Today’s real wedding is bringing back thoughts warm summer days as bride and groom, Genna and Martin, enjoyed a beautiful outdoor July ceremony at their chosen venue of Abbeywood Gardens in Northwich.
An equally pretty reception followed at the venue, which was made complete with simple rustic styling and a rather dreamy four-tired cake.
We must also mention Genna’s gorgeous gown which has the most exquisite detailing – a Brides Up North dress crush for sure!
With images & video by Two Birds.
genna says:
We got engaged on Christmas Day 2014, while at home. It was late in the afternoon and I’d spent the day saying “no, he still hasn’t asked” to family and friends (we’d been together seven years at the time). So when we had to pop home for more chairs for Christmas dinner at my brother’s house, it was a total shock to turn around to find Martin down on one knee!We set the date for 1st July 2016. We’ve always wanted a warm wedding and our preference would have been May, but we fell in love with our venue – Abbeywood Gardens, Delamere – and this was the next available date!
We stumbled across Abbeywood Gardens by accident on the way to another venue’s open day. We totally fell in love with the glass house, beautiful gardens and the outside space, but the real clincher was the staff. Matt, Lauren, Calum and all of the staff were so nice and friendly from the first visit all the way through to the day itself.
We wanted a relaxed wedding that suited the surroundings. It was quite rustic in appearance, but with a hint of Disney style ‘happily ever after’ to it, along with a few little bits of sparkle.
We chose a soft colour palette of mostly creams, golds and pale pinks. The gardens at the venue were so vibrant, that we wanted everything else to be quite neutral.
My dress was a beautiful Maggie Sottero design from Emily Eve, in Birmingham. I knew I didn’t want a typical ‘princess’ dress, and wanted something slightly more fitted, but maybe with a vintage feel. And that’s exactly what I got! It was the third dress of four dresses that I tried on, and after trying on all four, I couldn’t wait to put it back on again. I ordered my full length veil as a last minute addition at my first dress fitting, which was just four weeks before the big day.
Martin chose a lovely grey/blue suit with a gold tie to fit the colour theme. He wanted something stylish but simple, so no tails for him. It was from a local, award-winning suit hire company called L&J Formal Hire, who were absolutely fantastic (thanks Colin!). The groomsmen all wore the same as Martin.
My bridesmaids meanwhile wore gorgeous pale pink, long dresses with crystal embellished shoulders. I took all three bridesmaids shopping a number of times and must have ordered 20 different dresses online, but I struggled to find one that suited all of them in the same style. Eventually I found the prefect dress in River Island about six weeks before the wedding, and it was a bargain!
My sister-in-law Jen Murphy took care of mine and my bridesmaids’ hair on the morning of the wedding and my makeup was done by Lucinka Hodnett, who was amazing. I was so happy with the results, I’d definitely recommend them to others.
Julie Barron and Nikki Paxton of Two Birds, were our photographers. Julie did our pre-wedding shoot and we just clicked straight away. She totally got our style and the relaxed feel we were going for. She made us feel totally at ease, even though we both hate the camera. This made the wedding day so much fun and I’d go as far to say me and Martin nailed it too! We added a second shooter to try and capture as many candid moments as possible. Julie and Nikki were amazing and everyone has commented on how fab our pictures are.
Genna + Martin from Julie Barron on Vimeo.
For my flowers I had a simple bouquet of gypsophila, which was home grown at the venue. The flowers used throughout the wedding were all gypsophila, mostly grown at the venue, and I handmade around 100 little paper butterflies on wire so the florist could place them in the table centre pieces. I wanted it to look like butterflies were nesting in the flowers.
As favours we gave our guests wild flower seed packets,which had our wedding date and names stamped on them.
We had an incredible four-tier wedding cake, which was plain sponge, chocolate and red velvet, covered in icing and decorated with sugar paste flowers (people thought they were real they looked so good!). My sister-in-law’s mum made it and did an amazing job!
We decided on a three-course wedding breakfast which consisted of chicken liver parfait to start, belly pork for main and chocolate brownie for dessert, simply because these are some of our favourite dishes. Later we had Oatcakes with cheese and bacon as an evening snack as Martin is a Stokie and Oatcakes are amazing!
In terms of music, we did our own playlist for the day time and the wedding breakfast and then had a DJ for the evening. Martin has been in bands since he was young and played in a wedding cover band for a while, so he wanted to keep it simple. A friend recommended Ivan Obrey Party DJ and he read the room perfectly. He catered for everyone and got the music in between requests just right to keep people on the dance floor. I loved it – especially at the end of night when people were requesting classics such as Build Me Up Buttercup and Don’t Stop Me Now.
Following our wedding we would definitely recommend Abbeywood Gardens to other brides and grooms, though the venue sells itself. It truly is stunning – all of our guests commented on how beautiful a setting it is. The staff were amazing as well, and on the day they truly could not have done more to make things perfect. Thankfully the gardens are open to the public throughout the week so we get to go back and reminisce as often as we like!
Looking back there were so many special moments throughout our day. The most amazing moment of all though was when Martin sang his wedding speech to me. He’d re-written the lyrics to Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) by Greenday and the whole wedding party was in tears. I also loved walking down the aisle and watching Martin turn around. He said “oh my god” as he saw me and it just set the tone for the most amazing day of our lives.
Straight after the wedding we had a minimoon in Cornwall, just to relax and chill and enjoy each other’s company. Our main honeymoon will be a four-week trip to America where we’ll be driving from San Francisco to San Diego and finishing off in Las Vegas.
My top tip to other Brides Up North is simple – do whatever feels right for you. It’s your day and it’s the best feeling to take a step back and look around on the day and be so proud you pulled it off and have no regrets.
