Real Weddings

Pineapples & butterflies. A pink gown for a quirky wedding at Saltmarshe Hall – Amber & Adam

Alexis Forsyth

We love weddings with a unique twist and today’s real wedding certainly delivers this in spades. Taking place at one of our favourite and Brides Up North show venues – Saltmarshe Hall. Amber and Adam’s big day is brimming with quirky personal touches – the bride’s bouquet even boasted pink pineapples.

Speaking of pink – the bride wore a dreamy dusky pink gown with ballet slippers – the ultimate fairy-tale-inspired ensemble? We certainly think so! Other highlights from the day included an impressive Victorian carousel wedding cake decorated with handmade horses, and breakfast teabags and flower shaped spoons as favours.

With images by Brides Up North Sponsor, Jenny Maden Photography.

Proposal

Amber says

: Adam surprised me in May 2016, with a birthday trip to Disneyworld Florida, my most favourite place in the world. We went in September 2016 and he popped the question there. It was in a private booth just after we met Mickey Mouse and there was a photographer there to capture the moment. I ‘ugly’ cried and didn’t say yes right away but put my hand out for the ring. Mickey congratulated us and also did a mini proposal himself. After the whirlwind dream proposal, we forgot we had a fast-pass for the Toy Story ride, so we had to run not to miss it and celebrated on the ride round shooting intergalactic bad guys.

Adam proposed with a fake ring, due to his fear of losing the real one on a rollercoaster. So, I got to design my own and it was made by two family friends, along with the two wedding bands, so that made it very special to us.

Setting

We tied the knot on 22nd September 2018. It was the only date the venue had available and after viewing many places we knew Saltmarshe Hall was the place we wanted to get married.

Saltmarshe is classic and historical, airy, bright and modern all in one. It has some original period features but keeps it very modern and clean with the colour scheme of white and greys. We knew we wanted to do a lot of the decorating ourselves and Saltmarshe has the neutral palette to do so.

We also loved the grounds, and hoping for some good weather in September, we thought we would get some great photos whilst guests enjoyed drinks and canapés on the lawn.

Theme

One of our shared interests is taxidermy, and over the years we have collected a few pieces for ourselves. When looking for venues we hoped for one which could include taxidermy. As Saltmarshe was so perfect, we just used their lack of taxidermy to add to our own collection. We went hunting all over the UK during our two-year engagement and found: a fox, a crocodile, a baby deer and a peacock. We used them as a base idea for the rest of our decorating; from natural history illustrated thank you cards on the tables and shell place names to including feathers in the bow ties.

After choosing my dress I wanted a colour scheme to complement it. Pink is my favorite colour so a dull dusky pink seemed like the perfect choice and we wanted to keep it classy.

Dress

My dress was from The Bridal Rogue Gallery in York. It was the most perfect dusky pink princess dress with a beaded sparkling bodice. I wore it with a full-length veil with just a few crystals sparkling through and custom-made ballet slippers decorated by my mum.

My mum is a milliner so she made me an off-centre headpiece with costume jewellery and she also included the pearl I found in an oyster on our engagement holiday.

Groomsmen

Adam wore a tailor-made blue wool suit from Carl Stuart Gentleman’s Tailor, in West Yorkshire with a waistcoat complemented by a bright green silk jacket lining and teal silk waistcoat lining, plus a handmade feather bow tie in teal. He also wore grey socks with peacock detailing gifted from me on the wedding morning.

The groomsmen could wear what they wanted but all had a bow tie each made from bird feathers to link them together.

Photography

Jenny Maden was our photographer for the day and we couldn’t recommend her more! Both of us felt very awkward about having our photo taken and didn’t want our wedding photos to look posed and fake. She arrived on the day and came into the bridal suite whilst I was getting ready and took charge of the situation in the nicest possible way. She explained everything to expect, the ideas she had and put my nerves to rest. She did a great job of getting the guests together too. The photos turned out exactly how we wanted, not posed and really bright and fresh. She was a babe!

