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A Two-Day Hindu & Catholic Wedding: Lucy & Vish {Part Two}

February 1, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding | 11 comments

After the festivities of their Hindu ceremony, Lucy & Vish woke up on the Saturday morning ready to do it all again – this time in a Catholic church. The ceremony was held at St Patrick’s RC Church, Manchester, with the reception that followed back at St Peter’s Hall.

Their Catholic wedding has very British influences – from high tea to bingo! Lucy wore a vintage wedding dress from Elizabeth Avey. “I knew I wanted a vintage Betty Draper-esque dress, as the 50s is my style era! Elizabeth’s was my first stop, which was ideal as it was only up the road from where I live in Kentish Town. Although I didn’t find the dress straight away, Elizabeth knew exactly what I wanted and told me to return in a few weeks as she was due to get in more pieces. I’m so glad I went back as when I returned she pulled out THE dress, which was an original 50s number, fresh from LA! Although she needed a clean she was in pristine condition for her 60 years! It was originally a drop waist dress but the lovely ladies at Designer Alterations raised the waist to make it more prom style and lowered the neckline at the back, other than that she is exactly as she was the first time around!”

“I am obsessed with tea and cake, so my china tea-sets had to have a starring role, we had a tea-station serving masala chai, home-made cakes and Indian sweets on both days! We were able to supply all our own booze so we had a seemingly endless supply of Prosecco, which I drank from a tea-cup all night!  On the Saturday night, the wedding guests actually drank the bar dry twice which led to our caterers having to go out and buy more booze! This led to many, many drunken guests, which is exactly what we wanted.”

“Apart from the flowers, we didn’t really need to do much to decorate the building as the space itself was so impressive. I did make a few meters of Bollywood bunting out of Indian sari material to hang and we used Indian flower garlands to decorate the tea and cake station. My Dad found the vintage typewriter in the garage and spruced it up so we could use it for a guest book. We hired the Neon Light from Neon Creations and Vish also bought a Carrom board, a Indian board-game crossed between drafts and pool which kept the kids entertained for the weekend!”

“Although all the details above were important, we tried not to get caught up in all of this,” Lucy concluded. “Quite a few things went wrong over the course of our wedding days, but tried not to let it get to us as they were only minor glitches that now make for funny wedding stories to be told in the future! The most important thing to us was that all our close friends and family were able to share in our special day(s)!, especially my Grandparents who are both in their 90s and we weren’t sure if they were going to be able to travel to Manchester or not. Thankfully both Nan & Grandad made it and were the guests of honour! We had the most amazing 2-days with all our favourite people so we couldn’t ask for more than that!”

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A Simple & Homely Wedding in Milan: Roberto & Cherie

February 1, 2012 in Wedding | 8 comments

Italian Roberto & Chinese Cherie planned their Milan wedding from other sides of the world, “Until 2 months before the wedding, we had lived in 2 different countries (Hong Kong and UK) for 16 months, ” Cherie told me. “I had taken a sabbatical to spend time with my family in Hong Kong and the majority of our ideas exchange and planning was done on email or Skype. We found the organising super boring, couldn’t wait to party on the day!”

The couple met in London and so filmed their Save the Date video in the city, and they actually ended up having two weddings (the Italian one pictured and another in Hpng Kong) so it really was a multicultural, multinational affair!

“We decided on some values for our weddings, they were ‘simple’, ‘vintage’, ‘homely’ and most of all ‘fun’, the bride continued. “Our rule-of-thumb was, ‘if nobody would remember it in 2-3 years time, then don’t sweat over it.’ Therefore things like flowers, decorations and cake were at the bottom of our list of importance. We were so overwhelmed by the number of friends and families that flew over to Italy just for us so we wanted to make the whole weekend super fun. They were at the top of our priority list!”

“What you remember from an event is usually the atmosphere, special moments and people that you spend time with, so we made sure it was very relaxed with plenty of time and opportunity to mingle, created some crazy signature moments e.g. our pretentious celebrity red carpet type entrance to the reception in Muse’s ‘Feeling Good’ and got everyone to sing a few songs before dancing!  The rock star personalities were all coming out!”

“However simplicity does take effort,” she concluded. “It is often easier to just do what the world says you should do for weddings, e.g. the bride’s name must come first, the cake must look amazing, you have to do an impeccable first dance etc.  But there is no such thing as you ‘should’ or you ‘must’!  If it’s not important, produces minimal impact or easily forgotten, just scrap it. That’s what we did. Traditions can be changed so focus on a few things that matter to you and make them memorable.”

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A Black & White, Boutique Hotel Wedding: Abbi & Jools

January 31, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding | 9 comments

After a cliff top proposal, Abbi & Jools, who met while working at the Cadbury factory, planned their 5* boutique wedding at The Hempel Hotel, London.

“Jools and I met 8 years ago, when we both started working for Cadbury. Clearly, having a Cadbury chocolate/sweetie bar at the wedding was obligatory!” Abbi explained. “We got engaged in Australia, on a cliff top on the Great Ocean Road, while sitting on a bench and eating some delicious cake. When Jools said ‘I’ve got a question to ask you’, I replied ‘Do you want the rest of my cake?’ Usually he would have jumped at the opportunity – but instead went down on one knee… to which I responded ‘oh my God oh my God oh my God… where shall I put the cake?’ I put it on the ground. It was fine. I ate it later.”

