Lauralei and James, known to friends and family as Frog and Weasel, were hitched in St Ives in June. They rented a gorgeous cottage for the week and were married on a Wednesday. Their ceremony was held at St Nicholas Chapel and they had lunch at The Rum and Crab Shack where they had a huge crayfish buffet for everyone to dig into. Finally, the evening reception was at Porthmeor Studios, a mid-century built artist studios.
“I wouldn’t say we had any particular inspiration, we just followed our hearts to make it reflect us perfectly!” began the bride. “We really struggled to find the right venue initially. We knew we wanted to be in our favourite part of Cornwall, but could not work out exactly where. We wanted something low key and relaxed like a village hall, but just couldn’t find the right thing. We visited lots of small venues, but none could cater for our needs to the whole thing and a price we could stretch to. After visiting Porthmeorʼs open studios, I had a random brainwave. Thinking it would be a long shot I immediately emailed to see if there was any way we could hire a studio. We were amazed when we found out we could! Realising it wouldn’t be right for the whole day we decided we would mix and match all of our favourite venues and that is how we ended up with the chapel and the Crab Shack. Why settle for something when you can have everything you want!? Plus it lead us to our very loose theme: Frog & Weaselʼs Big Day Out in St Ives!”
The pair mostly decorated the venues themselves. “We had a lot of stressful moments with the décor, but also a lot of fun creating and planning it”, she explained. “Weaselʼs sister made giant paper pom poms for the studio, along with loads of paper windmills for the ceremony. We had homemade bunting from all our friends. We collected loads of rum bottles (this was a pleasurable chore) to decorate the tables, our friends lent us little LED strings to put inside and we added beautiful paper flowers.”
“Weasel spent ages making the flowers out of maps of places we had been or lived. He also made mini ones as lapel pins for him, his best men and our parents. From the leftovers I made mini paper bunting and attached them to knitting needles to decorate the buffet table. We also made directional signs, mini easel signs for the studio, a giant F and W, a cardboard post box and wooden boxes to display food on.”
“We decorated the buffet table with vintage fabrics, my maternal grandmotherʼs crochet doilies which my mother lent me, beach buckets of cutlery and giant slices of wood from Westonbirt trees! We had oodles of fairy lights everywhere and LED lanterns and more paper pom poms! I also printed about 200 photos of our 13 years together to display on the notices boards, these included photos of us at the weddings of our friends who came to ours, it was great fun going back through our history together and remembering all those special moments and adventures we have shared so far.”
The entertainment was a very important part of the day for this couple. “We knew even before we got engaged that we would invite the Spiders of Destiny to play for us at our wedding. We first saw this incredible band playing the music of Frank Zappa at a friend’s festival in Kent about 5 years ago, and I vowed if we ever got engaged that they would be our band!”
Frog’s dress was an Edwardian tea dress, “I found my dress at the magical Days of Grace in Budleigh, Salterton”, she said. “Having struggled for months and months with trips across the UK to find something suitable, I came across the Days of Grace facebook page. They were in Devon but I was going to be there for someone’s hen do the following weekend so I sent a desperate request for an appointment and got the loveliest reply from Linda saying they could fit me in! I was convinced I would never wear a white dress, but as my dress ended up being white I decided to add some colour and personality to it in the form of a sash. I have always loved Liberty fabrics, paisley in particular (hence husband’s attire) and spent ages selecting the perfect fabrics to join together in my colour splash. My mother in law put it together for me, she also made the silk slip to protect my modesty, the dress was very see through! I was going to dye the slip my favourite shade of green, but chickened out and stuck with white!”
“There are too many amazing moments to mention”, the bride concluded, “but we are so grateful to everyone who travelled down to St Ives for our wedding. It was just so awesome sitting outside the Sloop (our favourite pub) on the harbour and seeing our friends rock up. Also seeing everyoneʼs reaction to our ceremony which we wrote together with our officiant was incredible.”
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- Photography: Alexa Loy
- Officiant: Ken Prickett from the British Humanist Association
- Ceremony Venue: St Nicholas Chapel, The Island, St Ives
- Lunch Venue: The Rum and Crab Shack
- Reception Venue: Porthmeor Studios
- Bride's Dress: Days of Grace
- Bride's Shoes: Russell and Bromley
- Groom's Attire: Holland Esquire
- Flowers: Rosewood, The Truro Florist
- Band: Spiders of Destiny