I do love how weddings give the perfect opportunity to glamour things up to the max. Today’s celebration is beautiful and then some. A statement bouquet, a gorgeous bride in the most fabulous dress, and such a stunning venue! Every detail is just wonderful… I do hope you love this as much as I do!
Our theme came from my love of the Great Gatsby, I’ve watched the film and read the book a million times. The whole day from the invitations to the decorations and dress were inspired by the 1920’s era, featuring quotes from the book and patterns from the art deco period. With me being a designer for a living it was really easy to translate the designs from the invitations across to the rest of the theme for the wedding.
If you ask my Dad we had been to every dress shop in Nottingham and Leicestershire before we found ‘the one’! I knew I was looking for something different but every dress shop we went into something wasn’t clicking. I was about to settle for a dress when my Mum found The Wedding Room online, it was literally around the corner from where me and Chris live so I knew I needed to try it, I rang and managed to get a last minute appointment. As soon as I walked in the dress was hanging straight in front of me and as soon as I tried it on I knew it was the one! The beaded detail of the dress was what I had been looking for, the delicate material felt so gorgeous against your skin and it just fitted my figure! Me and my Mum both cried!
Chris didn’t want to wear a normal groom’s suit so he went to Ted Baker and was fitted for a gorgeous Navy Blue suit, he was kitted out head to toe. He liked the idea of not having just a white shirt so we went for a white with a white detail pattern it suited him perfectly, and finally we chose a complimentary coral pink tie to match the bridesmaids.
The images of this beautiful wedding are by the fabulous John Colson Photography, who you can discover more from here:
www.johncolson.com
Facebook.com/JohnColsonPhoto
Pinterest.com/johncolson
Twitter.com/JohnColsonPhoto
Wedding photographer’s website:
How did you choose your photographer?
We chose John due to his documentary style photography, it was so candid and it fit perfectly into what we wanted for our wedding day. As we are both a little camera shy his photography style was perfect, John has the magic of capturing the moment!
Were you pleased with your wedding photographer? Do tell… we love a brilliant review!
We were over the moon with John! His photo’s were out of this world and as my mum said, he captured the magic of the day. John had been in contact with us through out the wedding planning, checking in with ourselves and seeing how the plans were going, it made the whole process feel personal. A few weeks before the wedding John met up with ourselves to talk through the plans for the day and to have the most gorgeous pre-wedding shoot. He answered all our questions and laid out how he would do the all important family shots. We both felt very at ease with John especially when taking the all important “couple photographs”, it did help that Chris and John both supported the same football team!
On the wedding day when John arrived, he fitted into the background perfectly, taking lovely candid shots of our families as well as ourselves, the photographs of our flowers and table decorations were amazing! The day was all a blur so to look back at how everything looked was great. The photo’s arrived so quickly and were presented in a stunning wooden box, we can not recommend John enough for the gorgeous photographs we have to treasure.
Tell us about the moment you saw your wedding photos for the first time?
We had received an e-mail the previous week before receiving them, saying they may be with us that weekend, we were so excited! When they arrived they were in a gorgeous engraved wooden box with a beautiful wooden USB stick. It was August so we sat outside in the sun with a glass of champagne and started looking at the photo’s, as we were looking through them we realised how many John had took that we hadn’t realised! It captured the moments with our families perfectly. There are some photos’s from the Father of the Brides speech that capture the moment and see the full emotion of the day. It was very emotional going back through the day and seeing moments that had happened before the ceremony that neither of us had seen. Thank you John they were stunning!
Wedding venue:
Prestwold Hall, Leicestershire. It’s a stunning stately home in the Leicestershire countryside and fitted all our needs perfectly. It was so close to where I had grown up and meant so much to be close to our families.
Wedding month:
July
Where did you find your suppliers? (Blogs, magazines, recommendations?)
We found our suppliers through blogs initially, I love to research and had a jam packed mood board on Pinterest. We also found visiting wedding fairs helpful as it gave you a chance to talk to the suppliers directly when there is no pressure to book them on the spot.
