Tag Archives: seaside

A Seaside Themed Wedding in St Ives: Suzy & Christian

in British Brides, Wedding | Written by

When the deputy editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine gets married, you just know it’s going to be awesome right? Well Suzy & her fiance Christian didn’t disappoint when planning their summer wedding. Choosing St Ives, Cornwall as the location, what could be more apt than a seaside themed wedding?!

“We met at journalism school in London in 1999 and were friends for five years before we eventually got together,” began Suzy. “Even though we live in London (and I’m from Oxford), we never discussed getting married anywhere but St Ives. It’s the place my dad’s been to on holiday ever year since he was a baby – so the place I’ve been to on holiday every year too. It’s the most beautiful seaside town with gorgeous cobbled streets and the most spectacular beaches. It feels magical and we wanted to share it with all our friends.”

“From the off, we were agreed on one thing: that we wanted to have a legendary party that all our friends had a total blast at. We wanted to thank everyone for coming by making them feel special and part of the day. We gave as many of our mates jobs as possible (in a nice way) and personalised as much stuff as we could without having breakdowns.”

The ceremony was held at St la’s Church and the reception at Carbis Bay Hotel, right on the beach. “We wanted a seaside theme to run through our wedding,” explained Suzy when I asked about their wedding theme and decor ideas, “particularly the stationery. One of our friends, Dave, is an illustrator and has just set up a bespoke wedding invitation business, Love Illustrated. He very kindly said he’d design our invitations as a wedding present. Dave told us to be as ‘creative and out there’ as we liked. I think he may have slightly regretted that…”

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A Homespun Beach Wedding: Elissa & Chris

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Weddings like Elissa & Chris’ make me all giddy inside. A relatively simple affair done well is probably my current favourite kind of wedding style. No fuss, no stress, just effortlessly cool. One day I’ll be as awesome as these guys!

The reception was held in the backyard of a private residence, owned by Chris’ family, in Carolina Beach, NC. The family owns two beach cottages on a lake that share a large lawn, and that was the perfect place for them to pitch their tent which played host to their epic party!

“We toured a number of venues in the New England area when we first got engaged, mostly summer camps and farms, but just when we thought we had it figured out we realized we were way off course,” the couple explained. “We wanted to celebrate at a place that was not completely plucked from the blue. We spent a lot of time wishing we had a farmer owner in the family, and then realized NC would be perfect. The most important thing all along has been to find a place where we could have complete control over set-up, food, decoration, etc. We wanted to DIY as much as possible, as cookie cutter weddings don’t appeal to us in the slightest. At first we wanted to elope, but realized we would regret not bringing our families and friends together to celebrate in a way that was totally ‘us’.”

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A Retro, Kitsch & Cherry-Themed Southend-on-Sea Wedding: Heidi & Jim

in British Brides, Wedding | Written by

You can’t help but fall in love with Heidi & Jim’s Southend-on-Sea wedding. The cherry theme is just so cute and perfect for a retro, quirky and kitsch seaside wedding. “Our inspiration was most definately ourselves, our loved ones and where we live, sunny Southend-on-Sea!” Heidi explained. “We wanted a wedding that was totally personal to us, that involved everyone close to us as much as we could and that was totally full of fun and unstuffy. We knew we wanted good food and a venue that was ours, where we could do what we wanted, decorate it how we wanted, drink the drinks we wanted and eat the food we wanted!”

“We wanted to incorporate the seaside and beloved beach huts and achieved this through our wedding photographer Sam Gibson‘s wonderful photos and the beautiful view from our favourite restaurant, Toulouse, where we had a four course meal before our after-party at Red Brick Barn, Rochford. We wanted as much as possible to be homemade, thoughtful and unique and to give those close to us the opportunity to do something they love doing towards our big day.”

 

The bride wore a Vivien of Holloway circle dress and cute cherry Vivienne Westwood/Melissa shoes. Her incredible headpiece was actually homemade by the bride and was inspired by a very expensive (and way out of budget) Piers Atkinson piece.

The couple decorated Red Brick Barn themselves with handmade bunting, vinyl cake stands and bowls bought on eBay and hundreds of coke bottles with flowers in them. “We would just love to say how much of an amazing time we had,” concluded the bride. “We would hugely recommend doing everything yourself. Yes, it’s hard work but the result is amazing! It’s so easy to get swept along into a carbon copy package wedding with no personality or originality, but break that mould and do what you want! If other people don’t like it that’s their problem not yours.”

