Everything about today’s real wedding is utter perfection, which goes to show that you don’t need an overarching theme or colour palette to pull everything together for your big day.
Going for something more rustic and laidback, Mel and Jake let their tipi venue at Wildwood and Eden guide their styling with gorgeous wildflowers playing a starring role. Let’s just say having a friend for a florist came in very handy for the couple!
Other highlights include an Italian spread complete with pizza van, a naked cake with scrummy jam fillings and a band with a punk twist! Intrigued? Here’s bride Mel to tell us all the fabulous details.
With images by Photography34
Proposal
Mel says
: We got engaged on Christmas Day 2017, Jake had been on a night shift on Christmas Eve and he had got up early (after barely any sleep) and suggested we take our daughter and the dog for a walk in the woodland area near where we lived, I could tell he was nervous but didn’t know why and I thought it was unusual for him to get up so early after work! He got down on one knee and started welling up and asked me to marry him. I think everyone knew about it apart from me as they were waiting to congratulate us when we got back from our walk.Setting
Our wedding date was 27th July 2019, we chose this as the venue had it available and it was out of term time – two of our bridesmaids are teachers so it meant they could be on hand sooner as the schools had finished for summer.
We got married at St Laurence’s Church in Scalby, my parents were married there in 1987 so we had a connection to it, which made it feel extra special. It’s a lovely church that has gorgeous grounds.
The reception was held at Wildwood and Eden. It was really the dream venue right on our doorstep, surrounded by lovely countryside, near to the coast.
We didn’t have a theme for the wedding, we liked the more rustic, laid back style when putting ideas together and just tried to make it as stress free as possible!
We didn’t have a colour scheme. The bridesmaids’ dresses were grey with a pop of colour within the floral detailing, complemented by apricot shoes. The flowers we picked were a mixture of wildflowers that my florist friend Danielle and I liked.
Dress
I chose a two-piece by Maggie Sottero with an additional overskirt from local boutique in Scarborough, The Wedding Room. I’d been looking at the Maggie ones online then found a boutique right on my doorstep that supplied them! When trying on dresses (I tried on a lot and thought I was a lost cause) I felt like ‘me’ in the two-piece.
Groomsmen
My husband and his two brothers wore suits from ASOS by Penguin.
Bridesmaids
My bridesmaids wore dresses and shoes from ASOS. The dresses were mid length, grey and with floral detailing on the cape and the matching shoes were apricot block heels. My daughter, who was 22 months old at the time, had two dresses from Monsoon – a white one with detailing that matched my veil and also a teal green one for later in the day!
Beauty
Hairstyling was done by my hairdresser Lou at Do or Dye in Scarborough, she was fantastic on the day, and myself and the bridesmaids all loved our hair.
Make up was by Lauren Jean from Poppy’s Salon in Scarborough. Lauren is an old family friend and I felt confident with her doing it for us, and keeping it looking and feeling natural. Between Lauren and Lou, the bridesmaids and I really did feel our best in the day.
Transport
We travelled in a vintage style car from Ryedale Limousines. Howard was especially lovely on the day and we even had some Champagne ready for us after the ceremony. We had a little detour between venues to visit my Aunt and Uncle who were unable to make the wedding due to illness.
Photographer
We booked Tony from Photography34. I’d followed Tony’s work for a while as he had photographed some weddings I’d been to a few years ago and I loved his work. He managed to capture our day perfectly for us and everyone keeps commenting on how wonderful the pictures are.
Styling
My bridesmaids and I had a mixed wildflower bouquet, although mine was slightly bigger.
I am lucky to have a close friend who is a florist – Danielle Taylor who did the flowers on the day. She has such a talent for it, everyone was commenting on how beautiful they looked.
We had mixed wildflowers on the tables and to create the table plan. We also had a floral arrangement above the top table. We used a mixture of jars and coloured vases on the tables, of all different shapes and sizes. To create the table plan we used a mixture of bottles filled with floral stems and brown tags with the seating plan on them. Danielle did the arrangements for the tables and also helped with decorating the jars.
Favours
For our favours, we gave out little grey bags with a mini bath bomb, mini soap and personalised love heart sweets that had Mr and Mrs Sands on!
Cake
We chose a naked cake, with an assortment of jam fillings. Jayne from newly opened Dahlia Bakery made it for us and it was delicious.
Dining
We chose rustic Italian food that came out on a sharing platter and the wine was Italian to match! On the evening we had the pizza van open and apparently it was the biggest queue for the pizzas the venue had ever seen! Our lot do love their food!
Entertainment
We had local band Snatch – they always get the crowd going as we’d followed them for years, and they play a massive range of music so there would be something to appeal to everyone…with a punk twist!
Special touches
We had a little memory table near the bar, full of pictures of loved ones that are no longer with us with the lyric ‘dream a little dream of me’.
We also had a sign made by the extremely talented Chalking Heads Signwriter, this now has pride of place in our living room.
Thanks to
The venue was fantastic – they even ask you what you’d like the bar stocked up with! They made the planning process easy and put us at ease. People were really impressed with the tipis and they would look fantastic even without any additional decor!
Best bit
It’s very hard to pick a best bit. On the ride between the Church and the venue we were definitely on a high, but that high carried on throughout the day right up until after the band finished! It was all great (we really can’t pick our favourites). What could be any better than spending the day with everyone you love?
Honeymoon
We had a mini moon in the Lake District a couple of days after the wedding with our daughter. It was fabulous. We stayed at the Mortal Man Inn which was in gorgeous surroundings and spent time in Bo’ness, Grasmere and other gorgeous places. Short but very sweet.
Advice
My top tip for other Brides Up North would be: don’t stress, it all comes together!
I followed Brides Up North on Instagram and always found other real weddings helpful as a source of inspiration.
