Real Weddings

Rue De Seine for a Modern Winter Wedding at Iscoyd Park – Helen & Richard

Julia Smith

Today we’re joining lovebirds Helen and Richard for their modern, elegant wedding at Shropshire countryside venue Iscoyd Park.

This celebration has all the warm winter feels, from the beautiful colour scheme to the abundance of sweetie favours, tasteful entertainment and stunning November sunshine skies. We think you’re about to fall hard…

With images by Jess Yarwood Photography

Proposal

Well now this is a very funny story! We were at Richard’s works Christmas party at Brands Hatch, having a really fun time, the theme for the night was fire and ice, the dance floor was packed and the bubbles were flowing. We sat down at a table for food with Richard’s work friends and grabbed ourselves a Christmas cracker, on pulling the cracker low and behold a beautiful pink plastic ring flew out of the cracker Richard and I pulled together, oh it was meant to be! Richard says there are very few moments in life where the stars and everything else are fully aligned and that night of nights was that moment. The next day Richard took me to a jewellers and replaced the pink plastic ring with a stunning antique art deco emerald and diamond ring and there was second proposal on a bridge over the River Severn under a bright rainbow.

Setting

We married at Iscoyd Park, Whitchurch. We chose the venue after attending a wedding fair and fell in love, the house is just stunning, we adored the relaxed atmosphere yet the stunning beauty of the family home and gardens.

The date for our wedding was originally March 5th 2020 but we had to postpone due to Covid. The second date 7th November 2021 was chosen as Covid restrictions has started to lift and by then we quite fancied a winter wedding!

Theme

We love stately homes, British country tradition, elegance and charm but we wanted a cool modern relaxed fun vibe with lots of rich warm colours.

We knew Richard wanted to wear a tweed and herringbone three-piece suit. I knew I wanted heavy lace and wild flowers so this was our starting point. We also wanted to use local smaller independent suppliers, this was really important to us.

Dress

Due to the Covid delays I didn’t have much time to find a dress as shops had been shut for so long! I only went to two, it was the second where I fell in love. My dress was by a designer called Rue de Seine and the gown was called the Cassian, I bought it from The Wedding Club which was at Selfridges Birmingham. I took my best friend and fell in love with a dress that was totally not what I thought I’d buy. I chose it because the second I put it on it fitted like a glove and I knew instantly that this was the one. It was backless and heavy lace with a beautiful train.

Groom

Richard decided on a tweed and herringbone suit in brown with subtle orange stripe detail creating the perfect country gent look. He teamed it with an orange knit tie and Church’s tan leather oxford shoes.

The suit was picked from London company Abitto who specialise in high quality tweed suits.

The groomsmen complemented the look created by the groom with a mix of blue, grey and brown tweed and herringbone suits all with matching orange knit ties.

Bridesmaids

The bridesmaids wore olive maxi dresses with button back detail from ASOS. The effect was most definitely classy with a hint of sassy! We all wore fur shrugs for the outdoor pictures however the sun shone brightly all day with barely a cloud in the sky.

Transport

The bridal party stayed the night before the big day in the grounds of Iscoyd Park at a beautiful cottage so there was no distance to travel on the day except a short walk to the main house!

Photographer

Jess Yarwood covered our wedding day.

From the initial introduction to Jess’s work ethic and style we knew we had to have Jess as our photographer. Jess’s style is relaxed but very intuitive to the vibe and feel of how we wanted the day captured.

A knowing and confident photographer who is in synch with our vision is what we found and enjoyed with Jess.

Videographer

We hired the services of a young duo called Special Day On Film.

This was a friend of the family’s son and his partner who have been making videos/adverts for some time and wanted to branch out into wedding video graphing.

It feels good to know that you are giving young fledgling businesses a chance to gain a reputation in this field of work and we could not be happier with the outcome. Just perfect in every way! They were also amazing on the day, highly professional but also relaxed and fun!

Styling

Our flowers were provided by Rustic Bloom in North Shropshire. Nikki the owner was so infectious, we loved her the instant we met! We shared a passion for our autumnal colours and that scooped up, gathered natural look.

We chose a colour scheme of orange, green, reds, pinks, burgundy and cherry. We also had feathers in the bouquets and table decorations which looked absolutely stunning.

Favours

We kept this simple, sweets, sweets and more sweets!

Cake

We has a 3 tier cake designed and created by a small independent business called Little Rosie’s Cakery. The cake was gorgeous and was decorated with the same flowers as the bridal bouquet!

Entertainment

The day and evening entertainment was a big part of our wedding planning. We endeavoured to make the day timeless with a warm atmosphere.

For the ceremony before, during and immediately after we had Toscana Strings. We then put together a wedding breakfast song list on Spotify which included our favourite songs, from Kate Bush to London Grammar and Ella Fitzgerald to the Beatles. Our daughter Olivia who is currently studying Contemporary Music at uni opened the night with a few of her own songs and for the rest of the evening a saxophonist and DJ duo through Jonny Ross Music entertained us.

Special Touches

Weddings can hit a flat spot between the wedding breakfast and the evening entertainment so we made the inspired decision to hire a magician to entertain our guests before, during and after the wedding breakfast and into the early evening. Jack Dent provided so much fun, laughter and amazement for our guests.

Thanks to

We loved everything about Iscoyd and our wedding coordinator Kate who was quite new to the job was amazing. The team on the day were faultless!

A special mention must go to Jess our photographer for just being totally amazing on the run up the wedding and especially on the day, it was like having a friend do everything they could to ensure our day was captured perfectly. There is something about Jess that makes her so approachable, relaxed and comforting, we had 100% confidence in her from the moment we met.

Everyone was also massively impressed with Jack Dent, he was so entertaining! He even made a Harry Styles trick on the spot for our daughter!

Best Bit

The moments after the ceremony, on our own in the drawing room was pretty special, I also loved the evening party, seeing friends and family smiling laughing and dancing after such a difficult two years (Covid and heartbreakingly losing my beautiful Dad suddenly) was very moving for me.

Honeymoon

We went to Scotland to explore part of the north coast. We stayed in hotels, cottages, B&B’s with our lovely black Labrador Iris. We ate beautiful food, sampled the local whiskey, went for long walks on the beach and often spent the evening in front of a log fire talking about our wedding and the gorgeous time we were having.

Advice

Easier said than done but savour every moment as it does go so quickly. Make sure you have the BEST photographer and videographer so you can relive the day over and over for years to come.

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