fire from the woks were a treat on the senses.
Cake
Our cake was by Sophie at
Confetti Cakery, it was amazing!! We went for a tier of lemon with a lemon curd filling, red velvet and salted caramel chocolate, all three tasted incredible. The look was in keeping with the theme, simple, stylish and foliage. Sophie was a dream to work with, she lived very far from us, but nothing was too much trouble, she set up the cake at the venue for very little extra cost, plus she is a super lovely lady. We were also sent sketched designs of the cake prior to finalising deign, these have become a lovely framed keepsake.
Honeymoon
2 days after the wedding we headed off on our AMAZING honeymoon, we spent 4 nights in Las Vegas before jetting off to Costa Rica for 2 weeks, we went to 4 different places in Costa Rica as we travelled from the north to south along the pacific coast. It was one of the best trips we’ve ever taken, from the hot springs warmed by an active volcano, the immense wildlife in the jungles, the pristine beaches, being a metre away from a pod of humpback whales, to making a new friend Sebastian the Sloth (named by Dan).
Wedding Planning Advice
The planning part was exciting but definitely stressful at times. Our main tip is to plan the expenditure early and constantly keep re-assessing. There were many times when we thought we had thought of everything, so we planned our monthly saving and left-over money budget, only to realise we had forgotten something! Spend money on things that YOU want that will add to the value/fun for YOUR day. You can get easily get carried away on planning things that are not necessary. Every time we saw something for the wedding that we liked we would ask ourselves “will we remember this in 20 years’ time?” and “will this make the wedding more fun for us” if the answer was no to either, we binned it off.
I would also advise to take moments throughout the day to be together to look at everything, including the venue and to watch your guests enjoy themselves, we found this helped the day not go so fast and ensured the we took time to really see all of our planning come to life.
Remember to have fun and try to stay as relaxed as possible! Don’t worry about things going wrong; they often turn into the best times. We had a little disaster on one evening of the hen do that completely worked in our favour and we ended getting an experience that money can’t buy – a boat trip on the Thames didn’t have our original booking which left 20+ ladies in London with nothing to do! Instead we ended up going to a gorgeous picturesque French restaurant (cheese and wine overload) in Convent Garden and had the whole of the courtyard to ourselves surrounded by stunning flower arches with my best friends… perfect.
Biggest tip, go and visit lots of wedding venues… you get free prosecco!!