Today’s bride just so happens to work at one of the most impressive wedding venues in Yorkshire, making choosing a setting for her big day simple!
Beautiful on both the inside and out, Castle Howard provided a perfect and familiar backdrop for bride Kerry to stage the glamorous 1920s style wedding that she had dreamt of.
Beyond the
incredible venue
, highlights for us include Kerry’s stunning lace David Fielden gown, the bridesmaids’ sparkling and muted mix and match dresses and the elegant pink and gold colour scheme.With images by Fox Tail Photography.
kerry says:
We got engaged in September 2014. John whisked me away on a surprise trip to New York! I was spoilt rotten from the start as we were treated to a complimentary upgrade to first class by the airline. We’re both fans of the film Rocky, so as part of our trip we went to visit the famous steps outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is where John proposed. It was very romantic and took me by total surprise.We were married on 28th June 2015, as this was two years to the date since we first met.
Our chosen venue was Castle Howard, in North Yorkshire. I’m the nanny to the Howard twins so spend a large portion of my days in the house and grounds, therefore marrying in the surroundings of Castle Howard seemed the obvious choice to us. As a local girl to the area it had always been a dream of mine to marry here, so it was very exciting to have my dream wedding come to life. We were very lucky to have the most beautiful and grand venue for our wedding day.
We chose a 1920s glamour theme for our day, similar to the film Brideshead Revisited. I instantly fell in love with the glamour and sophisticated style of the era while watching the film and as it was filmed on location at Castle Howard a few years previously, it seemed a perfectly fitting choice of theme for the venue.
Our colour scheme of gold and pale pink evolved after finding our bridesmaid dresses in Coast. The sparkle and sequins were exactly what I was looking for. Everything seemed to fall into place from there. I spent hour after hour, along with my niece Ava, adding glitter to corks that my friends were collecting to use as place card holders. The invites and save the date cards were designed by John’s step mother Gayle, and from there on in I spent what seemed like every weekend sticking and covering anything and everything in glitter. It was all worth it though to see the end products on the day. I really enjoyed adding that personal touch.
My dress was a David Fielden gown, with beautiful vintage style lace over silk and was the first dress I saw at a boutique in London. It’s so stunning and very elegant, you could say it was love at first sight. My ‘something borrowed’ was a pair of very beautiful Wartski diamond earrings, lent to me by Mrs Rebecca Howard. These were the same earrings that Rebecca had worn on her own wedding day. I felt like royalty wearing them.
John wore a blue Ted Baker three-piece suit and some spectacular three tone patent leather shoes. The groomsmen also wore Ted Baker.
Our six bridesmaids all wore beautiful Coast dresses. After initial preparations at my sister’s house in the next village, we moved to Castle Howard, where we had reign of Lady Georgina’s bedroom and dressing room before the start of the ceremony.
Both John and I travelled (separately) to Castle Howard in a retro gold Rolls Royce, owned and driven by a friend and work colleague.
Prior to the ceremony, Hon Simon Howard surprised me last minute by allowing the bridal party to use the beautiful entrance through the north front doors into the Great Hall. It made for the most gorgeous and dramatic aisle walk, led by John’s adorable young nephews in bow ties.
During the ceremony my niece’s both read lovely poems, which are close to our hearts. Once the ceremony had finished we all gathered on the south front steps overlooking the Atlas fountain for a drinks reception.
Merlin Howard added a touch of comedy by screeching down the drive in the nanny car, a bright red Kia, speeding over the lawn to take us for our photographs. He was 13 at the time and had been taking lessons on the private ground. It certainly gave our guests a good laugh!
Louise Miller of Fox Tail Photography captured our day for us and absolutely exceeded all our expectations! She was attentive and extremely enthusiastic from the beginning. Louise silently and professionally captured very special yet casual moments and embraced every part of the day with all its grandeur to create a set of stunning images. We were both thrilled with all of her work and would highly recommend her to anyone in need of a wedding photographer.
I carried a bouquet of pale pink roses, peonies and white hydrangea by Kymm Queen of Queens Flowers. The bridesmaids’ and table flowers all matched with purple and pink hydrangea, again provided by my florist, Kymm.
We were fortunate to hold our wedding the day after the famous flower festival at Castle Howard so the house was adorned with amazing displays and arrangements, including a fantastic giant house installation with real cottage garden.
For favours we chose love heart jellybeans in pink organza bags and every table had silly photo props too.
Our wedding cake was an iced chocolate ganache design, decorated with fresh hydrangea. Mandy, the in house Castle Howard patisserie chef, baked our cake and our florist dressed it on the day.
For our wedding breakfast we didn’t want anything fussy so we chose a three course meal of Thai soup, chicken with truffles and finally yummy wedding cake with local cheeses was served in The Grecian Hall.
As musical entertainment on the day, Mrs Rebecca Howard played a Bach piece and Octavia Howard played beautiful piano piece by Ludovico Einaudi during the ceremony in The Great Hall. In the evening meanwhile, local trusted firm Night Owls, supplied our disco. Everyone had great fun throwing shapes on the dance floor into the night.
The whole of Castle Howard is utterly stunning and so we would certainly recommend it to other brides and grooms! There isn’t finer or more spectacular backdrop in Yorkshire for the most beautiful wedding pictures.
Saying “I do” was undoubtedly the most special moment of our day, but my favourite part was most definitely having all of my close family and friends looking so damn gorgeous and together in one place for the first time.
For our honeymoon we had a relaxing beach holiday at the Oberoi Sahl Hasheesh hotel in Egypt. Sun, sea, sand, fine food and the occasional spot of snorkelling for a week.
My top tip for other Brides Up North would be – try to take in every minute of your beautiful day and enjoy it, it really does go too fast!
