Its holiday season here on the blog, and as the editorial team take a break to redesign, review and recharge, we’ll be leaving you with a reduced blogging schedule so that you still get your daily dose of wedding lovely.
Usual service will recommence on Monday 7th July 2014, but in the meantime watch out for recaps of our favourite Real Weddings so far this year. Drop in every day for the very prettiest, most unique wedding inspiration and – if you are a Brides Up North bride – to see if your Real Wedding was one of our top picks.
I adore Keri and Tom’s beautiful wedding day. Every detail, from Keri’s gorgeous dress (that waist!) to their navy and lavender colour scheme, to the fact that their puppy Marvin came along too – in a bowtie no less – is gorgeous. Packed with personal touches, fun surprises and lots and lots of pretty, I hope you love it as much as I do.
With images by Mick Cookson Photography.
Keri says: We got engaged on Christmas Day 2012. The ring was in my Christmas stocking that was hanging on the fireplace.
We were married on 03.03.14 at Mitton Hall in Clitheroe. It was my Nan’s birthday so the date was very special to the family.
We walked in to the entrance lobby and were in awe of how incredible it looked. The whole place and staff were so inviting and after a tour around and chat with Victoria the wedding planner we knew it was the venue for us. We knew it was as soon as we walked in.
Wedding Make-up and Hair was by Flossy and Leigh and my wedding hair pieces by Eleventh Heaven.
I chose a Stewart Parvin Dress called ‘Luck be a Lady’ from Aphrodite in Knutsford. It was a dress that I didn’t even plan on trying on. Terry who owned the shop said I should try it and as soon as I put it on I knew it was the one! I tried it on with a lace bolero and a beautiful band around my waist and it became even more perfect! Tom wore a suit from Gieves & Hawkes and shirt from TM Lewin.
Our bridesmaids wore navy dresses from Coast and the best men wore navy suits from Next. Tom, his Best Men, the ushers, our fathers and my Grandad wore the same Midnight Blue tie.
Our wedding had a couple of themes! Our wedding was quite rustic; hand decorated jars with twine, lace and hessian filled with lavender, gypsy grass, potpourri and tea lights decorated the tables resting on hessian runners and chopped circular wood. Lavender was a key part of this theme as it was my Nan’s favourite scent. We also incorporated America into our wedding as we met at a Camp in Pennsylvania,New York in 2010. We even made our America theme rustic with old postcards, a map as our table plan and faded American flags on our American sweet table!
We had a memory table with framed pictures of close family members who couldn’t be with us on our wedding day. Next to the table, on a blackboard we wrote ‘Because someone we love is in heaven, there is a little bit of heaven here today’. We also made a donation box where all the money donated went to Alzheimer’s Research UK. If you wanted to donate you could take a jar from the table home with you.
We honestly can’t decide on a favourite part; we wouldn’t change one thing about our day. Everything that we planned, all our family and friends around us, everyone enjoying themselves made our day truly special to us
Charlene at Love Gets Sweeter made our wedding film. I don’t understand why some people don’t think the video is important! I felt as happy as I did on the wedding day watching our film back.
We chose La Boheme for our wedding cake as we have always enjoyed her cakes and treats. The gluten free cake has always been my favourite. As we both love cakes so much we decided to have a cake table; we had one two tiered cake Victoria sponge cake (one tier was gluten free), surrounded by lavender meringues, salted caramel macaroons, mini Victoria sponge cakes, cookies and cake pops.
We also had little surprises for each other; Tom got a friend to play ‘Hey Ho’ for us as we walked into the reception room, I sang ‘Hey Ho’ for him and the guests later on (with the same friend playing guitar…great minds)! Tom created a rap to the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ about meeting me and my family within his speech. My sister-in-law and brothers kindly made beer bottle labels titled ‘Scruffy Puppy’ that also had a picture of our dog Marvin on it to surprise Tom when I gave him his favourite ‘Honey Blonde’ Beer. I also made up a flash mob dance to a songs my sister in law had edited together. The flash mob was taught to all my hens (including my mum, mother in law and mums best friend!) and we surprised everyone with the dance. To finish the dance we all turned around with masks of Toms face on and danced to his favourite song ‘Bump and Grind’!!
DJ Ben was included in our package at Mitton Hall. Ben was incredible; he had the dance floor full all night.
For our honeymoon, we went on a wildlife tour in Borneo; it was incredible. We went on a private tour and travelled around so we got to see lots of wildlife. We also tried scuba diving, went across canopy walkways, paddled in waterfalls, stayed in the rainforest. At the end of the adventure we stayed in for a few nights in a hotel where we got to relax and chill.
My top tip for other Brides Up North is to space everything out and start getting tasks done early. We made a lot of our decorations and we started ticking ‘To Do’s’ of our list months before the big day so there was no stress closer to the wedding. We had finished everything we needed to do three weeks before the day which meant there was no stress and we really got to enjoy the build up.
We also think its important not to be afraid to ask for help; a lot of people will be willing to help as they will want your day to be perfect for you. We cant thank our family and my friend Julie (one of my bridesmaids who came over from Australia) enough. We had evenings together of decorating jars, making the table runners and the table plan, etc. It was so lovely to have them all involved and getting to spend time with family.
Congratulations Keri & Tom!
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Brides Up North UK Wedding Blog – Images © 2014 Mick Cookson Photography
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