Oh how we love a blissful Bank Holiday. However you’re spending the bonus day off be sure to put your feet up for a few minutes to take a look at today’s stunning real wedding.
The first thing to strike us about Jess and Andy’s big day was the stunning attire worn by the bride and groom, as well as the groomsmen and bridesmaids. Impressively, all the gorgeous outfits (including Jess’s two dresses!) were made by hand at Jess’s mum’s shop, located in Newcastle.
With a parent in the industry, knowledgeable Jess had her dream venue and suppliers in mind from the moment Andy placed a ring on her finger. Looking at these images it’s clear the girl has style and knows a talented supplier when she sees one!
With images by Eve Photography.
jess says:
Andy proposed at the Malmaison in Newcastle in November 2012. I had been at University all day and we had planned to go Christmas shopping after uni and work. I arrived at my mum’s shop to be picked up by my dad who told me that I had to go with him. In the car there was a handwritten letter from Andy explaining that he was sorry that we weren’t going shopping tonight but that he was waiting in the penthouse of the Malmaison, I was dropped off there and went up to the room. There I found him standing with a house made out of Lego with my engagement ring in the garage of the Lego house. At the time, Ed Sheeran’s Lego House was one of my favourite songs so he had incorporated it in to the engagement. We were engaged for almost three years before we got married.Our wedding date was 6th November 2015. It had never occurred to us that we would have a winter wedding but we thought that it might be something nice for people to look forward to after the summer but before Christmas.
We got married at Newton Hall in Alnwick. We have always been fans of the Apartment Group venues and how they are styled – we felt they reflected our personalities and tastes as a couple and pretty much looked like a bigger version of our own house. We had our engagement party at Nancy’s Bordello and knew we wanted something similar for our wedding. As soon as we walked into Newton Hall we knew it was the one and didn’t actually look at any other venues. We booked it there and then. The venue didn’t need much styling but we loved every little thing about it, we liked the fact it was an exclusive-use venue and also that there were bedrooms for our families to stay in as we had a lot of them coming from different parts of the country.
We didn’t really have a theme for the wedding, though the look and feel of it was quite rustic. As the venue reflected us and our tastes, there was little that we need to do. Andy’s nana made the hessian and lace chair bows and we sat and decorated jars with various ropes, strings and twines just to add that little bit extra and something more personal. Some of the jars had been dug up from Andy’s nanas and grandads house foundations when they built their house so were very old and fragile but we felt they added a little history to the wedding. We had pine cones for the table name holders, which were picked from a local forest. Everything we did, we tried to do ourselves.
We decided to go for a teal colour scheme so there was a pop of colour throughout the wedding and something that was a little bit vibrant with it being a November wedding. The rest was made up of rustic materials, such as wood and twine.
I was never sure what type of dress I wanted until I started trying them on to work out a style that suited me before having it made. I always came back to the same style, something that little bit traditional yet understated and sophisticated. A lot of the dresses with the heavier laces made me look a lot older than I am and that wasn’t something I wanted to do.
Once I knew the basic shape of my dress, I chose the lace for the bodice, originally the dress was made with cap sleeves but I later decided to make them in to 3/4 sleeves, and added buttons. I had always loved the idea of having buttons on the back. When the dress was made, I knew there was something missing – it turned out it was the slight glam of the pearl belt, which was added just before the wedding. It really was the perfect dress.
As the dress was quite big, I decided to have a second dress made for the night time. This was a lot slimmer and floaty; it still featured a slightly heavier lace on top, but not anything that made me look too old. The back was made in to a V and buttons added down the back. Both dresses were made at my mum’s shop, Vintage at Number 18. They were comfortable and exactly what I had dreamt of and I would highly recommend having a dress made. I knew that no one was going to have the same dress as me and I knew it was personal.
Andy always knew that he wanted a tweed style suit. We searched high and low and never really found the right thing. He eventually found some Donegal tweed material when we were at an exhibition and ordered it. The seamstress at my mum’s shop then made him his jacket, waistcoat and trousers. We found teal lining to match the wedding and wooden buttons. The tie and pocket square were bought online but were slightly altered. Andy also wore a pocket watch from eBay.
The groomsmen’s waistcoats and jackets were again made by the seamstress, we found the material on eBay. The pocket squares, ties and shoes were all from Primark, and the chinos and shirts were from Next. We wanted the groomsmen to feel comfortable and my dad never looked right in a full suit so we went for something a little bit more casual and relaxed. It worked really well! The page boys’ suits were from Next.
The bridesmaids wore dresses which were made by the seamstress too. They were made up of floral material underneath (each a different colour) with a teal overlay. The tops were made up of individual strips of lace and various materials. They all had gold shoes from Next and wore head pieces/clips by What Katy Did Next.
We hired cottages for family travelling from further afield to stay in the night before the wedding and the bridal party had a cottage to themselves too. Andy and his family stayed at The Joiners Arms (also part of the Apartment Group). We originally weren’t going to have any transport to the wedding venue, but then we found the Yellow Taxi Man, based in Alnwick. I fell in love with the idea straight away so the bridesmaids, my mum, my dad and I used the taxi to get to the wedding in various trips. It was only up the road but I’m so pleased we decided to go for it.
