Insanely gorgeous flowers, Choos and a Maggie Sottero gown for a West Midlands wedding | uk wedding blog

Good morning!! I hope that those of you down south are managing to cope in the heat. I am slightly jealous but it has been coool and breezy up here for 2 days now and it is most welcome. Today’s wedding is full of everything I love. Jo Malone, Jimmy Choos, Tunnocks Teacakes and St Germain. I also love that is was the beautiful bride Leah that submitted the wedding, chose the images and wrote some lovely things about her suppliers. The words are always so much more genuine when they come from a happy couple

Photography by Laura Cloutman

Suppliers

Venue: St George and St Teresa RC Church, Dorridge and Fentham Hall, Hampton-in-Arden

Wedding photographer: Laura Cloutman (@LauraCloutman)

Flowers: Birmingham Flower Market, bridal party flowers arranged by a friend of a friend that used to be a florist but now just does it for friends etc. Flowers in bouquets were blue hydrangea, peonies, cream freesia, bouvardia, avalanche roses, delphinium and sweet akito roses. They smelled as lovely as they looked.

Lots of people had said to me not to waste money on flowers – but to me they were a really important of the day.  I love flowers.  I knew I wanted peonies and blue hydrangea’s and a country garden look.  Definitely nothing too structured and absolutely no embellishments.   I met with Nicole a couple of times to talk through the flowers and went with her to the flower market-she got what I wanted, perfectly.  I almost cried on the morning of the wedding when they arrived.

Bride’s dress /shoes: Dress – Maggie Sottero, Camden – bought from The Bride Sale at a local hotel.  The dress was lower down on my list of priorities, I didn’t go into many shops but when I did I didn’t enjoy it.  I initially wanted lace sleeves.  There was a local sample sale and the women there were really helpful and friendly.  I do think it was a bit of an impulse purchase (the back was too low really) but I loved the detail.

Shoes – Jimmy Choo, Selfridges

Earrings and bracelet – Accessorize

Bride’s hair accessories/veil – Hair band – friends / Veil – The Bride Sale

Bride’s hair /makeup – Local mobile hairdresser / Makeup – friend / Shellac nails – Love Thy Nails (@LoveThyNails)

Bridesmaids’/dresses/shoes/accessories: Dresses – Phase Eight, / Shoes – Bertie and Debenhams /Accessories – Accessorize and bridesmaids own

Flower Girls: dress – John Lewis, sandals – Monsoon

Groom’s outfit/accessories/shoes – Suit – Reiss / Bow tie – Gieves and Hawkes / Cufflinks – Tiffany’s / Braces – Thomas Pink / Shoes – Office

Groomsmen’s outfits/accessories – Bow ties – Gieves and Hawkes / Cufflinks – not on the high street / Suits – their own /

Page Boys:  shorts – Monsoon, shirts – next, bow ties and braces – Cachet kids

Cake – Mother in Law made fruit tier, one friend made Carrot and another friend made lemon, Chocolate and decorated it with sugar paste hydrangea petals

DJ/entertainment

Harpist – Alison Eve www.alisoneve.co.uk

DJ Adey Hughes – Jam Productions (he was ace!!) www.jamproductions.co.uk  We had our first dance to Dolly and Kenny ‘Islands in the Stream’.  We hadn’t rehearsed…and it showed, but was lots of fun.  The dancing didn’t stop from the first dance until Elvis Presley ‘The wonder of you’ played as the last song of the evening.  There were several ‘dance-offs’ and lots of people had ‘best dancer in the world syndrome’….I only wished we’d booked the photographer for the whole evening to capture this.  But I’m sure most of our guests are relieved we didn’t!

Stationery- Designs by a friend of one of my bridemaids and printed by Solihull Print. I loved the designs and Helena managed to create exactly what I wanted

Décor/wedding details

Light up letters – Doris Loves (@HelloDorisLoves)

Crystal and cut glass vases – local charity shops and The Room Dresser

Venue dressing (drapes etc) Claire Whitelaw, The Room Dresser (www.theroomdresser.co.uk)

The tables were named after some of our most memorable meals from Smiths of Smithfield where we had our fist date to Café Saffron, our local indian restaurant where Winnie and Stanley had their first curry.

Thank you presents:

Bridesmaids – Jo Malone, English Pear and Freesia (Freesia were in the flowers and I could steal their perfume in the evening )

Groomsmen – cufflinks from Highland Angel from notonthehighstreet.com

Flower girls – ‘a guide to wild flowers’ book and a wooden flower press from BigJigs

Friends that baked cake and did make-up – Christian Dior nail polish

Catering/food/drink

Kemp and Kemp – they were brilliant. I have attached our menu.  If I hadn’t discovered K&K then we probably wouldn’t have taken the village hall approach.  After looking at them online and then speaking with Richard I was confident that they could serve up food we’d love.  And they did!  Although apparently one of my uncles did say he’d have preferred some gravy to the ‘green stuff’ (salsa verde) J

Wine and prosecco from Laithwaites Solihull – really excellent service here!

St Germain (Elderflower Liqueur) to have with prosecco for reception drinks – from The Drinks Shop – great service from them too

Glasses from Plato Catering Hire

Wedding favours: Tunnocks tea cakes (dark chocolate)

Honeymoon Destination: We had a minimoon st Barnsley House, in the Cotswolds and stayed in the Potting Shed.  We had a wonderful child-free few days, the food was scrummy and the staff  super.