Today’s real wedding has lots of lovely personal touches with theming based around the venue and season as well as the couple’s interests.
Brides Up North Luxury Wedding Exhibition venue Nostell Priory (have you got the date in your diary?) provided
the perfect backdrop
to Scott and Sarah’s vintage styled wedding with pretty dusky pink touches in the décor, attire and flowers.Sarah’s bouquet is particularly stunning featuring pale roses, ranunculus and hyacinth, but the element of the wedding that caught my eye most was – surprisingly – the favours. Homemade sloe gin in pretty bottles, which tick boxes for looking good, tasting good and being a personalised and useful (well, sort of) gift. Cheers to that idea!
With images by Chris Chambers Photography.
sarah says:
We got engaged when we were having dinner on the beach in Borneo in October 2013. Scott had somehow managed to buy a ring – which fit perfectly – and get it half way across the world without me knowing. We were having a pre-dinner Singapore Sling watching the sunset when he brought out the ring and popped the question!
We were married on 7th February 2015. We love winter but didn’t want the wedding to clash with the shooting season so waited until after February 1st.
We chose Nostell Priory as our venue because we love its Georgian style and the Robert Adam Top Hall is so beautiful. We walk our two cocker spaniels in the grounds quite often so it was nice to get married somewhere which meant something to us and where we will go back again and again. We also liked that Nostell is a bit of a blank canvas so we could have lots a personal touches and really make the day ours.
We wanted to complement Nostell’s lovely Georgian features and so we went for a classic, romantic, vintage-style theme for the big day.
Our colour scheme was dusky pink and ivory as we wanted winter tones but without being Christmassy. The dusky pink also worked well with Nostell’s neutral colours and went beautifully with ivory.
I’m a bit of a stickler for detail so even the confetti had to match the colour scheme. We bought our own mix of pink and white rose and delphinium petals from Shropshire Petals which we put into glassine envelopes for our guests.
I chose a Justin Alexander ball-gown cut, ivory satin dress with chapel length train from Mia Sposa in Huddersfield. Justin Alexander’s designs stood out for me when I was going through wedding magazines and the moment I saw this dress on Pinterest knew it was ‘the one’! Mia Sposa were absolutely amazing – the dress was hard to find but they managed to hunt one down and made sure it fit perfectly.
To complete my attire I also had an ivory marabou feather shrug – I’m not brave enough for bare shoulders in February! We ordered extra dress fabric and the ladies at Mia Sposa made the ties on the shrug so that they would match the dress perfectly.
To finish I wore a chapel-length lace veil from Etsy – I loved it and never wanted to take it off! I kept jewellery simple so that the dress detail wasn’t over powered and chose a beautiful diamante cuff by Debbie Carlisle at Beloved Bridal and wore a vintage cameo ring. Finally, I had a pair of Swarovski stud earrings.
Scott Beswick MUA did makeup on the wedding day and Danielle Wright did the hair for myself, the bridesmaids and my mum. Scott is so much fun as well as being a brilliant makeup artist. Danielle is incredibly talented and created a flawless look. They both made us all feel stunning on the day and finished the look perfectly.
Scott wore a grey three-piece suit with tailcoat from Ashworth & Bird. He had an ivory waistcoat and cravat. He had no intention of wearing tails, having initially thought he would prefer a lounge suit, but the lady in Ashworth & Bird convinced him to try the tails and they were perfect.
I made personalised cufflinks for Scott and the groomsmen; Scott’s had quotes from our readings whilst the groomsmen all had quotes relating to their role/ relationship or details about the day. To complete the look, I bought Scott a personalised pocket watch as his wedding present.
Our bridesmaids wore dusky pink floor-length dresses from House of Fraser and ivory fur shrugs and the groomsmen wore three piece suits to match the grooms, all from Ashworth & Bird. All the groomsmen also had dusky pink cravats.
The pageboys – our 18 month old nephews – wore grey suits with ivory waistcoats and cravats from Roco Clothing.
As transport we hired a 1937 Rolls Royce from Yesteryear Cars. It went perfectly with our vintage style and we loved that it was maroon rather than the usual white wedding car.
Chris of Chris Chambers Photography took our wedding photos. Chris was recommended to us and when we saw his style we knew that’s what we wanted. Not only does he take amazing photos, he is also really friendly and professional. We had an engagement shoot a few weeks ahead of the wedding which was great for getting used to the camera and Chris’s photos were so good we knew we didn’t need to worry about them at all. We would definitely recommend him – all the photos are incredible so it’s really hard choosing them for the album!
