Today’s bride and groom built their wedding around the things most important to them: close friends and family, the bride’s home town of Beverley – and food!
This resulted in an intimate wedding party of just 19 guests who were treated to little tour around Beverley before settling at the town’s Whites Restaurant for an impressive nine course meal (that’s right, nine courses!)
We love the
relaxed vibe
to Laura and Ranj’s big day as well as their pretty green colour scheme which all started with Laura’s vision for her wedding shoes.With images by Jemma King Photography.
laura says:
We got engaged in London, January 2015. We went from engagement to wedding in under seven months! We were just so ready to be married and didn’t want to spend too long in the planning stages.We went to London for my birthday and saw Philip Pullman’s Grimm Fairy Tales at the Oxo Tower. I love theatre and it was an amazing night. As we walked along the Thames, to find somewhere to eat after the theatre, Ranj said, “Doesn’t St Pauls look amazing. Let’s sit and look at it for a bit”. I refused to sit down because I was hungry and cold and apparently totally spoilt Ranj’s first attempt at proposing to me. Whoops! He’d carried the ring around all night!
The next morning we were all cuddled up in the hotel room and Ranj pulled the ring out from under his pillow and proposed there instead. Although I felt bad when I realised that I’d spoilt his first attempt I preferred the hotel room proposal. It set the tone for how we eventually designed our wedding; intimate, personal, just us.
We got married on Tuesday 11th August 2015. We wanted to marry in the summer so that we could go on a mega honeymoon. I’m a self-employed drama teacher, so get time off during school holidays.
Although we’re both currently living and moving around the southeast, while Ranj finishes his training as an orthopaedics and trauma registrar, I’m a Beverley girl at heart. I was born and bred there, my family live there, as well as the majority of my friends. It was really important to me that we got married in my hometown.
We only had 19 guests at our wedding, so chose venues that would suit the intimate, personal style we were going for. We had the ceremony at Beverley registry office and worked really hard with the registrar to make the service really personal. We wrote our own vows and had some brilliant readings.
We had drinks, speeches and nibbles at the Rose and Crown pub in Beverley and then a nine course taster menu at Whites Restaurant, which is literally across the road from the pub. Both Ranj and I are massive foodies and wanted that to be the focal point of the day, especially as we weren’t having an evening do or a party. John, the owner and chef of Whites didn’t disappoint at all. It was simply amazing food – all nine courses of it! Yum!
We didn’t really have a theme. We wanted a small wedding with those nearest and dearest to us. We wanted it intimate and personal, so we tried to put lots of little touches in to reflect this.
In terms of design my shoes came first and everything followed! I had my heart set on bright green shoes. I had them colour matched and died by the Rainbow Club and just loved them! I really was all about the shoes.
Ranj is British born Indian, and Indian weddings tend to be full of colour. We really wanted to keep that element in our wedding. We wanted pops of really bright colour against a white/ivory background to make certain things, like my shoes and the flowers, really stand out.
My wedding dress was from Jacqueline’s in Beverley. They were so helpful and weren’t at all daunted by the tight timescale that we were on (I think I ordered my dress about four months before the wedding). I wanted something that had a slight 1950’s feel to it. I was adamant that I didn’t want any bling, just something classic and plain. I also decided that I wanted a few inches taking off the dress, to make it more tea length in order to show off the shoes more. The staff at Jacqueline’s sorted it all out and did all the alterations just a week before the wedding!
Ranj wore a suit from T M Lewin. The suit was navy blue and was the Bradley fit. He chose a grey waistcoat from Ted Baker and green tie and socks to match my shoes. He looked really handsome and pulled off wearing the contrasting waistcoat really well.
We didn’t have any groomsmen but my sister was my bridesmaid. She wore a 1950’s style dress from Clarence and Alabama. We found her shoes totally by accident in a Dorothy Perkins sale. They just happened to be a perfect colour match.
My sister had given birth just a few weeks before the wedding (not that you could tell by looking at her), so it was hard thinking of an outfit that would work. I let her pick whatever she wanted as it was more important to me that she was comfortable than how she looked, but she looked absolutely stunning anyway. Her son, Tobias, was dressed in a 1950’s style romper suit that matched the colour of my sister’s dress.
