Morning! Well, aren’t David and Julia a gorgeous couple? When Rachel submitted this to me, I couldn’t get over how incredible Julia’s gown looks on her. Pronovias are one of my favourites as I love the feminine tailoring. I wish I had had the opportunity to try one on, maybe someone will let me play dress up? I also adore that it was the groom who had an outfir change rather than the bride!
Yerly by Pronovias Atelier. My dress was a real surprise find. I’d looked at it on the hanger and walked straight by, but having tried on a few the shop owner then suggested I try it on. It’s silk brocade with a faint rose pattern all over. I know it’s a cliché, but the minute I saw myself in the mirror I just knew it was the right one for me.
Bride’s hair accessories/veil – I wore a simple hip length two-tiered veil with silk edging.
I went for a simple low bun hairstyle, similar to something I’d seen Jennifer Lawrence wear at the 2013 Oscars (courtesy of Lindsey at Hooker & Young)! My makeup was done by my friend Amy of Rose & Bird Makeup and we went for a natural look with a subtle smoky eye and eyeliner.
We had our wedding ceremony and reception at Newton Hall in the small village of Newton-by-the Sea which is right on the beautiful Northumberland coastline. Newton Hall was the first and only venue we viewed – from the minute we saw venue and each of the stunning bedrooms we just fell in love with its unique blend of opulence and quirk.
David works in fashion so his outfit choice was probably more of a deliberation than my own! He wore a black tuxedo by Hardy Amies for the ceremony with Berluti shoes, before changing into a cream double-breasted dinner jacket for the wedding breakfast and evening reception. I think his friends would have been disappointed if he hadn’t have made some sort of fashion statement!
Groomsmen’s outfits/accessories – The two best men, Paul and James, both wore black tuxedos.
My two bridesmaids, Lindsay and Rachel, looked gorgeous in floor-length Dessy dresses in Aqua. After searching high and low for shoes, we ended up getting gold heeled sandals from Dorothy Perkins which were a real steal! They each have their own individual styles so I didn’t want to impose strict accessory choices on them, so left it up to them how to accessorise.
I don’t think I would have predicted it, but my favourite was the ceremony. It was almost like an out of body experience. Having so many family and friends there just for us, smiling away, was absolutely perfect. I think the other moment I enjoyed was chilling out with a few friends outside after the wedding breakfast. It was a gorgeous spring evening and it was lovely to just to look around at everyone enjoying themselves.
All of our catering was provided by Newton Hall. For our drinks reception we had a choice of either black raspberry mojito or lychee martinis (my favourite drink). We gave our guests a choice of food for the wedding breakfast which was a bit of a nightmare to organise but worth it – if anyone is trying to decide what to feed their guests then I can tell you that the majority of our guests went for the salmon starter, roast beef dinner and Eton mess for desert!
Bernadett at Dreamworld Cakes created a wonderful cake table for us, with a Victoria sponge wedding cake, passion fruit cupcakes, chocolate and baileys mini cakes, white chocolate cake-pops as well as white chocolate & tarragon and raspberry & basil macaroons. I didn’t eat a single thing from the cake table as they went so fast, but apparently they were delicious.
We used Fern Florists for our flowers and they did such a beautiful job. As my dress was simple and classic they advised that an all-rose bouquet would work best. We went for a mixture of pink/lilac Memory Lane roses, soft pink Sweet Avalanche roses and ivory Akito roses, interspersed with “Baby Blue” eucalyptus. The table centres were then made up from these same flowers but with added white hydrangea, pink larkspur, lilac veronica, white phlox and dusky pink astrantia.
We never really decided on a theme as such, but both naturally wanted things that were simple, stylish and elegant. The vintage thing is just not us at all. I guess there was a bit of Gatsby inspiration in there, but we didn’t try too hard to create a definite look.
We had all of our wedding stationery created by a seller on Etsy.com using cream, gold and black as our colour palette.
Rather than buy favours we chose to donate money to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a local charity which is very close to our hearts.
Rachel Rose Photography – Rachel was absolutely wonderful and I am so glad we chose her as our photographer. She captured perfectly all of the small details of our wedding day in such a natural way. Picking the photos for our album has been such a difficult task because we just love all of them so much!
Our guests very generously contributed to our honeymoon fund through Trailfinders, and we’re organising a California road trip a year after our wedding as the “official” honeymoon, but to get away straight after the wedding we headed off to Mexico which was just what we needed to de-stress and reminisce.
We had the Strictly Smokin’ band and a DJ for our evening music.
Bite the bullet and start making decisions. There is so much inspiration out there that it can all be a bit overwhelming. You can easily spend a lot of time deliberating over the smallest of things, which is part of the fun for a while, but there comes a point when you need to get the planning ball rolling. Also, always go with your heart.
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