Videography

We also used Silver Sixpence Film & Photo to video our day, recommended by Jenny. We have only received the trailer so far and it was fantastic to be able to watch our day back. It really is true – when it’s your wedding you don’t remember half of it, so it was magical to be able to re-live it!

Styling

I had my heart set on having pink pineapples in my bouquet for a very long time. I didn’t look into bouquets until a few months before our wedding day as I knew what I wanted. The pineapples, however, were very difficult to source at that time of year. I spoke with Hacketts, a local florist from Penistone, where we are both from, and it came down to the week before the wedding to confirm that she’d found the pineapples for me – I was thrilled!

I wanted the bouquet to look quite messy and the pineapples to be the centrepiece surrounded by pale pink roses and greenery. We designed the centrepieces ourselves to include a pink and white planted orchid in a low bowl covered in moss, with a small taxidermy bird and butterfly placed on each to tie in with the theme. This was put together a few days before by Adam’s mum. She also handmade the hanging garland for the staircase, which filled the hallway with the most amazing fresh scent.

I used Jo Malone mimosa and cardamom to scent our day; mimosa and cardamom perfume for me, and matching candles around the venue. This was important to me, so whenever I smell the scent I’ll be reminded of our amazing day. I also wore the perfume every day on our honeymoon.

The favours were made by my mum, and this consisted of a wedding breakfast teabag tied with pink ribbon to miniature spoons shaped like flowers.

Cake

My mum made this also. It can only really be described through a picture as it was that amazing! It was a pink Victorian carousel decorated with tiny handmade horses and the cake actually moved round. Many people didn’t realise it was a cake until we cut it.

Dining

The food was very important to us, as we are both big foodies! We chose a menu based on our favourite things we like to eat when we go out. The chef at Saltmarshe was great as he encouraged us to design our own menu. Our canapés included California hand rolls, chicken gyozas and sesame prawn lollipops. Then for our starter we had miso cod with wasabi salad. This was followed by sirloin steak with dauphinoise potatoes, pea puree, vine tomatoes and sugar snap peas. To finish, we had hazelnut melt in the middle chocolate fondant with pink sparkling crème Anglaise topped with an icing Chihuahua (modelled on our dog Dexter).

Entertainment

We used a DJ for the evening entertainment and picked a six-house song list of all our favourite old school 70s and 80s songs. We chose three first dance songs, including Beach House – Take Care; Tom O’Dell – Grow Old With Me; and Red Bone – Come Get Your Love.

Thanks to

We would recommend Saltmarshe Hall to other couples. There were great photo opportunities all over the house and grounds, and the food was fantastic, with the chef on hand to make your day super personal. The venue also has a gorgeous bridal suite.

Best bit

Obviously, the actual marriage part was a highlight; seeing Adam for the first time walking down the aisle with my dad and hearing him say his vows and then our first kiss as a married couple. It was magical. We also loved just seeing all our guests enjoy the day and making new friends at the wedding breakfast. We loved having both our families on the top table with us too.

Honeymoon

For our honeymoon, we started off in San Francisco, and went to Alcatraz, The Museum of Ice Cream, Foreign Cinema, Walt Disney Museum, cycled the Golden Gate Bridge and saw some sea lions! We then stopped at Monterey and visited the Aquarium. Other highlights on our honeymoon included Pismo Beach, Santa Barbara, where we ate some fantastic food and went sea kayaking and Malibu, where we went on a wine safari and fed a giraffe, stayed in a ranch and ate some amazing lobster on the beach! We also visited Santa Monica, the Hollywood walk of fame and Universal Studios. Our next stop was Disneyland LA for five days, The Happiest Place on Earth

We went to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and we dressed up as Ariel and Prince Eric! We ended our dream honeymoon in Mexico for one week and enjoyed dinner on the beach, swimming with sting rays, and lots of sunbathing and cocktails.

Advice

It sounds like such a cliché, but my top tip for other Brides Up North would be, try to slow everything down and take in every moment as it flies by like a dream. Also, try not to stress about your planning as it all comes together on the day. We wish we could do it all over again!

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