“We couldn’t have asked for a better day. We had some wind and a spot of rain but it all added to the character of the day and without it we wouldn’t have had the beautiful rainbow! Now that’s something you can’t choose out of the bridal magazines!”

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A Laid-Back Beach Wedding at Camber Sands: Fiona & Rob

in British Brides, Wedding | Written by

Fiona & Rob were hitched right by the beach at The Gallivant in Camber Sands (formally called The Place). The style of the beautiful hotel suited their beach theme perfectly. “I was quite keen for it not to look too wedding’y – or formal or too orchestrated” newlywed Fiona told me.

“We didn’t consciously go with a theme but it kind of happened!  We live on a beach and both my husband and I are kitesurfers so it had to feature strongly and in the end it made it easier to have a focus shaping our creative decisions!  I think always try and make stuff, not only to save money but to make it more personal and make your loved ones feel involved.”

“Many of the homemade elements were made with thanks to my Mum who worked hard on all this stuff. We made our own table displays.  We bought glass bowls from Argos and filled them with stones, seaweed and shells form our local beach. We all now have one in our houses as nice ornaments!  We made shell garlands, buying large shells from a seaside tourist shop and drilling holes in them to then thread onto thick string. These were hung up around the venue – adding to the beach theme!”

“Finally, we collected large pebbles from our local beach, wrote names on them using liquid craft pens and used them as place names.  We also put together kids packs including a colouring book, plastic bangles & bucket and spade.  Rather than having ‘favours’ we had big bowls of hairdo and love heart sweets dotted around.”

The bright sunflowers were also really important to the couple as they added some sunshine to their day, “It was all about sunflowers being my favourite flower and perfect for a sunny beach wedding,” Fiona said. “My parents and in-laws all grew some in their gardens over the summer which we used as extras in a few ceramic jugs and vases around the venue (which were all bought from Ikea.)  We then ordered a few tall glass displays from brilliant flower shop in Rye near to the venue called Cafe Des Fleurs. They also provided smaller sunflowers to put in small glass vases on the tables (bought from Ikea again), the little flowers for my hair & the button holes and finally my absolutely beautiful bouquet. We all had sunflowers in our houses for weeks afterwards!  The little flower girls also had baskets of yellow petals which they spread down the aisle as I walked in – very cute!”

The bride wore an informal tunic style dress from Phillip Lim. “I always imagined my wedding style to be a bit 60′s hippy love child – no idea why…I literally searched online for ‘short cream tunic dress’ and found it! The lace just made it look more delicate and special although I had to have a new under layer made as the previous one was a bit see through! I was nervous about the length but it wasn’t a church wedding and I am so happy I went with it as it looks awesome with our venue and theme.”

The couple certainly didn’t take themselves or their wedding too seriously which was reflected in the fact that after dinner they had organised a salsa class as entertainment for their guests! “It was very funny, not everyone loved it but we did which is the main thing!” continued Fiona. “We also asked my husband’s brother and wife to sing ‘All I Want is You’ by Barry Louis Polisar during our ceremony to a backing track, placing a song sheet on everyone seats to join in.  It was funny as they’re not professional singers (!) but its small things like this that make it way more personal and much less formal than a reading.”

The next day all the guests were invited back for a celebration BBQ on the beach.

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Multi-Coloured Seaside Fun

in British Brides, Engagement | Written by

Whitstable is such a little gem of a place for photo shoots. As most of you will know, my last Rock n Roll Bride photo shoot took place there but it would appear that Peri & Ryan knew some really awesome locations to visit that we never found. I mean just check out the multi-coloured beach hut. I love.

The couple, who live in the area (hence knowing all the best places to go!) are having a winter wedding in December so wanted to make sure they cashed in on a gorgeous summer engagement shoot. “It also happened to be the Whitstable Regatta that Saturday so we decided to do the shoot in the evening to catch the fireworks” their photographer Shell told me. ”It’s the best time of the day really as we got some gorgeous light, beautiful sunset and some fish and chips whilst watching the fireworks! Their nicknames for each other are muffin and cupcake hence the chalk board shots – I wanted to have a fun, whimsical feel to the shoot as they are a cute young couple, and their wedding is going to be 50s polka dots which I think will have a similar feel.”

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