On the day of the wedding, I was picked up with my dad and taken to the registry office in a car my mum had booked for me. After the ceremony we walked everywhere. I didn’t see the point in getting a car when we were just going across town. Plus, I love Beverley, so wanted some pictures of us in the town and on the bandstand. The picture that our photographer took of us on the bandstand is one that I will cherish forever. It has all my favourite things in it: My husband, all of our beautiful friends and family, our dog and Beverley!
Our photographer on the day was Jemma King. I couldn’t recommend her highly enough. She was so much fun to work with and was a pleasure to have around on the day. I instantly loved Jemma’s style when I saw her website and once I’d met her I was super excited. She is really creative and just got what I wanted from our photographs. She captured some lovely moments and expressions. We bounced ideas off each other really well.
Mine and my sister’s bouquets were from Glenholme Florists in Beverley. Claire, who works there, sorted absolutely everything and really understood what we were trying to achieve with the bright colours. All of the ladies in the ceremony were given different coloured, single, gerberas to hold and all of the men were given bright button holes, also done by Glenholme. They also did our table flowers and decoration for Whites restaurant.
We did our own decorations in the function room at the Rose and Crown. We got some bird-cages and stuffed them with gypsophila for table centre pieces. We then added lots of coloured lights around and white bunting.
In a lot of Indian weddings the men don’t get favours, so we only gave them to the ladies. We gave them vases to take away. Glenhome interspersed the vases with the flowers on the table at Whites, so when the ladies put their gerberas in them they became part of the table decoration that they could then take home as a reminder of the day. Getting the guests to add their flowers to the table decoration was our way of trying to say that our day is only complete with the people there to share it.
We didn’t have a wedding cake as there was so much food already! A friend of my mum’s however did make some cupcakes, which were delicious. We had them as part of the nibbles at the Rose and Crown.
We let John at Whites have complete control over our food and drink! When you go to John’s restaurant during the week (which I would highly recommend) you get a set five or nine course taster menu and you don’t get a choice in what is served, which we loved the idea of.
John did offer to create the menu with us, or to show us the menu first to make sure we were happy, but we decided to let him do what he’s good at and just go for it. We had no idea what we would be served on the day, so it was really exciting! Each course was a massive talking point at the table.
To provide entertainment, we had a classical guitarist playing at the Rose and Crown for a bit of ambiance. The rest of the day was solely about the people there and then food.
As a special touch to our wedding we had our guest book designed by a friend of ours who is an illustrator, Andy Sanders. We have some of his art work in our flat already and love his style. We wanted a fingerprint guest book that we could hang on our wall, rather than a book that would be put in a cupboard. Andy designed a cartoon of Ranj and I in a hot air balloon and our guest’s fingerprints became the balloons. It is possibly my favourite keeps sake from our wedding.
We tried to keep our wedding as basic as possible, but I would not hesitate in recommending anyone we used: our photographer, florist and bridal gown shop were all fantastic and so personable. We’d also recommend our venue too. If you don’t want a huge wedding having a meal at Whites is a great alternative. The nine courses really became the focal point and such an event in themselves.
In terms of my favourite parts of the wedding day, I loved getting dressed up and ready. My friend is a professional makeup artist in Greece and came over for our wedding. Having my family around me in the morning, my friend doing my makeup and people popping in was really special. The atmosphere was full of love and laughter. As sad as it may sound, another real highlight for me was after the wedding had finished. Ranj and I stayed at Whites, as they have gorgeous rooms next door. When it was just the two of us it really sank in that we were finally married and that was a real moment of elation.
For our honeymoon, we spent three weeks travelling around Japan! It was the holiday of a lifetime! We had both decided that we would rather have three weeks on honeymoon than a gigantic wedding, so that was a trade-off and so worth it. We ate wonderful food and saw so many incredible things. We spent this summer on cloud nine.
My top tip to other Brides Up North would be – don’t worry about getting things perfect and stay focused on the people you want to share your magical day with you. It’s easy to get lost in the politics of a wedding (especially if you are having a really small one and can’t invite lots of people), but at the end of the day it is just about the two of you. The people who truly love you will understand that and support your decisions; anyone who doesn’t understand never deserved to be there in the first place.
My mum said, ‘The wedding day won’t make your marriage’ and that was something that I really held on to. There were times when I could feel myself getting a bit ‘bridzilla’ and I would just remind myself that the day was about me, Ranj and the people we hold dearest to us witnessing the promises that we wanted to make to each other; nothing else mattered after that.
All in all, getting married is one of the best things I’ve ever done. We are so happy and feel so settled together – it’s a brilliant feeling!