What’s your top tip for saving money?
Our advice would be to look at what bits to do with your wedding you can do yourself, or have friends or family that could assist you. For us it was the stationery as I’m a designer, we saved a lot of money with me doing all the table plans, invitations, wedding menus. The Mother of the Groom is an excellent cake maker so we asked her to make our wedding cake, it was a labour of love and one that required her to try an awful lot of cake! Also if there is anyone handy at DIY in your family you can save a lot by doing some of this yourself, the Father of the Bride helped us make signage, and the photo frame guest book, as well as much of the table decorations.
… and which elements of your wedding are you glad you spent more on?
I’m so glad I spent that extra bit of money on my wedding dress & flowers, you can really see there was extra money spent there and the quality of my bouquet is amazing!
Where did you buy or source your wedding stationery – or was making it a labour of love?
For a living I’m a Greeting Card designer and when we got engaged our wedding stationery was the first thing I was thinking about doing, to me it was a joy to do, it was so bespoke to us and Chris had full input through out. I promise! We came up with a few ideas and I began designing them, I would bring mockups home most nights for Chris to look at and have his say. As I’m in touch day-to-day with paper producers I contacted G.F.Smith and they very kindly sent me all the paper & envelopes for free, so I think in total the wedding invitations cost me my time only. The wedding invitations again revolved around the 1920’s theme and included art deco patterns and font.
Wedding dress designer and bridal boutique:
Eliza Jane Howell, Lucille,
The most amazing wedding shop…. The Wedding Room, Chilwell Nottingham
Tell us about your accessories: jewellery, shoes and anything else!
My accessories were from The Wedding Room, I had a gorgeous beaded head band that went really well with the dress, the veil was a long length and had tiny beading detail cascading down complimenting the dress so well! I also had my earrings, bracelet and necklace from there, they are all handmade by a local designer. My shoes were from Rachel Simpson called Mimosa I had them in ivory as I wanted a timeless classic look.
Beautiful bridesmaids: what did your best girls wear?
We found the Bridesmaid dresses in David’s Bridal in watford and they are from their Vera Wang collection, they suited the theme perfectly and both girls felt so comfortable in them they didn’t want to take them off. They came in a gorgeous coral colour, which we had searched high and low to find! Finally there shoes were navy and full of sparkle, which fitted our glitter them amazingly! I loved the contrast in colour.
Hair and make-up – did you DIY or hire a professional?
My hair and make-up was so important and I made sure I chose two professionals I would trust to make the day perfect. I found Rochelle & Amie, through looking on the internet, Rochelle had won so many awards for her make-up I knew I needed to book her. I contacted both of them around two years before we got married, and they were both already getting booked up that far in advance! For my trial Rochelle has a studio at her home where she invites brides to do have their trial, my mum was incredibly nervous about the day and I wanted to reassure her she would look stunning, both were more than happy to do my trial and my mum’s on the same day. We all met at Rochelle’s and had the best time, they both knew what look I was going for and I left feeling like a princess!
On the day both turned up so early and were such a calm presence to have around, if you look at the photo’s I think my face says it all, I was just over the moon with the whole look I can’t thank the pair enough!
Describe your wedding flowers. Who arranged them for you? (florist details would be lovely please)
http://www.theweddingroomnottingham.co.uk/
The Wedding Room
As well as finding my dress there, Mary the shop owner, also does flowers and table decorations, she had worked at our venue several times before so we knew it made sense to be all under one roof. Me and Mary worked really closely to create the vision for the wedding, I created mood boards and Mary created pinterest boards. We incorporated my Grandma’s favourite fern into the bouquet so she would be with me on my wedding day. Mary really helped me to get the most out of the flowers, my wedding bouquet was out of this world and suited our theme so so well! The button holes, tiny floral details around the hall and the large bouquet behind the fireplace were just amazing. The colours and combinations of florals were so stunning.
General styling – did your venue need much decoration?
