For their October wedding at Whittington Castle and Wattlesborough Village Hall, Sarah & Colin wanted a scare-fest. Halloween, pumpkins, zombies & vintage circus horror were their inspirations.

“When you first start to plan a wedding you are given strict instructions by every bride you know to research research research. You read magazines, you trawl through websites, you create a scrapbook of what you think your wedding should be”, wrote newlywed Sarah. “I had 2 ½ years to plan my big day, and no matter what I saw I just didn’t feel like it could be part of our day! Everything was so beautiful, classic, elegant… and so not us! I am mad about vintage but after heading to a vintage wedding fair I had started to lose hope. It was all too twee, too perfect. I am a rummage in the hay bales listing to The Coasters kinda vintage and it just wasn’t there for me. Then after seeing a lady flying round the fair with pink hair, I was informed of Rock n Roll Bride by my friend Ffion and my world was changed! I saw couples who broke convention, who played their wedding their way and weren’t afraid to let the world see their personalities through their big day!”

“Almost everything decor-wise in our reception hall was made by ourselves. We made tin can lanterns with tea lights in, we also built our own crates in different sizes out of old pallets from builder’s yards. We even renovated an old valve radio so that it would play MP3s. We collected jam jars of all shapes and sizes to use for our floral centrepieces and to hold candles that hung from the ceiling. We created a pathway of leaves from the porch to the hall to give an outside/inside feel and we asked every guest to bring a carved pumpkin. We gave out prizes to the best/worst/most unique one. People get so competitive which was hilarious and they looked fab all lined up in the hall.”

“In the end we loved EVERYTHING about our day”, she continued. “From the crazy haunted castle we got married in to the amazing giant Texas BBQ smoker – they did the best ribs I have ever tasted in my life! Our circus inspired photo booth room was also hilarious. Our amazing seating plan trees were blagged from the lovely people at ASDA. It was their window display for Autumn two years ago and I managed to nag them into submission to give them to us for free! Our tables were named after our favourite movie psychos, which was great for getting the tables mingling and trying to figure the films that each one was from.”

But, as these things can often go, the wedding planning wasn’t totally smooth sailing for Sarah & Colin, and over the Summer I received a fraught email from Sarah asking for my help regarding her dress.

“There were many ups, but also some downs during our wedding planning”, Sarah wrote. “For us – and by ‘us’ I mean ‘me’ – it was my wedding dress! Initially I planned to buy a cheap dress online and be done with it but I first wanted to visit some shops and try some on so I knew what styles suited me. I am not oblivious to my shape and size. I am fuller figured, with a long body, little legs and no boobs, but whilst talking to many of the shop owners you would have thought I had three arms, was 2ft tall and 70 stone! Of course I understand that dress shops stock smaller sizes for very valid reasons, but when somebody tells you that you will need to lose a considerable amount of weight to look half decent in most of the dresses, you start to question their ability to make a woman feel special…”

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