On the day I had a loose bouquet with ivory and dusky pink roses, ranunculus and hyacinth, wrapped in a ribbon made from the same fabric as my dress. The bridesmaids all had small versions of my bouquet. They were by BlossEm. Emily there is a fantastic florist; she has so much style and as soon as we met her we knew the flowers would be absolutely amazing. I was completely in love with my bouquet which looked, and smelled, beautiful.
Emily also made little bunches of gypsophila for our hair, instead of hairpieces. The groomsmen had buttonholes made with similar flowers but with small game bird feathers and the page boys had small gypsophila buttonholes.
Bloss Em provided all the flowers for the reception too. We had small bouquets at the ends of the aisles in the Top Hall. For the tables we had candelabras filled with flowers, complemented with game bird feathers – as it got dark the candles gave the room a really warm, romantic feel. The top table was filled with small vases and bottles full of flowers. Emily also made a garland for the balcony, filled with fairy lights. It was breath taking when we walked in and saw how beautiful the room was.
I had seen some lace chair hoods on Pinterest which were perfect for the reception but couldn’t find any UK stockists, so I whipped out the sewing machine and made my own! I also made lace table runners. They really softened the look and added to the vintage feel.
I bought signs and other bits and pieces in the run up to the wedding as and when I saw them to add to the decor. Instead of a guest book we had a white ‘wishing tree’ decorated with wicker hearts. My sister made tags to match the stationery which guests could write their wishes on.
As favours we made sloe gin using sloe berries that we had collected last winter and put it into personalised bottles made by my sister. The little ones had similar bottles filled with pink and white jelly beans, to match the wedding colours.
For our wedding cake we had a magnificent croquembouche (a French dessert consisting of choux pastry balls bound with threads of caramel) made by Thierry Dumouchel. It was delicious and definitely had the wow-factor!
We wanted traditional but delicious food and our caterers Dine definitely delivered. Canapés included mini Yorkshire Puddings and Roast Beef and the wedding breakfast was Potted Shrimp, Sirloin Steak and Crème Brulee. We had bacon and sausage sandwiches in the evening, which were just the ticket after a few drinks!
As entertainment we had Silver Strings quartet for the ceremony and reception which complemented the classic styling. They even played the theme from Scott’s favourite movie – Indiana Jones.
In the evening we had a DJ sourced by Dine. We wanted everyone to get up and dance on the evening so we kicked things off with our first dance, Power of Love by Huey Lewis & The News (from another classic movie, Back to the Future). The DJ said it was the first time in ten years he has played that as a first dance!
We also had a photobooth, run by Chris Chambers. It was great to see everyone from the toddlers to the nannas embrace their silly side!
To make the day more personal we added in some special touches such as asking our grandmas to sign the register – it was so nice that they could be involved in a special part of the day.
We also named the tables after game birds – another nod to the country sports – and for the table plan I hand-drew a tree filled with the birds. Emily at Bloss Em complemented this with the feathers in the candelabra flowers. My very talented sister made all our beautiful wedding stationery and all our invitations were sealed with a personalised wax stamp – another little vintage touch.
I sewed little trinkets into my dress for ‘old’, ‘blue’ and ‘borrowed’. My old was a tiny horseshoe charm which has been the ‘old’ for my mum and sister’s weddings before mine. My ‘borrowed’ was a pendant which Scott’s Nanna always wore. She passed away a few years ago so it was a way to have her with us on the day. I also had a small blue bow.
We would definitely recommend Nostell Priory to other wedding couples. The whole venue is stunning but especially the Top Hall. Craig at Dine was brilliant, accommodating every little detail and putting up with all my ‘bridezilla’ moments! His attention to detail on the day was second to none and he really did make sure everything was perfect.
After the wedding we had a few days in Oxford before jetting off for a week in Jamaica and a week in Barbados. It was nice to be able to relax together in the sun after spending so many months wedding planning. I think the highlight was swimming with turtles – it was an incredible experience.
My top tip to other Brides Up North would be to enjoy every minute, from the engagement until the last day of the honeymoon. Oh and, do what you want to do – everyone will love being a part of your day simply because it is yours.