The hall itself was so grand with hundreds of years worth of history that it didn’t need a lot, we just wanted to add our own personal touches to the table decorations and sweet station. The theme we had fitted in perfectly with the surroundings and complimented our flowers perfectly. We had fairy lights outside the venue, and then inside we had areas with clusters of flowers in small vases to tie together the look. Our main focus was where we were holding the wedding breakfast we ensure here was decorated with flowers, sparkle and gold, the chairs &t ables had sequin bands it really set the room back to the 1920’s.
Crafts and makes – tell us about any homemade elements of your wedding… did you enjoy them?
I loved every minute of the craft DIY! I made almost all of the table decorations my self, apart from the previous year my Mum & Dad’s beloved conker tree fell and we had a lot of wood left over from this so we cut the trunk into chunky circles and sprayed them gold and added glitter detailing around the edge, these were my favourite addition to the tables, they just looked so beautiful! We also bought lots of small jars and vases and sprayed these gold and applied layers of glitter to each of them. The table names were all cut out by hand and sprayed gold, these were then attached to florist sticks to give the height away from the flowers. All our wedding favour boxes and menu’s were made by hand following the same design from the wedding invitations and using the last up of the paper.
The wedding cake: what kind of cake did you choose and why?
The Mother of the Groom made our wedding cake, we chose to have a 3 tier cake all in white with areas of sparkle. There were 3 different flavours, 1 for each tier, orange, lemon and vanilla. We had a lovely layer of buttercream and jam in between and more buttercream at the edge. All of the flowers cascading down the edge of the cake were handcrafted by Chris’ mum using icing and being moulded around wire. It really was stunning!
Entertainment: any musical recommendations, surprises or treats?
We chose to have a DJ, and requested some of our favourite songs as well as some that had a 1920’s theme.
My mum & dad had arrange to have a wedding pork pie delivered to the venue, Chris loves pork pies! He had no idea and there’s such a lovely photo captured of him seeing it for the first time, it’s one of my mum’s favourites he looks so happy.
Me and Chris had been secretly to dance lessons a few months before and had learnt a routine to our first dance song, no one knew we were doing it and it was so lovely, my Mum and Dad were blown away.
Words of wisdom: share your best piece of advice for other couples:
My one piece of advice would be to set a budget, and make sure it’s a realistic budget and not an endless Pinterest budget. I was guilty of initially browsing through magazines and the internet and looking at everything it was turning into Chris’ financial nightmare! The last thing you want is to be starting your wedded life in debt. Before we had even went to properly look at a venue/dress/photographer we sat down and worked out a budget we could achieve in the two years. I created a budget spreadsheet (it was a very pretty spreadsheet and was colour coded and even had pictures!) and I had roughly given every category a budget, even down to confetti, underwear, nails, stationery, candles as well as the big obvious wedding necessities. This allowed us over the planning process to see where our money was going and when. With weddings you’ll find that there are months where no-one needs paying, and months where it seems everyone needs paying. If you are able to it’s best to get the organised early and have a folder, allowing you to collate the venues, menus, cakes, dresses, invitations. There are always things that need adding on that you forget about, for us it was a spare pair of shoes for me and some extra decorations for the day! But without the spreadsheet we would have forgotten a lot more than just that!
What’s the best thing about being married?
The best thing about being married is going to sound so cheesy, but being married to my best friend. We’ve been together over 7 years and have accomplished so much together in that time. It’s so lovely having each other to call Husband & Wife!
Favourite supplier web links for other brides and grooms:
http://www.theweddingroomnottingham.co.uk/ – Wedding Dress, Flowers, Table & Chair Decorations
http://rochelleobrien.co.uk/ – Makeup Artist
http://www.monamieweddinghair.co.uk/ – Hair
http://www.elizajanehowell.com/ – Wedding Dress
https://rachelsimpsonshoes.co.uk/ – Wedding Shoes
http://www.johncolson.com/ – Photography
www.prestwold-hall.com – Venue
http://www.davidsbridal.co.uk/ – Bridesmaid Dresses