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The wonderful Lee Scullion Photography was once part of the photographic team who shot my own real wedding. I will be forever grateful to him for furnishing my husband to be with Lucozade and Mars bars to make sure that he made it to the altar without throwing up or passing out (come on Alan, man up!) and also managed to get some amazing shots in the process.
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This afternoon, his talent’s are evident once again as he shoots the breath taking Real Wedding of North East couple Laura & Matthew.
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Laura says: We got engaged on19th January 2012 at a gorgeous little place that Matthew took me to for our first valentines date together. We like to keep the location of our special place a secret as it’s a really quiet, unspoilt place that is almost like a little heaven for the two of us. It was a total surprise (even though I had been pestering Matt to pop the question for about 5 years)!
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We got married on 9th August 2012. We didn’t want a long engagement and with me and a lot of our family and friends being teachers it had to be in the school holidays. I really wanted a summer wedding and i just couldn’t wait until summer 2013! We booked our venue- Lumley Castle in Durham – just three months before the wedding date! Planning the whole thing in three months was great fun!
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As soon as we walked into Lumley Castle we knew it was where we wanted to get married. We had looked at lots of other beautiful venues but this place just took our breath away as soon as we saw it. We loved how grand and over the top it was. It was quirky and yet fairy tale at the same time. The rooms all had their own personalities and we loved that we could have a different room for each part of the day- Ceremony, wedding breakfast and evening reception. We wanted our wedding to be an event and not just one day so the fact the Castle was a hotel too was a real bonus so that we could have all our family and friends in one place.
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As with the Castle our theme was quirky fairy tale! We had all the ingredients needed for a traditional fairy tale wedding but with a little twist. Our colour scheme was Ivory and black (Matthew is a devoted Newcastle United fan!) and I liked how classic the colours looked together.
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My dress was an absolutely beautiful Benjamin Roberts creation. The moment I put it on I knew it was the one. It was tight fitting and very simple at the front with just a little detailing on the bust. But when i turned around the dress had the most amazing ruffled train that i have ever seen. I just loved it! I bought my dress from Elizabeth of York.
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My beautiful hair piece and bandeau veil was made from www.lilybella.co.uk and my jewellery was from the Alan Hannah Devoted collection.
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My two little bridesmaids wore a gorgeous Ivory gown from the Jenny Packham NO1 collection which had lots of ruffles to match my dress perfectly. My daughter was my youngest bridesmaid and we really struggled to find a dress small enough to fit her so we had hers altered. My maid of honour (my sister) wore a black gown from Coast which we had altered to create a fishtail bottom.
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Matthew and his groomsmen wore grey three piece suits with black neck ties which were from a boutique in York. And my little page boy (my nephew) wore a similar three piece suit from a children’s boutique in Sheffield.
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I carried a hand tied ivory bouquet with hydrangea, Norma Jean roses, ivory peony roses and a gypsophila collar with pearls scattered throughout which was tied off with ivory satin ribbon. My Bridesmaids carried all gypsophila hand tied bouquets with black satin ribbon. Our florist – Claire De Lune – was great! She created everything I dreamed of and made my vision of a really original ring cushion made from moss come to life!
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There were so many special moments during the whole day but i think the best for me was the moment I walked down the aisle and saw Matthew. I had the most amazing feeling of nerves and excitement and just felt overwhelmingly happy.
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We wanted our wedding to be really personal to us so we added lots of extra touches. I created my very own sweetie table and photo booth for the wedding reception, making and buying all the little jars, props and things we needed. My mum and I made hundreds of paper pom poms to hang in the dungeon room for the evening reception. I made our own table confetti by cutting heart shaped pieces out of old romance novels.
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For our favours we wanted to do something really personal to us so we donated money to the MS Society on behalf of our guests and had little cards made that we attached a pin badge to for every guest. The charity is something really close to our hearts so that was a really special touch for us.
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I had the whole family saving their used glass jars for us and we used these to scatter tealights all over the venue. We tied black string around the jars and filled them with black sand and it created a real magical effect within the Castle and outside on the terraces.
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Our photographer was Lee Scullion. Lee was so fantastic on the day and our images are just perfect. We really couldn’t have asked for anymore from him. The photos were so important to us and I literally cried like a baby the first time we saw them!
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Our wedding dvd was by Fullmotion. Again we can’t thank Joe enough, we hardly knew he was there on the day!
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Our cake (by HQ Cakes) was three tier with the bottom two tiers being lemon sponge and the top tier chocolate. The cake was decorated with white chocolate cigarillos and ivory dusted rose’s finished off with black satin ribbon. It not only looked but tasted amazing.
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For entertainment we chose to go with a DJ. As I’m a dance teacher it was really important to me that everyone was up dancing all night and we had a great time.
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I also spent ages creating a slide show which we showed to our guests after the speeches. It was done like a fairy tale story with lots of embarrassing pictures of Matt and I growing up and photos of our bridal party and families. It didn’t go exactly to plan on the day as the music wouldn’t work to go with it and a voice mail message actually came on half way through it! But it was still a great part of the day and I’m glad I took the time to put it together to say thank you to our families.
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During the evening reception we invited our guests to set off Chinese lanterns from Night Sky Lanterns. We handed pens round and everyone wrote special messages on them for the two of us. Our guests set white lanterns off while Matt and I set off a red love heart lantern.
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We went to a beautiful beach front hotel in Pathos for our honeymoon. We took our little girl Sofia with us as I just couldn’t bear to leave her for so long. A month later Just the two of us went on a short break to Rome which was really romantic.
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I think my main tip for other Brides Up North would be not to get stressed about the little details in the run up to the big day. I found myself having many a sleepless night about silly things like whether or not I should pay extra to have ivory table linens instead of white as our theme was ivory and black and not white and black! I honestly think that on the day I wouldn’t have cared if the table linens were purple! Everyone is there to celebrate two people getting married they are not bother about the tiny details! You really have to just relax and enjoy the day as its over so quickly!
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Congratulations Laura & Matt! 
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Get in touch to see your own Real Wedding featured on Brides Up North!
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Brides Up North UK Wedding Blog – Images © 2012 Lee Scullion Photography
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