Charlotte from Eve Photography captured our day for us. When we booked the venue, we knew the next important thing to start looking for was the photographer – and we knew what we wanted. When we saw Charlotte at an exhibition we knew she was it. We didn’t want someone that was going to be in our faces all day and making us stand for dreaded group shots. We felt Charlotte’s previous photos reflected us and something that we wanted our wedding day to look like. After booking Charlotte, we worked with her on a number of shoots to showcase the various wedding and bridesmaids dress collections at my mum’s shop. Andy and I modelled a couple of times and soon became comfortable being in front of the camera, which I think is important for your wedding day. The more we saw of Charlotte’s work, the more we fell in love with it and we knew we had made the right decision. Not only do we absolutely adore our wedding photos, our pre-wedding shoot is just as lovely and we couldn’t have asked for anything better. Charlotte never made us feel uncomfortable or anxious during our wedding day and I cannot recommend her enough. Her work is stunning, she is one of the loveliest people I have ever met and everyone commented at the wedding about how they didn’t notice her being there, yet the shots she captured were beautiful. I would recommend her to each and every person I speak to who was getting married.
Pure Ground Flowers created our floral arrangements. Andy found Elaine from Pure Ground via Twitter one evening during North East Hour. We didn’t want the traditional bouquets and when Andy showed me her work I instantly knew I wanted to work with Elaine for our flowers. We met up and she knew exactly what I wanted from the bouquet to the button holes and even gave us the lovely idea of having added extras. Even though I changed my mind on our flowers closer to the wedding, Elaine never saw it as a problem and dealt with all our requests without hesitation. I can highly recommend Pure Ground Flowers for any style, colour or creation you have in mind for your wedding, whether that be button holes, bouquets or flowers to dress the wedding. Elaine is also so kind and caring.
When it came to the wedding décor, we only had a few flowers dotted round the tables as we didn’t want massive flower centre pieces. Andy’s nana made hessian and lace bows and table runners, and we had twined jars all around the venue. We decided on our table pieces being sweet themed as we aren’t big on flowers and we wanted something a little different. We bought large jars and filled them with various sweets, which were then sat on homemade miniature pallets. We provided sweet scoops and personalised bags so that people could mingle between tables and get a full bag of treats!
Other decorations and little extras included a red post box from Sweet Pea Events, a fingerprint tree and guestbook provided by Snaparazzi and a chalkboard sign designed by my bridesmaid design. The Lego house from the engagement also featured in various places around the venue throughout the day.
As favours we provided candles for the women and playing cards for the men. The candles were homemade with jars saved up (from those little puddings you get in supermarkets) and were made with wooden wicks. The jars were then twined with butchers twine and put in to personalised Kraft boxes, tied with butcher’s string. We made sure the wax was a teal like colour. The playing cards had personalised backs, which I designed, and were printed by a local printer. They too were presented in personalised Kraft boxes and were tied with string.
We made the cakes on our wedding cake tables ourselves. We had a naked Victoria sponge, a fruit cake, chocolate brownies, lemon drizzle, gingerbread and carrot cake. We also had a cheese cake from The Cheese Shop in Morpeth, which was amazing.
For the wedding breakfast we had leek and potato soup to start, sirloin of beef with roast potatoes and vegetables for main, and sticky toffee pudding and ice cream to finish. We also had a surprise course of champagne sorbet, Limoncello and prosecco. It was great to see the confusion on people’s faces when they expected something else. There were so many wonderful choices that we could have had for our meal but as we had been to weddings before where ‘unusual’ food was left, we wanted people to enjoy it and we knew most people who were coming would eat what we chose. Everyone commented on the food about how nice it was and how quickly it was served.
In terms of entertainment we had magician Paul Lytton, who we booked after seeing him perform at a Newton Hall open day – he instantly blew our minds and we knew he would be a hit with our guests too. For the reception we had a disco, light up letters from Coco Luminaire and a photo booth from Snaparazzi. We had seen Snaparazzi and Coco Luminaire at various wedding shows that my mum had exhibited at and these were the first things we booked after the venue.
In addition to the suppliers mentioned I would also recommend The Beautiful Company, who provided our rings – they are just perfect! We have plain platinum bands engraved with “to infinity and beyond”. I’d also recommend Ruby Shoes for stationery and ND Makeup Artists for beauty.
Following our wedding I couldn’t recommend Newton Hall enough as a fabulous venue. Our wedding co-ordinator Pam was excellent and always made us feel special. The staff were absolutely amazing in the run up to, and on the day, and were commented on by everyone at the wedding, especially John, the master of ceremonies. The venue was stunning and I literally couldn’t fault one thing.
For our honeymoon we went to New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It was the holiday of a lifetime and we couldn’t have asked for anything more – it was all amazing and what we had wanted to do for years. It was so surreal when we were there and each place was so different. We want to go back already!
Everyone says it, but as the wedding day goes so fast my top tip to other Brides Up North would be to try and have some time with your partner on the day away from everyone and to take it all in. Newton Hall told us to do this a few times and John came and found us when the time was right so Andy and I could have some time together. It really did make all the difference and helped us just to breathe and have our own time. Also, always take help from people who want to give you it, you will appreciate it as the day comes around!