“Our wedding day was the best day of my life. I thought I would be nervous, and I was worried I would cry (I’m a bit of a blubber at other people’s weddings), but as soon as I started walking down the aisle with my Dad, I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. I just wanted to throw my arms around Jools – but when I reached the front and tried to kiss him, he refused because we weren’t married yet! By the end of our wedding day, my face was aching with grinning so much. When we got our beautiful wedding photos back, you can see the exact expression I was pulling all day!”

“I’m not terribly creative, but I did a little bit of DIY,” Abbi continued. “I made all the name tags we used for place settings. My favourite wedding purchse may have been the heart-shaped hole punch I used before tying on the ribbons. At dinner, I went round pointing out the heart shaped holes to everyone. No one else had noticed. I did. They made me happy.”

“Jools and I have been lucky enough to be invited to a LOT of friends’ weddings – about 19 in the past few years.” she concluded. “I’ve been bridesmaid at 5, witness at 2, a reader at one, photographer at one… basically, we’re wedding pros! We’ve been to all different types – churches, castles, country houses, barns, hotels…but mostly fairly traditional. We just wanted ours to be a bit different – so we decided on a city chic, boutique hotel, slightly quirky feel. Basically, we just wanted it to be a really fun party with great food, great booze and great music!”

“Colour-scheme wise, I guess it was black and white with flashes of colour. The guests were all in black tie, the venue was fairly monochrome, the bridesmaids dresses were all different versions of the little black dress… and then there was my dress. The most fun dress in the world. God I love that dress. Clearly I couldn’t tell Jools about the dress beforehand, but I just knew it was perfect for the feel we were going for. The 50s style, the black and white…. Wearing it blew me away – and everyone else fell over themselves to say how much they loved it. I felt like a movie star. And it was great to dance and spin around in, unlike the more traditional, restrictive long dresses I tried on. Plus it gave me a genuine excuse (as if I needed one) to buy some Christian Louboutins… you could see my feet! I was nervous that my outfit would look too OTT, that Jools would fall about laughing when he saw me – but it was the best decision I ever made.”

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A Candy Coloured & Cute Bridal Shoot with Snapacab!

January 30, 2012 in Bridal Shoot/Trash The Dress, British Brides | 8 comments

Kay’s simple but cute bridal shoot took place at Wokefield Park, near Reading. The idea of a sweet, candy coloured shoot with a fashion-edge came from photographers Studio Rouge, who also wanted to use the images to showcase their snapacab.

“Snapacab? What’s that?!” I hear you cry. Well we all know how much fun photo booths are don’t we? But how about a photo booth in the back of a taxi?! I’d book this baby to drive me around all day if I could!

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A Music & Literature Themed Wedding: Claire & Scott

January 26, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding | 15 comments

Claire & Scott chose an old movie theatre in as the setting for their ceremony, The Lantern Theatre, Sheffield. Although they hadn’t even thought about marrying in a theatre, after seeing one in Whitby they loved the idea. “We’d originally planned to marry in Whitby, as it’s a special to place to us both,” Claire told me. “Whilst looking at venues there, we were shown a theatre hidden away at the back of the sea front community centre. We hadn’t thought about marrying in a theatre, but we both fell in love with the idea. In the end, we decided that we’d rather marry closer to home in Sheffield, but the idea of marrying in a theatre stayed with us.”

“After an afternoon on Google, Scott emailed every theatre within a fifty-mile radius of us to ask if they did weddings. The Lantern Theatre was one of the few that replied and it turned out to be barely a mile from our house. When we arrived we fell in love with the place. It’s an old 84-seat Victorian theatre with anaglyph wallpaper and red velvet seats. The staff there were so flexible and open to all our ideas. They even bought a mirrorball so that I could walk down the aisle in spiralling light. They served cocktails in teapots, put together a lighting and music programme so that the ceremony ran without a hitch and Keith – the volunteer who ran the bar – even dressed up in a dapper waistcoat and tie.”

After the ceremony the couple and their guests boarded a old London bus to The Countryside Centre. “We chose The Countryside Centre because it gave us a blank canvas to work with,” Claire continued. “There are no staff there on the day itself so you have complete freedom to use whichever suppliers you want. Though there’s a converted barn and grain store, we chose to hire a marquee to make the most of the beautiful grounds and asked our caterers to set up a steak and fish barbecue, which was fantastic.”

The couple chose a music and literature theme for their day. “Literature and music have always been important to us and during the planning it soon became apparent that though we hadn’t intended to have a theme for the wedding, words and music were a recurring motif. Our invites were designed to look like classic orange and white vintage Penguin paperbacks, with library tickets inside for the RSVP (we’d stamped the wallet in which the library ticket sat with the key dates of our relationship). We used the Smiths’ song title ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ as the title of the paperback/invite.”

“Our place settings followed the Penguin theme, with the guests’ names replacing the author’s and a lyric we’d individually chosen for each guest replacing the title. Inside the place settings were CDs with the key songs from the wedding day. The orders of service that were handed out at the theatre were designed to look like vintage Penguin Plays paperbacks, with the title on the cover taken from a Velvet Underground song. Our readings were taken from books, except for one, which was the lyrics of the Pulp song, ‘Something Changed’.”

“During the service, we exchanged copies of our favourite books, around which the rings were tied on a ribbon. Even the confetti followed the literary theme. Using a heart-shaped holepunch, we punched confetti from the pages of our favourite books.”

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